Are Ms Dash/xblive Dash Necessary At All Anymore?, No files on C drive?!!?!?! Options

[themacmeister]

I just built an XBOX HDD from scratch (already had old eeprom backup, and original NDure 3.1 DVD).

I somehow neglected to restore the C drive with NDure 3.1 through XBoxhdm (must have selected NDure files only), and now I have no MS Dash, XBL dash (or it appears, ANYTHING on the C drive). My previous softmod had a working MS-dash...

Are either of these at all necessary, as there is no longer any XBox Live for original XBox, and I don't know of any games that REQUIRE original MS Dashboard?!?

I have already installed and played all XBLA titles easily without anything on my C drive.

MY REAL QUESTION, is whether I can restore the NDure 3.1 C-backup files, while softmodded (using FTP didn't work at all). If it's just a matter of burning these to DVD, and copying from File Manager, I'm doing that tonight, otherwise, some help would be appreciated.

PS. The XBOX seems to be working perfectly fine with no Xbox dash, or Live dash!

PPS. I don't want to softmod it again, as there is 200GB to backup/restore. I just read about the cure for "frozen" drives, so I am less apprehensive now.

Cheers. Thanks for a fantastic XBOX resource.

This post has been edited by themacmeister: Jun 7 2012, 10:54 AM

[shambles1980]

nothing at all on C sounds more like a shaddow c: drive rathere than nothing installed at all..
if you boot with a rescue disk like hexen "heiomdalls xbox engineering disk" You should be able to see the real contents of the C drive.
and have ftp access..
"but dont go ftping a c back up to the c drive just yet... read the rest of the post then wait for help if needed or you may end up having to re build your disk again."

having said that you should be able to add the ms dash manually from there, which would basically be the 2 xbe's and a folder or 2..
But you have to be carfull not to over write the exploited files..

However the worry of accidentaly deleting your softmod because a game tried to update your dash should not be an issue if you have a shaddow c..
So you may not want to bother. But the ms dash does have its uses..

And If you softmodded without the updated dash then the actual softmod cant be that up to date..

I would recomend just having hexen update your soft mod.
If it cant because the dash is not up to date enough come back and we can help you manualy update it from hexen without having to remove the hard disk excetera.

This post has been edited by shambles1980: Jun 7 2012, 01:13 PM

[Heimdall]

As shambles1980 says your shadow C is empty, and it's like that because you chose the wrong options in xboxhdm. That's a common problem because xboxhdm and the Kingroach ndure installer give you so many options! If you use xboxhdm and Kingroach NDURE 3.1 properly then it builds the shadow C for you. See the link in my signature "Build a new softmod disk with eeprom" for details of how to do it.

Alternatively HeXEn will install your softmod properly for you.

No game requires MS Dash or Live Dash. The MS Dash is useful for gamesave management, and for changing video and audio settings, parental controls, auto power off settings etc. However, the MS Dash you need to do all of that is probably the renamed one on your real C partition, c:\xb0xdash.xbe, because you

[Heimdall]

Sorry - had to dash before I realised I hadn't finished the last sentence!

I mean to say - because you have to bypass virtual eeprom to make any changes stick, and usually when you bypass virtual eeprom you bypass shadow C as well, so you are working on the real C partition.

[themacmeister]

Everyone on this forum RULES!

I reinstalled "corrupted shadow C" from HeXeN, and I can now boot into MS Dashboard from UnleashX.

I went and checked all the settings, set the time, etc. and should not really need it again.

When I try to start in MS Dash, by using Eject button, I get an Error 21, Xbox needs service.

The computer is booting sweetly into UnleashX, and I can now access working MS Dash in shadow C.

I assume (tho haven't tried) that XB Online Dash would work from Shadow C as well.

One small issue. After reinstalling corrupted shadow C, every boot after that, I had a single-menu item UnleashX with Press A. In an endless loop.

I used a custom network version of Slayer, and I happened to have a very recent backup of UnleashX settings XML, so all is fantastic now!

Many many thanks to everyone, especially Heimdall, who gave us HexeN!!