Tutorial written by : Polaris75
Last edited: November 17, 2003

ONLY DO THIS IF YOU HAVE READ THE ENTIRE TUTORIAL AND KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING. YOU CAN CAUSE SERIOUS DAMAGE TO YOUR XBOX AND YOUR PC WITH SOME OF THE TOOLS USED HERE. IF YOU ARE AT ALL UNSURE ABOUT ANY OF THE STEPS IN THIS TUTORIAL, HAVE A FRIEND DO THIS FOR YOU, OR PURCHASE A MODCHIP.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE YOU DO TO ANY OF YOUR GEAR TRYING THIS.

What you'll need:
* ConfigMagic (usual places)
* LiveInfo (http://www.team-assembly.com)
* Mech Assault or 007 exploit (usual places)
* Original copy of Mech Assault or 007: Agent Under Fire
* PTSDE (http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3/tool/FreeTools.html#PTSDE)
-OR-
A *nix installation (Can NOT be in VMWare, VMWare does not allow direct disk access)

 

Getting Ready

1) Download the Mech Assault or 007 exploit and follow the instructions to get it setup and ready. Extract ConfigMagic to the same Directory 'Skins' and 'BIOS' are in. Add ConfigMagic to your EvoX.ini file so you can load it after running the exploit (read EvoX tutorials on xbox-scene if required.) If you do not have a DHCP server on your LAN, set a static IP address for the Xbox while you are editing the EvoX.ini file.

2) Get a blank floppy and make it a bootdisk (format and "Make MS-DOS bootable" or use any of the many bootdisk images available online.) Download "HDD Unlock/Lock/Disable" and "ATAPWD" from xbox-scene (Tools, Harddrive Tools) and extract them to the bootable floppy. While you're there, if you do not have "HDD Drivers" download it now.

3a) Use the HD swap trick (instructions on xbox-scene) to put the save on your hard drive.

-OR-

3b) Put the save on a USB memory card, or FTP it to a normal memory card through a modded Xbox, then copy it to the hard drive in your MS dashboard.

 

Let's do it!

4) Run your selected exploit (read the exploit's instructions) to load EvoX, and then run ConfigMagic. Once you're in ConfigMagic, select "Save EEPROM" or "Backup EEPROM" or whatever the option is to dump your EEPROM to disk.

DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING OR PLAY AROUND WITH ANYTHING WHILE YOU ARE IN CONFIGMAGIC!!! IF YOU CHANGE ANYTHING YOU CAN KILL YOUR BOX!!!

5) Restart the Xbox and run the exploit again. FTP to your Xbox and grab all the files ConfigMagic dumped (usually in /E/)

6) Print EEPROMBackup.TXT

7) Shutdown your computer, insert the bootdisk you created in step 2. Connect your Xbox hard drive to the PC and power up. Make sure your BIOS detects it.

8) Run atapwd.exe, find your Xbox hard drive and look at the flags on the far right. These are the flags for a locked hard drive. Remember them so you can later verify that the drive is in fact unlocked.

9) Run hdunlock.exe, then hddisable.exe and unlock your Xbox hard drive with the "XBOX HDD PASSWORD" from the copy of EEPROMBackup.TXT you printed in step 6. Run atapwd.exe to make sure the drive is unlocked.

10) Reboot into Windows

11) Run "HDD Driver". It should tell you it's found an Xbox hard drive. MAKE SURE it is detecting the correct drive:

(THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! I have had it think my Pri/Mas 80GB Windows drive was an Xbox drive before. Had I not verified it was detecting the correct device and just went to 'restore HD' or something like that I could have very seriously screwed up my PC)
PhysicalDrive0 = Primary Master
PhysicalDrive1 = Primary Slave
PhysicalDrive2 = Secondary Master
PhysicalDrive3 = Secondary Slave

You can ignore any 'invalid file size' errors you get (don't even click ok) and just click on 'Tools' then 'Backup Harddrive'. This will take a while and you will need ~8-12 GB of hard drive space, depending on how large your original drive is.

12) You can make the PTSDE bootdisk now if you're doing it that way. Just extract it somewhere and run makeboot.bat with a blank, formatted floppy in the drive.

12) Shutdown your computer and disconnect the original Xbox hard drive. Ensure at this time that your new hard drive is connected.

13a) (PTSDE version) Put in your PTSDE boot floppy and start your computer. PTSDE will start on its own. From the drive selection screen, choose your new Xbox hard drive. Edit offset 0x600 (very start of sector 3, it's not too far down, you can just use the down arrow and you'll be there in about 3-5 seconds). Enter 42 52 46 52 (ASCII view on the right should read "BRFR") and write/save the sector to disk.

Restart your computer and boot into Windows. Run "HDD Driver". It should now detect your new hard drive as an Xbox drive (verify with the table in step 11). Click ok and ignore any errors you get (you shouldn't see any, especially if this is a new hard drive). Click on 'Tools', then 'Restore Harddrive'. Load the backup you made in step 11 and tell it to restore the entire drive. Once that is complete close "HDD Driver".

13b) (*nix version) Boot into *nix and mount the partition you saved your Xbox backup to in step 11

Ex. cd /mnt ; mkdir harddrive ; mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/harddrive

Locate the backup

Ex. cd harddrive ; cd xbox_backup ; ls

Figure out what device is your new Xbox hard drive

Ex. dmesg | grep hd

Some of the output should look something like:

hda: Western Digital WD80342A
hdb: Pioneer DVD-R/RW
hdc: Seagate ST310211A
hdd: IBM DTLA-307030

Write your backup to the disk

Ex. dd if=/mnt/harddrive/xbox_backup/drivebackup.bin of=/dev/hdc (if you're writing it to the Seagate ST310211A in this example)

This will take a LONG TIME.

(If you are confused about any of these steps either read the man pages or just use the PTSDE method.)

14) Shutdown your computer and re-connect your original Xbox hard drive. You should have both drives connected for this step.

15) Boot into Windows and run LiveInfo. You can now either load your EEPROM .bin file you transferred in step 5, or just type in all the EEPROM details from the EEPROMBackup.TXT you printed in step 6.

16) Select your original Xbox hard drive in the drop-down box in the lower section. Compare the calculated Password it produces with the one on your hard copy of EEPROMBackup.TXT. They should match, if they do not, you've made a typo in the EEPROM section. If you loaded an EEPROM .bin file rather than typed everything in by hand, make sure you have the correct hard drive selected, and verify all the EEPROM details with the hard copy you printed in step 6 (you may have loaded the wrong file.)

17) If the passwords match, all your EEPROM information is correct. Now select your new Xbox hard drive. Liveinfo will produce a new Calculated Password based on your EEPROM contents and the drive’s serial number, or something like that. Copy this password and print it out (or write it down, but double check it and make sure you’ve got it right if you’re writing it out).

18) Insert the bootdisk you created in step 2 with the HD tools and reboot your computer. Run hdlock.exe and select your new Xbox hard drive. Type in the new Calculated Password Liveinfo made for your new hard drive. BEFORE YOU HIT ENTER, TRIPLE CHECK THAT YOU HAVE TYPED IN THE PASSWORD CORRECTLY. A TYPO HERE CAN RENDER THE DRIVE USELESS AND YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO UNLOCK IT.

19) Connect the new drive to your Xbox and power it on. It will boot just like it did before, with all your savegames, and all your data.

20) Now you'll want to install the font exploit or audio exploit so you can load a BFM BIOS and EvoX so you can use all your new space. Keep your copy of Mech Assault or 007 handy, and go find any of the numerous tutorials on how install the dashboard exploits. You can generally skip the first few step of those tutorials because they just tell you how to use the swap trick or one of the game exploits to gain access to the Xbox hard drive to install the dash exploit, but you've already got your selected exploit on the hard drive, so just pop in your original game, load the exploit and you'll be in EvoX. You can then FTP the font/audio exploit to the box.

Tutorial written by : Polaris75