No MODChip HDD Replacement Tutorial
By: BaD_HeX

Get the following programs from the usual places:
atapwd
Hdlock
Hdunlock
Hddisabl
007 gamesave exploit (or mech assault)
liveinfo
hdprepar
HDD_Driver
Windows 95/98/ME bootdisk maker

Step 1: Making our “tools” disk
Use a Windows 95/98/ME bootdisk maker to format a blank floppy disk. This will be our dos bootdisk used for unlocking our xbox harddrive.

After that has completed copy the following files to the new bootdisk: atapwd.exe, hdlock.exe, hdunlock.exe, hddisabl.exe.

Take the disk out and label it xbox tools disk and set it aside.

Step 2: Getting our xbox drive key
Using another tutorial, load evox up using the 007 gamesave exploit on your xbox.
It is important to not use any bios loaders, font hacks, sound hacks, or anything like this as we need a pure key generated for your xbox harddrive.

Once you are in evox run the backup option in the settings menu. This will create a backup folder in your evox base directory (not your c drive). To find it, if you used the 007 hack, simply FTP into your xbox and go to the following folder: /E/UDATA/4541000d/000000000000/

There you should see the backup folder created by evox. Copy that folder somewhere to your computer where you can access it easily.

Once copied open up the folder and there should be the following files inside it: bios.bin, disk.bin, eeprom.bin, hddinfo.txt, hddkey.bin

Open up the file hddinfo.txt. In this file is three lines and by now you should notice it contains one called hdd key. This is the Key that will be used to unlock your xbox harddrive. Either print this file or write down the group of numbers. The key will be used without the :’s or trailing 00s when entering it in the unlock programs. (ie. 157560ab… not 15:75:60:ab)

Step 3: Unlocking the xbox harddrive
Shutdown your PC and remove all drives except for a drive that contains your OS and is bootable. This drive should be set as secondary master (use jumper).

Open up you xbox and remove the xbox hardrive. If you are not sure how to open your xbox and remove the harddrive, look for another tutorial on how to do it. Set up this drive on your computer as primary master (use jumper).

Insert your xbox tools disk and turn on your PC. You can skip any harddrive detection that your bios does, as it will not correctly detect the xbox drive. Once you are at a DOS prompt run the following tool from your bootdisk: atapwd.exe

The program should detect your two drives and you should notice that the xbox drive is flashing (if not refresh the list using the shortcut displayed). Also check out the SELFXV and notice that the xbox drive has a few more + signs then the normal PC drive. In the next steps we will unlock the drive (the L column) and then disable drive locking (the E column) on the drive which in turn will make those two columns display “–“ signs. Press ESC to exit the program.

Next run the following program from the xbox tools disk: hdunlock.exe
Here is will display a list of drives where you can choose which one you wish to unlock. Usually the xbox drive will be choice 1, but verify that that is correct. If so press one to select the xbox drive.

Now you will be asked to enter the key the program will use to unlock the drive. Enter in the key that we printed in step 2. Remember you should not enter in “:”’s or any trailing 00’s in the key. An example key will look will end up looking like: 112233445566778899aabbccddeeff

When you press enter it should pause for a moment and then say “done”. To verify that the unlock key worked correctly run the file: atapwd.exe. You should see under the L column of the drive there is now a “-“ sign meaning the drive is unlocked. If for some reason it still has a “+” under it you did not successfully unlock the drive and you should start over from step 2. For those of us who did it correct the first time, we now need to disable the locking on the drive so when we restart it doesn’t relock.

Run the following program from the xbox tools disk: hddisabl.exe
This should bring up a similar selection menu where you can pick the xbox drive. Just choose choice 1 (or the one that you believe is your xbox drive). Then you will have to enter the xbox drive key again. When finished it should say “done” again. Verify that you disabled locking by running: atapwd.exe. Under the “E” column you should now see a “-“ sign meaning you disabled locking of the drive.

Step 4: Backup the xbox harddrive
Now that we have completely unlocked our drive we can reboot the computer without the bootdisk to get into windows. It may take a bit longer to start the OS as you have moved your drives around in the process of this tutorial. Be patient! Once in windows we will need to run HDD_Driver.

When you run HDD_Driver you should get a message box that says it detected an xbox harddrive (your primary master drive). Then when you hit OK it will give you an invalid filesize error. Don’t press ok, but instead go to menu system of the program and select backup the hdd. Don’t do this unless you get the invalid filesize error or you know for sure it detected your drive. Select a safe place to backup your drive, but remember you need aprox 8gb of space to hold the xbox drive image.

Go get something to eat, pee, whatever as it will take some time to backup the drive.

When finished you will need to shutdown your PC and remove the xbox drive. You can now set it aside for use as a paperweight or clock.

Step 5: Prepare the new hardrive
Connect the new drive as primary master (use jumper) and start up your machine. Once in windows you may need to refresh the system under device manager to detect the new drive.

I’ve noticed in all other tutorials that you need a lockable drive; however, I have yet to encounter a harddrive that was not lockable. You should be safe with a newer drive.

First load up the liveinfo program and click load eeprom. Then select the file eeprom.bin from the backup folder you got from evox. The program will display some information regarding your xbox system.

Go to the second section of the program where it has a list of harddrives. Select you xbox replacement drive (make sure you know it is the replacement drive) and the program will generate a key that we will use to lock the drive with. Print this key or write it down EXACTLY on a piece of paper as we will need this while we are in dos.

Now we need to prepare the drive to look like an xbox drive. Use the program hdprepar to zero the first 4096 sectors. BE VERY CAREFUL to select the correct replacement drive to zero as you could destroy your OS partitions if you select the wrong drive. Once finished close the program as we’re done with that.

Step 6: Hex the Replacement Drive
Load up your favorite hex editor that can hex edit the clusters of a drive. I use hex workshop, but you are free to use anything else. What we need to do is hex edit the xbox replacement drive so that HDD_driver thinks it’s an xbox harddrive. Browse to the offset of 0x600 on the drive.

Here is how to do it using Hex workshop:
Go to the disk menu and select open drive. Select the drive you believe is the replacement drive. You will know it is the correct one by a screen full of 0000’s or mostly 0000’s. Now hex worksop lays everything out in sectors… there are 200 offsets in a sector so you need to hit the -> button on the toolbar 3 times to get to the correct offset. At the beginning of this page you must type in the ASCII values BRFR. So to do this you simply go to the right of the line and at the beginning of the page type the letters. On the left side you should see the Hex values 4252 4652 in red. That’s it, save the changes and exit the program.

Step 7: Restore the backup of your original xbox drive
We now have a drive that HDD_driver will think is an xbox harddrive. Start up HDD_driver and you should get the successfully detected message followed by an invalid filesize error. Don’t click ok when you get the invalid filesize error, but instead go to the menu and select the restore xbox hdd option. Select the image file we created in step 4 as the restore file. You will then be given the option to restore specific parts of the image file. For a complete restoration of the xbox harddrive select the last option in the right column to restore the whole drive. Wait awhile while the program does all the copying and when it is done you have an exact replica of the xbox harddrive. From here we need to lock the drive like the original one was.

Step 8: Lock the replacement drive
Place your boot disk back in the drive and restart your computer so it boots from the floppy.

Once in dos run the following program from the disk: atapwd.exe
You should see the replacement drive and your OS drive here. We can also see from the SELFXV that the replacement drive does not have locking enabled and is currently not locked. We need to change that so the xbox believes it has a legit drive installed. Press ESC to exit atapwd and go to the dos prompt.

Run the following program from the xbox tools disk: hdlock.exe
Now you should see a screen that looks much like the unlock tool. This time select the drive that you believe is the replacement drive. Most likely it will be choice 1 if your drives are configured the way they should be.

You will now have to enter in the key that was generated from liveinfo in step 5. Make sure you enter the key EXACT. Go over what you typed in 2 to 3 times to make sure that this is the correct key. After you hit enter you should see the “done” message. A file will be created on your xbox tools disk containing the key information if you should ever want to change the drive again. To be safe you can lock the drive again using the same key from step 5 again. To verify that the drive will lock run atapwd and there should be a “+” sign under the E column. There will be no + under the L column, but that is normal as it will lock itself the next time it is powered up.

Step 9: Final Setup
Now that our drive is setup set the jumper on the replacement drive to cable select and place hook it up to the xbox like the original harddrive was. Upon starting up the system you should get the MSdashboard , evox, or whatever else that loaded like the original. Congradulations!

There is 1 more thing that some of you may need to do though. My xbox required me to format my partition6 drive F to unlock the extra space on the 120gb drive I installed. You can do this rather easy through the evox’s FTP server. Connect with FlashFXP or another good FTP program and send the following raw commands:

Formatpath \Device\Harddisk0\Partition6
FormatDrive (number)
Make sure you type it in exactly as the wrong "\"'s can cause the wrong drive to be killed.

Replace (number) with the number you get from Fromatpath. This should then format the drive and give you your remaining disk space.

Step 10
Done and Done!

This post has been edited by BaD_HeX: Sep 6 2003, 05:11 AM

ooo, reference to my tut, im so humbled

Hi, I just read over your HD tutorial and it seems pretty cool. Worded very nice. Very easy to understand. (Even for a newb like me! =)

Anyway I just had one question.
In the very beging you said:
"It is important to not use any bios loaders, font hacks, sound hacks, or anything like this as we need a pure key generated for your xbox harddrive."

But I have already installed the phoenix bios loader using this tut here: http://freexevoxtut.freeservers.com/index2.htm

At the very end of the tut it says:
(or if you want you can instlal the bios loader into the c drive so it uses the bios loader as the default and not evox)
And I did....So when I boot up evox it uses the phoenix bios loader all by it's self.

Will it not work with a loader like this? (I'm gussing no sorry for the stupid question)

If not then what do I need to do to fix this? I am pretty sure I backed up my C: before I installed the phoenix bios loader. Can I just copy my whole C: over whats on the box and have it go back?

P.S.
Thank you for this great tutorial and any help you can offer.

This sounds like a great tutorial. It's something I'd definitely like to try out in the future. BTW, did you send it to the main site? Hopefully it'll get added there so I don't have to look for it through dozens of forum pages when I'm ready for the swap. Thanks.

SpikeMage:
It's ok that you installed the loader already. The important part is you use the evox 007 gamesave exploit to generate the backup folder. The prob I was pointing out is that if you use the font hack (which modifies signing) or a bios loader (which uses a bios other then the installed) you will end up with a corrupt hdd key. Make sure you just use the default gamesave evox to backup the box. By simply having both of those on the drive will not cause any trouble if you boot off the 007 game CD and use the gamesave hack to get to a dashboard screen.

yodanut:
Yep, I sent it in to the main page to get it listed. It is already listed in the main sticky post in this forum section.

This post has been edited by BaD_HeX: Sep 6 2003, 04:16 AM

works perfect, thanks Bad_Hex!

does this mean i can unlock the xbox-hd on a pc w/o hotswapping?

btw, i found a program called UnLockX... will this also be of help?

here's the feature of the program:
1) Now will Lock your hard drive or unlock and disable passwords all in one program !!
2) Will backup your password to a file and will not over-write it
3) Password backup file is time stamped.
4) No need to use atapwd.exe to view drive status.You can see at a glance if your drive is locked or unlocked.
5) Now you only have to enter your password one time.

This post has been edited by edmoncu: Sep 6 2003, 06:01 AM

This doesn't require a hotswap at all. I'm not sure how unlockx works, however you are free to try that out instead. It should work fine if it does everything it says it does.

i was wondering, if this program can disable hdd pass-lock and can backup hdd-pass to a file, does it mean to say, it can just make any locked xbox-hd work as an ordinary pc-hd w/o worries of hotswapping, or at least knowing the xbox-hd-pass (via running Config Magic on an xbox)?

Just a stupid question. I followed the Tut thru every step and it worked great. The only place I am a little stuck is on Step 9. I want to format my Partion6 F. I notice that you say to use FlashXP to send the command: Formatpath Device/Harddisk0/Partion6

That produces a 8 digit # that you then put into the FormatDrive (number). My only question is where should you be on your drive when you enter that Raw command? If you enter when you are in the root of the Xbox then you get an 8-digit # but if you switch to the F: drive 1st and then enter the Formatpath Device/Harddisk0/Partion6 command then it gives you an entirely different 8 digit code. Sorry to come off noobish but I spent a little time setting up and doing this Hdd switch and I do not want to screw it up. A little guidance in this one area would be super appreciated.

Hats off Bad Hex for a great Tut

Ok, so a response would be super cool from you great folks with all your worldly knowledge. Everything is working perfectly on the xbox except for the fact that when I look in the system info under Drive F: it does not report the size for my 80gig hdd. I tried sending that format command that is explained in the Tut and it instantly just popped up and said format complete..I would think that it would take a few secs to a min to do this properly and besides that it did not change the size in the system info. I am positive that this is due to a user error with me being the idiot noob user. I would just like to finish this last step so if one of you kind ppl would email me or post the response then I will try to return the favor someday...

Thx again,
Pestilence

Um...did you check to see if you have the "use f drive" option turned on?

That's all I can offer....I to am an idiot newb

Yeah that was the first place I looked. The option is on Yes. I am stumped and am sure it is something simple but I have been at this for hrs and need someones help Now pls and thx

Actually I figured it out, I just added the format command to my evox.ini file and sure enough I got my 72+ gig on my F now...Happy Days!!!

Thx for any and all effort and super thx to Bad Hex for fixiing this shit up

Off to play with my fun new xbox

Few things.. make sure you guys use the \ slash and not /. Also the exact format path you should be typing in has been updated in the tutorial. Just copy and paste the commands into your telnet's raw command box.