BIOS Modding FAQ, How to edit anything in your BIOS. Options

[clogicgmather]

Bios modding FAQ
Thought this might be useful considering how many questions get asked about it. I have listed these i reccomended order of use.

XBTOOL COLOUR PRESET MAKER
This tool complements xbtool and can be used to create .dxt files which can be used in xbtool. XBTOOl CPM changes the colours of the xbox logo and text on the main splash screen.
XBOX COLOUR PRESET MAKER
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Select The colours using the sliders and once your happy with the way it looks select save, you will then be presented with a download dialog box, save this file into the xbtool presets folder
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If your using the new super cool iND-Bios then see the note at the bottom as the rest of these tools are irrelevant.
XBTOOL
Changing boot order, fan speed, logo colour, front LED colour,removing animation, Resizing bios

One word, XBTOOL this program is nothing short of amazing, ive used it countless times without a single problem THIS TOOL DOES NOT WORK WITH 4983 bioses, use 4981 instead. Just to stress again this means there IS NO EQUIVELENT TOOL FOR THE X2 4983 BIOS!!!
XBTOOL
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Run xbtool and select open, select the desired bios you wish to edit and make the relevant changes. To implement the xbt preset file saved from the aforemention Xbtool Colour Preset Maker select the drop menu menu under presets. There you should see your saved file, select this and click Save As to save the outputted file.

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LOGO-x2
Changing the MS/Xecuter Logo

If you want to change this then use an X2 bios and not M7, X2 stores this logo in the bios so using a tool like logox2 will allow you to change this. You can use bmp or raw images, the programs a real no brainer select an image,select a bios, patch. There is a tool called logo-x which is older and patches the same logo but contained in the XBE of the dash your using. The Xecuter team found a way of incoporating this into their bios and this is why this only works with X2 bioses
LOGO-X2
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Real easy, just select the bios file and the logo image you wish to use (See notes in the readme nfo for thisk) and path your bios. The ouputted bios is called output.bin and is located in the root of the LOGO-x2 directory.

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KernelBasher 1.0

Changing Scene Colour\Camera animation\XBOX Text

There are various tutorials around on how to do this although kernelbasher will allow for basic manipulation, the current version allows for the flubbercolour, scene colour,fog colour, various other aspects and some camera movement options. It also allows you to make the background of the X logo white.
KernelBasher & FTT
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Select open and choose your desired bios file (assuming your going through all these programs you should be using the output.bin file from logo-x2. Once selected choose your options and select patch, the outputted file is called flubbered.bin and will be located in the same directory as the originally selected bios file. READ PDF file with KernelfBasher for details on creating new Xbox text

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However if you are using the new iND-Bios then the information above is pretty much irrelevant with the exception of XBTOOL COLOUR PRESET MAKER. The only bios tool you need for iND-Bios is kindly provided with the bios itself, these guys have taken the time to put together a nice little config tool to ensure minimal mistaskes for noob users. The tool can import the xbt files produced by xbtool colour preset maker.

Oh and just to answer an age old question, Which bios to use? If you wish to use all these tools then use a X2 4981/4982 bios as these are the most recent bioses that are supported by all 4 tools. If your a 1.6 user then at the moment Logo-x2 is out as currently theres only the EvoM8 bios.

If all else fails...
I felt this needed to be said, and i dont mean to sound patronising and am not implying i know everything but.... these tools ARE simple to use and assuming you have a sound knowledge of your computer & how to flash your modchip/tsop then you should be fine. If your unsure of how to ftp,pack/unpack bioses or anything else then read, this cannot be stressed enough. I have learnt ALOT from these forums and value the information contained within. Use search and read up. Ive found ppl are a lot more prepared to help someone who helps themselves.

This post has been edited by clogicgmather: Sep 5 2004, 09:29 AM

[sliverstorm]

yeah, if your eeprom dump is good and you don't get soldering issues that will work fine