How To Recover Your X360 Drive Key, Without The Original Firmware Options

[sosotiit]

There are many reasons why you want to have a safe copy of your drive key. In case a future upgrade does not go as planned, the current drive dies...you need to change your motherboard. All these should have brought you to keep a copy on your PC and another one sent to a hosted email (not a Pop3 kept on your pc !!!) or a printed copy. The key is specific to the motherboard which will not accept any drive not providing its associated key.

Recovering they key can be done from your original firmware (or any of this specific drive hacked & functional firmware after that) obtained the first time you flash your drive. you can open that firmware with FW toolbox 3.1B and copy (ctrl-c) the key information and paste it in a .txt file to print it.

You can also recover the key from a drive if it is functional (or at least that the access to the firmware is still possible using the usual command) and that the drive still has the key in it. Obviously if the key was overwritten with a wrong value before there is nothing to recover, or if the interface does not accept the command to dump the firmware to a file then you have lost the motherboard associated to that key. In some case, qualified person could desolder the chip and extract the key (if it is there ).

How to extract the key from a Samsung drive
You will need to use a USB memory stick (or floppy, or ntfs4dos) with the appropriate mtkflash on it. You can look at the Textbook tutorial or at myfranco thread to do this.
Follow this method to extract the firmware if you have a VIA Sata card or chipset:

1. Connect you PC sata cable to the X360 Drive (some have to do this after step 2)
2. start your x360 and pc to the dos prompt
3. type mtkflash r /m /sata orig.bin
4. list of port will appear (if your mtkflash is correct)
5. power down your x360
6. select the port on your PC, then count to 10 (you may want to try different count)
7. power your x360 and the pc will read the firmware to the orig.bin file

For those with a ms25 you can skip step 5 and 7. Also, all chipset in the mtkflash compatibility list of the Textbook tutorial should also work (not just VIA).

You can now extract the key form the orig.bin file.

How to extract the key from a Hitachi drive (up to v59)
You will need to use the slax v2.1 to place your drive in modeB. You can look at the Textbook tutorial for this.

1. place a copy of latest garyopa firmware in a directory under the root (i.e. C:\fw360)
2. following the tutorial, activate the Hitachi in mode B and restart your PC to windows
3. Go in command prompt (Start, Run you type cmd) and type cd \fw360
4. type memdump (drive) 91004F0 1 10 key.bin where (drive) is the letter assigned to your x360 drive
5. open key.bin with a hex editor to get the key

Note that you can also type memdump (drive) 12200 8 8000 current.bin to get the entire current firmware, and open that file with FW toolbox to obtain the key.

How to extract the key from a Hitachi drive (v78 and probably ok for the version below)
You will need to use the slax v2.1 to place your drive in modeB. You can look at the Textbook tutorial for this.

1. following the tutorial, activate the Hitachi in mode B and restart your PC to windows
2. Open FW toolbox & Tools / Direct Drive Dump / RAW DUMP/ save it as current.bin
3. open the firmware with same application to get the key

Note that some will recommend to do this process a few times to be sure the key is good.

In the event that a key cannot be obtained, it renders the associated x360 motherboard useless (at least for now). Your options are to replace your motherboard (see Xbox360 BST and obviously depending on your technical skills ), or acquire a new x360 (maybe just a Core and reuse your X360 harddrive).

rgds, soso

This post has been edited by sosotiit: May 11 2007, 07:36 PM

[Nubbs]

Thank you. this was very helpful. You just saved my ass with this info.

[freddy_krueger]

Hi ,thanks for this help but i have a question
In the read me file of the garyopa's package i can read this:


The new RESTORE does not need any backup, it will 100% restore your
drive back to "ORIGINAL" state as long as it is visible in Windows!

So if i understand ,i can restore my drive also if i have lost my key , no ?

[sosotiit]

yes in the case of Hitachi, having the key is a security in case the drive becomes defective and needs to be reaplced. As far are restoring/or flashing you do not need the key, only RESTORE or the flash command.
Still a good idea to keep a copy of the key safe in case on of these operations turn bad .

also if the drive is still working, you have not lost the key, just follow the step above to recover it.




-soso

[hyfall381]

hey soso. still reading everything to be ready. so from what i understand, even if my ms25 is flashed with x42a, the key is obviously still there. thats why the drive works fine. what i need to be clear on is do i have to use that enable 0800 disc method? ive read that its only for ms28 drives. but i also read that once any drive is flashed, you need that method because of the firm guard. so do i need to do that or not? please just let me know before i extract the key. thanks.

[sosotiit]

... thats why the drive works fine. ...

exactly, if everything still work, then the key is there. Ready to be extracted.

as far as the 0800 disc it is only if you have a ms25 and do not have a via chipset to do badflash (10 sec trick).

If you have a via chip set , the just follow the method with the 10 sec trick and it will work fine without the 0800.


-soso

[viperone]

How to extract the key from a Hitachi drive (v78 and probably ok for the version below)
You will need to use the slax v2.1 to place your drive in modeB. You can look at the Textbook tutorial for this.

1. following the tutorial, activate the Hitachi in mode B and restart your PC to windows
2. Open FW toolbox & Tools / Direct Drive Dump / RAW DUMP/ save it as current.bin
3. open the firmware with same application to get the key

Note that some will recommend to do this process a few times to be sure the key is good.

In the event that a key cannot be obtained, it renders the associated x360 motherboard useless (at least for now). Your options are to replace your motherboard (see Xbox360 BST and obviously depending on your technical skills ), or acquire a new x360 (maybe just a Core and reuse your X360 harddrive).

rgds, soso
[/quote]
Is there a tutorial on how to extract the key from a Hitachi drive v79? t/y

This post has been edited by viperone: Jun 9 2007, 07:09 PM

[dajuice]

How would I extract the key if I am using the NTFS4DOS method? My computer doesn't support USB boot-up BTW. I accidentally deleted the XBF folder which has the orig.bin and hacked.bin and even emptied the Recycle Bin - I thought I already saved it to another location. So, in order for the "mtkflash r /m /sata orig.bin" command to work, don't I need to have an XBF folder on my hard-drive? Thanks.

[pigboy306]

yes in the case of Hitachi, having the key is a security in case the drive becomes defective and needs to be reaplced. As far are restoring/or flashing you do not need the key, only RESTORE or the flash command.
Still a good idea to keep a copy of the key safe in case on of these operations turn bad .

also if the drive is still working, you have not lost the key, just follow the step above to recover it.
-soso

I acquired an Xbox 360 from Ebay. The console boots ok but the drive does not open, when a disc is manually inserted it will not read it. I got a connectivity kit and the drive would appear in windows. I then used the 360FWtoolbox the drive was seen and I got a key....HOORAY!!!! (I think) I used 'restore' to try to restore the drive to the original state but still it will not work. Is this a case of a duff drive and buy a new one.If so do i need a copy of the original firmware to flash the drive. Any help or a how to would be very much appreciated. (I did search... badly if you find something i didn't)

Thanks in advance

[pastortom]

Ive heard of some guys here in Norway that does "Dvd-key Extraction" of bricked dvd-drives.. I wanna know how this is possible, and Im not talking about this guide on how to DUMP the bios and extract the key, Im talking bricked drive, not wanting to bootup or get noticed by mtkflash..

[blame canada]

Ive heard of some guys here in Norway that does "Dvd-key Extraction" of bricked dvd-drives.. I wanna know how this is possible, and Im not talking about this guide on how to DUMP the bios and extract the key, Im talking bricked drive, not wanting to bootup or get noticed by mtkflash..

Maybe taking the actual firmware chip out and putting it into a programmer to read the firmware and hope that the firmware contains the real, original firmware key lol

[LankyJock]

Was gonna ask this in the newbie section too but this thread seems relevant for it.

I have an already flashed Hitachi drive from a borked 360. Is there a way to swap this with any type of drive or is it still only possible to swap with certain drive types/versions.

Thanks

[straitjacket525]

there isnt a way to just get it from the mobo is there?
cuz my 360 didnt have a disk drive when i bought it
(got it from ebay for mods)
but yeah i figured since i have an extra drive why not get a cheap 360 and mod it to hell

[insanity4all]

IF the system dash is 7371 or lower, you can recover the dvd key from the motherboard, via Jtag hack.

If not you're are totally screwed without the original drive/firmware to get the key from.

[playonlcd]

Now it is possible with glitch hack