Options After Error 16.... Options

[practal]

I have been doing softmods for well over a year and have not ran into any problems with the numerous systems I have done until recently. I had a person come to me and I was told someone in his family clicked on Live in a game during Thanksgiving and his xbox started giving an error 13 when it booted but he could still launch his store bought games, I only offer apps and emu I dont teach them how to make games. Anyways, it worked this way for a couple of weeks then started booting to error 16, Im guessing due to being unplugged and cant find the clock in the dash. From what I read it sounds more like someone attempted to remove the mod or even overwrote the save files required to boot it.

I give my people a cd-r with xbox-hdm and their info for a free rebuild in this kind of situation but the guy lost the disc. He is unable to locate the disc so I do not have the hard disc key nor his eeprom. His xbox is a version 2 and was done with Softmod Installer Deluxe, the mod is about a year old.

I have been reading this will require a chip to fix but tonight I stumbled upon some info on hotswapping, I would search these forums more but the search feature is down. The hotswap methods I have read involve booting the xbox without the dvd drive attached and moving it over to a PC while its unlocked, rebuilding with xbox-hdm and the default xbox dash, and moving it back to the xbox. None of the tutorials I found stated which type of mod this works on. I know I also have the potential to destroy the hard drive but that doesnt matter because I think I will have to replace the hard drive when chipped since I do not know the key. My main concern her is do I have any chance of damaging my pc or any other components of the xbox in question? Also, how does the hard drive get re-locked, the only thing I can think of here is to leave the xbox on the error screen while its in the pc and then reboot once the drive has been placed back into the pc.

If a chip is the only way to go, what is a good one for someone with limited soldering skills? I have never soldered before but I am a quick learner when it comes to electronics and have found a ton of information on how to solder. I have done alot of research on chips and been looking at either an Aladdin or Duo chip. I am looking for either the easiest chip to work or something with only a couple of points, and keeping it under $30. I have read about the solderles chips and almost went with a Spider but decided I want a good solid fix and not something that is going to come back to me with a problem a few months down the road.

I would appreciate any helpful info on this. Ive had nothing but headaches since this problem came to me. I charge $10 for my time to do the intial work and have now dumped over a month into this and I am paying for the chip out of my own pocket. I have spent hours apon hours researching the different chips, how to solder, and fighting with the CC company to get my money back for a chip I ordered from modwhiz.com for him right after the problem started (that was 40+ hours and modwhiz blows big time). If my reputation didnt matter I wouldve just told the guy tough sh*t but I have bent over backwards trying to get this taken care of. I am looking for the easiest way possible to get this month and a half long burden off my back. Thanks in advance

This post has been edited by practal: Jan 8 2006, 07:45 AM

[IJTF_Cinder]

You can easily hotswap it out on an error 16, I just repaired one myself.

Simply follow the hotswap instructions and either leave the power hooked up to the HD from the Xbox and let it sit at it's error screen, or hook both power and IDE up from your PC and turn the Xbox off once the drive is unlocked. It doesn't matter either way.
As for damaging anything, I highly doubt it. I've heard talk of there being different voltages between hardware. BULLSHIT, they are standard PC drives fed off the exact same voltage. If you want to be safe though, use some alligator clips and ground the metal shielding in the Xbox to your PC chassis.
You aren't going to be swapping molex connectors while EITHER system is running, so theres nothing to worry about as for a power spike into the hard drive.
I've actually hotswap modded 8 different Xboxes this way. Theres also no reason to unhook the DVD drive in the Xbox either.

As for which softmod I used, I used the latest NDure package, but I would assume others work just fine too.
Also, with regards to re-locking the drive........when you hotswap you're simply catching the drive as soon as it is unlocked by the Xbox bios and swapping it out to your PC. I believe the Xbox locks it up again after checking it. Once you've used XboxHDM to copy your stuff over, and you shut down your PC, the drive is back to being in a locked state again, you don't need to leave the Xbox on as the key is a matching set to begin with. The only way it would remain in an unlocked state is if you disabled the security entirely. DO NOT DO THIS!

You have no need for a chip unless you've got yourself a locked harddrive that doesn't match up with the motherboard, or you've disabled the lock entirely. Otherwise once the drive has no power, it simply returns to a locked state.

Hope that helped.

This post has been edited by IJTF_Cinder: Jan 8 2006, 08:13 AM

[practal]

Thank you, you filled in about every question I had, I should be able to get it now. Thanks again