Marriage Theory - How To Not Get Banned., EEPROMs & HDs are being banned via XBL Options

[Gumba]

I think that's a good idea

[LinoX]

Finally I GOT IT!!

..and I can confirm the pseudo-marriage theory!

Actually MS SERVERS DON'T STORE your HD serial!

When you register with live YOU SIMPLY GET TWO "COOKIES" stored in an hidden place of your HD!!!
If you replace your HDD after registering with live your cookie is lost...and you'll be banned!
If you change your eeprom without changing the HDD the cookie mismatch and you will be banned..

This respects the marriage theory!

Why am I so sure?

I followed some steps...On my moddex XBOX..

0) I did the backup of eeprom.bin/hddkey.bin/disk.bin with slayers' evox installer 2.6
1) backed up my C: and E: drives with FTP
2) I deleted EVERYTHING on both C and E (I had no F or G)
3) I restored the DEFAULT files on C/E with a copy I did the first time I installed my xbit
4) At this point I have a modded xbox with the "pseudo"retail HD
5) I disabled xbit & reboot
6) msdash opened
7) inserted halo2 original disc
8) msdash updated to an msdash with live support
9) registered with live
10) played in LIVE for more than 1 week
11) disconnected the network cable
12) reactivated xbit
13) rebooted with slayers' evox installer
14) did a backup and.... WOW!!! in disk.bin I SAW SOME NEW VERY INTERESTING THINGS!

If you open disk.bin you can see something similar to 2 cookies:
the first contains the xbox serial number (look for "SN", or "xbox.com")
the second contains your gamertag (look for it)
and then was the light!

15) Unlocked the HDD
16) Installed it in my PC
17) Did a SECTOR-BY-SECTOR COPY to a 120GB HD
18) installed the 120GB HD in the xbox
19) LOCKED DRIVE
20) Already on live
21) STILL PLAYING! NO BANS!

with the sector-copying..I SIMPLY COPIED THE COOKIES! to the newer HD.

Probably i would get the same result replacing the disk.bin in the slayer's CD with mine and doing a FULL-RESTORE TO A LARGE HD. However I didn't try.

I'm not sure if M$ will do more check in the near future (for example a third cookie with the HDD serial) but actually this works.

Hope this helps, guys.

This post has been edited by LinoX: Nov 22 2004, 01:07 AM

[smokeingit]

hm.. have to test Linox theory.

This post has been edited by smokeingit: Nov 22 2004, 01:02 AM

[LinoX]

BTW:
This validates Lord-Iron's post:
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?sho...ic=306612&st=15

[LinoX]

It seems like theese "two cookies" are something of passport authentication cookies
ONE FOR THE CONSOLE (SN.42635xxxxx@xbox.com)
ONE FOR THE GAMER (gamertag@xbox.com)

Someone should try to DELETE HIS ACCOUNT FROM HIS XBOX (through dashboard).

The Console cookie should remain, the gamer one shouldn't.

But why this double authentication?
Moreover...
Gamer's password is the 4-button sequence
what's the console's password?

We should investigate in this direction...

Bye...

[clouzot]

[elpool]

so LinoX, you successfully changed hard drives (to a larder HDD) without doing anything to the EPPROM? How long have you been connecting to Live since you did this?

What exactly is the disk.bin? Is it located somewhere on the HDD, or just generated by configmagic?

It would probably be helpful if someone had a disk.bin from an xbox that has been on live, but not since they updated to live 2.0.

also, Did you format the F: partition after installing the new hard drive?

-----------
Wait a minute, this doesn't make sense. Because I can use my gamertag on a completely different xbox (through account recovery) that wouldn't have the cookie.


hmm, so the cookie would have to store some info about the eeprom. And then if the eeprom and the info about the eeprom on the HDD dont match, you get banned. THat way changing the EEPROM without changing the HDD results on a non-match, and a ban. but then changing the HDD without changing the EEPROM would be just like doing an account recovery on a new xbox, and wouldnt cause a ban. But changing a hard drive DOES cause a ban, so somethings not quite right here.

This post has been edited by elpool: Nov 22 2004, 02:38 AM

[Gumba]

[ydgmms]

I can confirm a portion of LinoX findings.

When I first installed my 160GB hd, I did Slayers backup. So I have a disk.bin that hadn't been on live yet.

I just rebacked it up after reading his post.

I compared them:

Original NonLive disk.bin did *NOT* have any SN or xbox.com information.
My rebacked up LIVE disk.bin *DID* have that information.

What use this is... I dunno yet.

This post has been edited by ydgmms: Nov 22 2004, 04:10 AM

[clouzot]

[URPREY]

It all makes sense now. I checked out a bunch of the HDD backups I have from boxes I've modded for friends. There is a part of the disk.bin file that always starts with PCB and a bunch of characters, but the ones who were banned also have the serial# and gamertag info stored. If that wasn't included on the upgraded drive, that would explain the insta-ban.

Nice work. Hopefully someone can figure out how to use that file to get these boxes unbanned, or at least a way to carry that information over easily to new drives...

[Maverick0984]

maybe we should start a new topic so more people can see this new theory, i haven't checked today, but as of yesterday i'd been playing for 2-3 days w/o ban with the orignial hdd that connected to live for the first time, happened to be a 160 gb WD. i didn't change my C drive at all which contains my evox dash. and my E drive has 2 backed up games on it and still no ban.

[LinoX]

[Maverick0984]

they let you restore on different xbox though, that is the whole point

[LinoX]

They let you restore the GAMER ACCOUNT, not the console account!

Each console account CAN BE CREATED ONLY ONCE!
..or ban!