Guide To Bigger Hdd With Software Exploits Only, No Modded Xbox needed. Options

[shinobi006]

yeah i think thats what hard drive prep does. If you can restore the image and get it to work let me know so i don't have to buy another Xbox hard drive. mine is completely toast and I don't really have the money. I've got an extra 40 gig lying around and if i can use it without too much trouble, that would be great.

This post has been edited by shinobi006: Jul 15 2003, 08:54 PM

[IntestineMan]

I tried an old 30 gig drive. I hex-edited at 0x600 the BRFR and HDD Driver still did not recognize it. I am using a different computer and had to scrounge google for the dll's so maybe the versions are not compatible. I may have saved my old configuration before at home so I will try again. Strange because that is what I used before but it was with a new HDD so maybe having it all 00'd is required for HDD Driver.

I did notice that hdprep did not put the BRFR in at 0x600.

I guess I will try the linux thing now hehe... thought it was possible to use HDD Driver.

[DarkLegion]

Sorry if i missed this but does this allow all the extra space of a larger hdd or does it just allow a modified drive to be used(but with only the stock standard 8 gigs that the original bios uses)?
Great news if the former is true,virtually eliminates any use of a modchip or tsop mod..

[heathkit]

Using the method from the first post, you do indeed get access to a 120G hard drive.

I immediately turned around and flashed that machine's TSOP. Unless you really want to play on live for some reason, I have to recommend just connecting those two jumpers and flashing your TSOP. Actually booting a modified kernel is worlds better than using this exploit.

Seriously, being able to boot off cd-rw is fantastic. You don't even have to solder. Go to Autozone, buy a $10 rear window defogger repair kit, mask off your motherboard with tape, and paint the two jumpers with the conductive paint from the kit. Boot evox, flash with xecuter 4977 and you're done.

[EnigmusSnake]

First question about formatting with evox for partitions F X Y Z

When you do get access for say a whole 120 gig hd. Does evox partition it with the F with the highest possible disk space that you can access as i've seen in the stock X Y Z get's space that I don't see the xbox shouldn't really use much..

And second about the tutorial.

Is it really needed to have that TempHDD when you copy the xbox HDD's image over? can't you just copy over into your PC's HDD into some easily accessible directory??

Also as liveinfo is an Win2K and XP app.. is there any alternative to the alternative Win95/98Se/ME user like me? I'm very sure there's a bootable DOS equivalent of Liveinfo that I and accompany with unlockx on my boot disk.

Yes I know without the option to use HDD Driver I'm talking a huge risk of not being able to back up my harddrive.

This post has been edited by EnigmusSnake: Jul 16 2003, 01:56 PM

[dubey]

is the key the four lines of numers/letters with ":" after each two characters? Do i have to add that whole thing including colons?

[checkup]

this trick was posted some days ago in the forum and it has been 13 steps and worked perfectly for me.

i do not think it is a good idea telling the people "you do not need linux if you do this it should propably work also....".

Using xlinux is the most safe way and works in any case. Furthermore is the step with plugging the the drive to the pc and hoping that it will be hda not very straight for people who are new to linux.

Anyways :

The step that mentions backing up the drive with dd can be much easier. Just use a windows machine in the network and "mount -t smbfs..." a share of this machine to backup youre stuff. That is _much_ more clear and easy. Later on you do the same to write the image to the new disk, no confusion about hda and hdc.


to linux in general :

primary master : hda
primary slave : hdb
secondary master : hdc
secondary slave : hdd

and so on....

so just ignore the "cableselect" setting on the drive and set it to what you want to. (that means hda at best -> set to master and plug into first socket).

The partitions in the drives are given by numbers. As anybody should know ide drives support only 4 primary partitions. That means if you have 4 primary partitions on hda they would be hda1-4.
The first extended partition is called hdx5, the second extended hdx6 and so on....

I don't know how much hdd driver is usable. So i would recommend fatx driver under linux because this is considered usable.

regards from germany

[shinobi006]

looking through archived news, complex says hdprepar copying the C and E drive, and then locking it with the correct code would work..............
I'm thinking you have to zero the entire drive, and then just copy C and E over. This would be alot easier for people who don't want to use linux or just don't know how. I'd try it, but the computer I'm at would freeze any drive i put in. I can't try this until i get my computer fixed whic would be around next week. someone should give this a try..............

This post has been edited by shinobi006: Jul 17 2003, 04:21 PM

[IntestineMan]

so sorry... just was suggesting a different way which I used before.

I cloned a drive the way I explained a year or so, maybe longer, and it worked. For some reason it is not working now in my tests. It could be because my PC is newer, or it could be that the test drive I was using was not new and had junk on it which made HDD Driver not recognize it. Too bad the author who wrote HDD Driver did not release newer versions to make more compatible and allow any drive to be imaged.

[gokussj007]

ok.. first... get the atapwd, hdlock, hdunlock, hddisabl...utilities.... put in a blank floppy

second... get the gamesave exploit of evox and use the utilities of evox to backup your xbox's info... ftp into your xbox and copy and paste your backup folder that was created by evox... now.. look at the text file.. that contains your xbox's OEM HDD key... save it... write this down...

The Replacement Drive must be one that is Lockable...
third.. download liveinfo... click load eeprom and select the location of the backup folder created by evox.. and pick eeprom... ok... now there are two sections to this program.. look ignore the top... go to the bottom and search for the replacement drive you want to install.... (it should already have been on and setup on the computer since bootup.. or if you have winxp or 2000 you can go to device manager and keep refreshing them... until you see the replacement drive...) when you click on your replacement drive.. it will generate a key for that drive.. this key will fool your xbox into thinking it's the original.. so save this key also... write it down...

fourth... download hdprepar... the program that partitions the replacement drive with xbox characteristics.... well just zero the first 4096 sectors.... hey be careful... I have a Maxtor 80GB HDD that stores my OS and the one I have in my xbox now WD80GB... so using this program.. it's tricky cause two 80GB HDD?.. which one do you choose?... I took some time figuring this out.. I noticed that the WD80GB displays a lesser amount of space than the Maxtor 80GB... so you see... be careful............. once this is done...

fith....get the HDD_Drivers... by T00G... u know what I'm talking about.. the annoying program that is almost impossible to really detect your xbox's drive after the hot swap method.... By the way you do not need to do the hot swap method as you will soon see... ok.. remember the floppy of the hdd utilities I asked you to create?.. well here we go.. time to use them...

Alright shutdown pc... take your xbox OEM HDD out and place it on the Primary IDE cable.. no other devices should be using this cable... oh be sure to set the XBOX HDD's Jumper settings to Master... ok.. u know your HDD with the OS?... place that one on the Secondary IDE cable... mines was set as master for this cable....

now.. turn on your pc... u can skip the detection of the discs... I just want you to be able to boot a bootable disc.. I used my old M$ 98 startup disk... to get me to the command prompt... once there... put the hdd utilities floppy in.. and type atapwd... this will take you to a screen.. we just want to make sure we can see our devices... if you don't see it.. u most likely need to refresh the screen.. there's a key there.. read the bottom panel for specific intructions on that... ok.. look for your xbox OEM HDD.. you'll see it... now... press Esc... and we're back in the command prompt... do the following:
A:/hdunlock.exe
in there another little GUI pops out.. press the # that corresponds to your xbox's OEM HDD..... it will then ask for the password... type in the password you got from evox hddinfo.txt... e.g. f39ead..... (ignore the ':' and don't bother putting the zeros after u come across :00: everything at that point and after.. ignore zeros...).. ok... after this.. press enter.. it should say done...
now check atapwd again.. look at your xbox OEM HDD.. and SELFXV.....under L it should now say '-' sign.. .meaning you unlocked it... press Esc again...

now u need to use hddisabl.exe... do the same as above it will ask for the password again... moments later... Done... use atapwd again.. and now the E has a '-' sign under it also... we want this to happen 'cause when you reboot your PC... we don't want the HDD to be locked again.. that's why you disable it from locking...

ok.. reboot your pc again.. log onto windows xp or 2000 again... hey I don't know about win2000 users but if you're on an xp computer.. it's gonna take a while loading the settings.. you'll see what i mean.. don't worry you'll be able to go on windows.. soon...give it time... once in windows... run HDD_Driver... it might say an Invalid File Size.. error.. lol... good news for you.... it's reading the xbox OEM HDD.... but anyways.. don't click on that error.. just go to the top and click backup the hdd... u need about 8-12 gb of freespace on your OS HDD... 8 gigs max.. if your xbox.. only has the dashboard... and like no saved games... if you know what I mean... ok... so... let it make the backup.. should go really fast.. like 30 mins at the most.. hey guys... uhmn.. careful... HDD-Driver.. one time was actually trying to backup my OS HDD... I knew this 'cause I was taking extremely long.. and I was looking at the backup file... where I saved it... and it had passed the 30 gb range.. so.. surely something wrong... (don't backup anything unless you see the invalid size error... ) if you don't get this error.. then don't back it up unless you see the the partitions.. and information.. like the files in the xbox.. on the left panel...

ok... it finished backing up?... good.. put in the replacement drive.. remember we used hddprepar?.. lol.. this is gonna fool HDD_Driver into thinking it's the xbox HDD again... well replace the xbox OEM HDD with this one.. with the same jumper settings...set it on master... go to device manager and refresh the devices... until you see the new drive... if you don't you might need to reboot... it should then work...

Back in windows.. or already in windows...ok... now.. run HDD-Driver... it's gonna say that invalid size error.. I am almost definetly sure about this one... ok.. now... don't click ok to the error.. just go to restore.. and select the backup file of the original xbox... and then you will have some options.. to restore the whole hdd or other sections of the drive... u will see what I mean... if you didn't have any saved games before... just click on system restore part... other wise click whole.. the system restore.. goes so fast...lol.. like 5 mins... and you're done... ok.. hey.. guess what you got and exact replica of your xbox OEM HDD except.. u need to lock it now...

reboot with a bootable floppy.. for me.. it was M$98 startup disk.. used command prompt.. and slide the hdd utilities into the drive and type atapwd.. u'll now see the new HDD.. if you don't just... refresh the screen again... ok... press Esc.. then run hdlock.exe

ok select the # that corresponds to your new drive and then... enter the password.. u got from live info... u have two different keys on you by now... u have the xbox OEM HDD key and the replacement HDD key that was generated by liveinfo... ok.. do as above.. lock your drive.. before you press enter make sure it matches exactly what liveinfo gave to you... and.. it's gonna create a text file in the floppy containing these utilities.. save it... on another computer or something...hey.. u did it .. your replacement drive is locked... verify with atapwd to make sure...

take the replacement drive and slide into xbox... don't forget to put as cable select.. and turn the xbox on.. without a game and it should... load the M$ dashboard...

that's it... it worked for me.. it took me two days to get this... it was all HDD_Driver's fault... it wasn't actually reading my xbx OEM HDD... but now that I see it.. it shouldn't take more than 1 hr of your time if you know exactly what you doing... hey my xbox.. I never put a modchip on it.. I never soldered anything.. that thing ...the only thing I touched was the HDD... now.. it has my WD80 gb HDD no modchip.. just playing around with complex loader... peace out..

[phlome]

after reading these tutorials for installing a bigger HD with the xploits gokussj007's seems the most straight forward and easiest. However, I do have a few questions about it or anyone whose used his methods.

I currently have the complex loaded 1.10 installed with evox running and working fine up until yesterday when I forgot to leave the powerbar on and now have the now so common clock problem and endless loop of restarting. I am wondering if (I after hours of it looping) eventaully get back in and replace my files with the bert and ernie reloaded ones will this end the loop? Or how do I go about doing so? Will using this method for installing a new HD solve the problem or will I still have the loops even with my new Maxtor 80GB installed?

Also, I am running windows98, is it possible to do this without upgrading seeing how I believe liveinfo requires Win2000?

thanks for the help..

[Alamei]

Firstly, I would like to complement GokuSSJ007 for such a wonderfully simple walkthrough of installing the new HD. However, Phlome: If you managed to leave the IGR setting on in Evox, for some reason implementing it (usually pressing L+R+Start+Back) seems to get me out of the clock loop. It's at least worth a try. I have an original XBoX, so Kernel 3944.

I'm also curious where most people got hddisabl.exe. I'm trying to get it off of eMule, because XBins does not appear to have it...

Thanks,
Alamei

This post has been edited by Alamei: Jul 19 2003, 06:55 PM

[gokussj007]

LOL.. thanks.. I wonder if the scenes people have put it as the major thing now... lmao.. but yea.. took me two days to see it... but I did it...

Now.. I hope they find a fix for the bert and ernie.. 'cause.. I do get clock loops.. since I have two xboxes.. and I disconnect it every night cause I don't want anyone to trip it.. and there's no room.. I put it in a bag under my bed... safe from dust too...

[Mordenkainen]

If I understand how the Xlinux cd is mounting the fatx devices, hda51 is a "special" device not usually accessed by linux.

So dd if=/dev/hda51 of=/dev/hdc51 will not work to copy the C partition.

BUT.....

DD doesn't care about the format of the disk, it just copies sectors. So if you access the disk through the normally availible device you should be able to do a direct copy.

WARNING!!! I haven't tried this yet, but will get a chance in the next couple of days, but I think this will work:

Assuming that the original Xbox HDD is Primary Master and the replacement drive as Secondary Master:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdc bs=512k

This may take a while, but it should copy the entire disk to the new one as is. Then you should just have to format your F partition.

Morden.

[KamelRed]

I dunno for some reason I just cant get HDD_Driver to reckognize my 30gb WD as a xbox HD. I used xhdprepa no luck, I restarted even still no luck, hex edit no go as well. I'm not sure how you got yours to work gokussj007, but more power to ya .

Quick question: Did you format the replacement HD to FAT32, NTFS or was it a brand new HD?

This post has been edited by KamelRed: Jul 20 2003, 06:23 PM