XBOXHDM FOR DUMMIES v.1.8

OFFICIAL XBOXHDM THREAD

INSTALLING SOFTMOD? CHECK OUT:
Ndure Installer For Pc

Ndure Softmod Through Xboxhdm

F.A.Q FOR "XBOXHDM FOR DUMMIES"
read this if you have any questions


changelog:
v.1.2 to 1.3
added how to lock/unlock HD with unlockx.
link to xboxhdm v1.6.1
v.1.3 to 1.4
changed tutorial using new xboxhdm 1.7
changed lock/unlock method to built in xboxhdm tool from unlockx
changed the link to xboxhdm
1.4 to 1.5
added tutorial to clone hd
1.5 to 1.6
minor changes
1.6 to 1.7
added f.a.q
1.7 to 1.8
fixed broken images, added few links and fixed some typo

caution: unproper use of xboxhdm can nuke your hd ( as long as you have your eeprom you can always recover), Read the tutorial carefully, if you are unsure/confused of anything ask here..may be it will save you some trouble.

note;As pictures are worth thousand words so I will use more pictures/screenshots then I write. It will also be easier for you and noobs. Please wait a few secs for the pictures to load. Dial-upper have to wait more for the pictures to load. The pictures are hosted in a free website. If anyone can offer dedicated hosting for the pictures then let me know.

note for xboxhdm incase of image is nonbootable or you get cannot found linux cd-rom error ( I got): in new xboxhdm 1.7 ( downloaded from both xbox-scene and xbins, xboxhdm>linux>isolinux>boot.cat is named as linux.boot but the make-iso-win hasnt ben updated, change xboxhdm>linux>isolinux>linux.boot to boot.cat to fix the problem

TOOLS USED:

1. xboxhdm ver. 1.7 ( current version 1.9)
download

2. Slayers Disk 2.6 final ( for dash version 5960.01)

How to get: Usual places


MAKE YOUR BOOTABLE XBOXHDM CD IMAGE:

1. Unpack xboxhdm_v1.6

2. After you unpack you find this files under xboxhdm folder:
1. linux ( folder)
2. cygwin1.dll
3. make-DOS-floppy.bat
4. make-iso-lin.sh
5. make-iso-win.bat
6. mkisofs.exe
7. rawrite.exe

there is also some other readme files but u need these files.

3. Copy files for xbox C:\ drive from slayers disk and put the files in xboxhdm's linux>C folder.

4. copy your xbox's eeprom.bin to linux>eeprom folder

5. Double click on make-iso-win.bat, it will bringup command prompt and dump the bootable iso same folder.



6. Burn the iso with your favorite burning program.

SETUP YOUR COMPUTER AND XBOX:

1. Put you cd/dvd drive in primary slave and xbox hard drive in primary master ( I didnt tested with secondery master and slave).



2. Unlock your xbox hard drive and put it to the primary master. ( If you can, unless there is procedure later)

UNLOCK THE HD

After you boot to xboxhdm choose "3"(Boot linux with locking/unlocking utilities).

You will see this screen:



write "unlockhd -a" and press enter to unlock you hard drive. make sure you have eeprom.bin in linux>eeprom folder.


BOOTING XBOXHDM ( First setup your computer to boot from cd):

After you boot you will see this screen:



now press enter to boot into console and you will be in this screen:




now write "xboxhd" and press enter, if you xbox hd in the master you will see this screen:



write "yes" and press enter and you will be in the option screen:



if you had your eeprom.bin in the linux>eeprom folder and your hd is still locked then write "6" and press enter. xboxhdm will calculate your hd key and password and unlock the hd.Write down the info.



your hd in now unlocked so you can perform the necessary operations.press enter and you will be in the option screen

BUILD YOU HD FROM SCRATCH:

After unlocking the hd, write "1" in option screen and press enter. It will bring this screen:



write "yes" and press enter, now it will build the partition table and reboot:

RESTORE YOUR C:\ DRIVE:

After rebooting go to option screen. Write "2" and press enter. After you hit enter it will ask you to write "yes" or "no". Write "yes" and press enter. first it will format your C:\ drive:



and then if you have proper files in the cd it will copy the files from cd to C:\ drive, you can also use this option to downgrade dash if you dont have a memcard to do savegame exploit:



write "yes" and hit enter. C:\ drive will be copied from cd.

INSTALLING F:\ Drive or UPGRADE YOUR HARD DRIVE:

To upgrade your hard-drive do all the above steps. Then again come to the Option screen of xboxhdm. Write "4" and press enter. Now xboxhdm will scan your hd tell you if you can have F:\ drive or not. If you can you will be asked to write "yes" or "no". Write "yes" and press enter. It will make the partition table and reboot:



After you reboot, once again go to option screen and press "4" again. Your F:\ drive will be build:



And now you are done.

CLONE EXISTING HD

In the welcome screen type "3" and press enter, xbxohdm will list available drives attached with primary and secondery ide cable:



in my case my formatted xbox hd is attached with primary master, cd-drive with primary slave and another new blank hd with secondery master. so to start cloning first you have to enter your xbox hd's address in my case its "hda". so type "hda" and press enter. from the picture you can see theres another hard drive attached to secondery slave and its "hdc" so enter "hdc" as destination drive and press enter. Now it will ask for confermation. type "yes" and press enter and ur hd will be cloned.

note: cloning takes extremely long time and there is no progress indicator.. wait around 2-3 hour to clone a complete 120gb drive. For cloning stock drives, it takes abouta hour.



now wait few minutes to finish the job. it took me arount 12 minutes to clone the hd with nothing extra in xbox hd ( no games, apps, movies only the orinal files) and F:\ drive formatted. If you have more stuff in ur xbxo hd it will take more time.

make sure your new hd is unlocked first and then locked when you are done by the following method.

LOCK/UNLOCK YOUR HD:

After you boot to xboxhdm choose "3"(Boot linux with locking/unlocking utilities).

You will see this screen:



write "lockhd" or "unlockhd" and press enter to lock or unlock you hard drive. make sure you have eeprom.bin in linux>eeprom folder.

DONT FORGET TO LOCK YOUR HD BEFORE YOU SHUTDOWN XBOX

Reply if you have questions, soon I will be writing how to install various exploits using xboxhdm. and dont forget to thank "ldots" for making this wonderfull distro. I cant even imagine the days I had to use xlinux for softmodding.

wow thanks for the info , but i still have a question how or what can i use to unlock a new hd? lol just got a 120 gig , and im a lil unsure

Beautifully done kingroach

Sorry if this is obvious to you guys but can i perform all the functions if the box is NOT modded?

Good job on this graphical tutorial kingroach. This is a nice add-on to the "official" xboxhdm thread that tries to cover most of its functionality - therefore not suited for the user who just wants a HDD upgrade. Making pictures of xboxhdm in use is a great idea.

About the locking/unlocking part. I think its dangerous to recommend using the locking tools from CDROM. I know it shouldnt be a problem if people write down the password they use or use the savelog command, but if they do a typo when punching in the password, then shut down the PC to try out their new drive and find the xbox boots to error 6 - they are f*****. The log-files generated by unlockx and hdlock are not store when using the locking tools from CD since the CDROM is read-only. Instead use the "Make DOS Floppy with locking/unlocking tools" option in xboxhdm if you have a floppy drive.

Also unlockx is known to not work well with all drives. I have experienced this with a Seagate drive. I recommend using hdlock/hdunlock in stead.

From version 1.6.1 the is a automatic locking/unlocking option when using the tools from floppy. I attach the section from the official thread below.

The locking/unlocking tools
WARNING! Using the locking utilities from CD the tools cannot store any log files with used passwords, as the CD is read-only. It will be stored to the virtual filesystem in RAM but is gone after rebooting. These logs are needed if you accidentially use an incorrect HD passwd. Using either unlockx or hdlock to lock a drive the passwd used will be written to screen and you will be prompted to write this down. If you run the locking tool from CDROM I furthermore advise you to insert a formatted floppy in your primary floppy-drive and run the command : 'savelog'. This will write the log-files from the locking tools to floppy.

Be warned that locking HDD's is serious buisness! Don't just fool around with the locking tools and always be sure you backup the passwords you use. Locking the HDD with an unknown password will make the HDD useless if you dont store the log or write down the password!

I put the following locking/unlocking tools on the CD :

• hdlock, Only locks a HDD
• hdunlock, Only unlocks a HDD but doesn't disable locking. The drive will relock after reboot if you only run this tool.
• hdddisabl, Disables locking. To be used after hdunlock so that locking stays off after rebooting.
• unlockx, One option locks a drive, another option unlocks and disables locking in one go. Warning! This tools has been known to not work well with some drives. I recommend hdlock/hdunlock.
• atapwd. Good for checking the drive security status. Can also be used to unlock with the Master password. If you locked your HDD with ConfigMagic the Master password is set to 'TEAMASSEMBLY'

In my experience hdlock seems to be more reliable than unlockx. I therefore recommend using hdlock whenever possible. However, if you cannot lock/unlock with one tool - try the other. Unlockx still usefull for checking the drive status.

As of version 1.6.1 of xboxhdm there is a semi-automatic way of locking . If you include the eeprom.bin from your xbox on the xboxhdm CD (in the eeprom folder). Run the xboxhd tool (see below) and choose option 6) to generate the HDD password. Then run option 7) to generate a DOS floppy with the locking/unlocking tools. The HDD password will be written to the floppy and on rebooting with the floppy you have two locking/unlocking commands available.

• lockhd, will prompt you to choose a drive and will lock the HDD with the password written to the floppy by xboxhd
• unlockhd, will both unlock the HDD and disable locking with the password written on the floppy

Should the password generated by xboxhdm be incorrect (bad eeprom dump, or a bug in the password tool <- you can never rule this out completely), you should still be able to unlock the drive again with the password stored on the floppy in : input/hdpass.txt

WARNING! The locking tools are not made by me, so dont make me responsible if something goes wrong. Locking HDD's is not without risk.

Final tips!
Some PC Bioses seems to enable the Freeze Lock command on unlocked drives on bootup. When freeze lock is set you cannot relock the drive. This is rare though and might be disabled in some bioses. On my PC the bios only sets Freeze Lock on the Primary Master channel. Putting the xbox HDD on Primary Slave enables me to lock the drive again. Otherwise switching to another PC can be a solution if you should run into this rare problem.

newegg.com

thnx ldots for the warning, unlockx never failed me but i only tried with one hard drive.

newegg.com is only for uS, they dont ship to UK. You can try amazon.co.uk for cheap hds.

ZipZoomFly has some good deals too, got my hard drive from there, free 2nd day shipping in the US.

Great Tutorials, hopefully they'll pin it!

Added this to the tutorials list. Thanks for the hard work.

is there any risk's when rebuliding your c: drive?

no there sint as long as you have the right files in linux>C folder.

@ kingroach

You probably already saw it, but I released v1.7.
The big news are linux based locking/unlocking tools available from boot option 3). The DOS boot is now option 4)

These linux tools get the HDD password directly from the eeprom, meaning no password typing. When locking the tool also sets a Master Password ('XBOXSCENE') that will let you unlock the HDD without the eeprom or the HDD password.

I recommend using these tools instead of unlockx that has made quite a number of users pull their hair out by now...

thnx ldots, I will update my guide tommo or probably tonight.

edit: updated the tutorial.

where is the eeprom.bin located?

ldots,

Nice work. The things that I want to see in the next version(if there will be such a thing) of your UDE tools would be the added functionality of building the initrd that contains what is in the xboxhdm(including the eeprom.bin). Then I can just save away this initrd which is specific to a particular Xbox. It can be used to rescue or upgrade HD for each individual Xbox.

I'm loving the work you've put into this along with the other guys. I do have one question though. I can't seem to find any doc about using the clone hd option. Whats the drive chain suppose to be like when using this option. I know I'll have 2 hd's and one cd drive, But whats master/slave and primary/secondary order?

@ kingroach
Glad to see the update
Any chance you could add the link to the
official xboxhdm tutorial since building a HDD and restore C: is just some of the things xboxhdm does?
I think it should also be considered a (stable ) alternative to HDDriver and fatxplorer with the xbrowser making file management pretty easy.
Not to mention the UDE installer for xboxhdm.

@ okayama
It's briefly mentioned in the root post of the xboxhdm thread (link above). But there is not a hole lot to it. You will be prompted to choose your source and destination drive. From my PC :

I added the link to your official thread and UDE installer packager. I am also trying to write same kind of picture tutorial for UDE and clone hard drive.

I feel like a moron asking this. But can I use this to upgrade the HD in my 1.6 xbox?

I have modded close to 30 xboxes with softmods, but just ran into my first 1.6 box the other day. Upto then I was using LiveInfo to calculate the new HD key and unlockx to lock/unlock the drives. LiveInfo however won't read the 1.6 eeprom file. So will this package be able to do this?

Great tutorial, and thnx again for the package ldots!

CP

is your new hd unlocked?

Look at the "Final tips" section in the xboxhdm thread (1st link in my sig). Your drive is probably freeze locked.

I just don't get it. Don't you have to hotswap when using xboxhdm? Or is that what you're doing in the picture where the xbox and pc is?
You must do it when cloning a hdd at least, right?

If your HDD is exploited - then you can get your eeprom from it via configmagic\evox and FTP and put it on an xboxhdm disc. So then there is no need to hotswap - Xboxhdm can figure out the password for itself using your eeprom.

no, as a matter of fact the xbox is not required to get your new hard drive running, hotswapping is not necessary at all. Providing you have your eeprom and hard drive backed up to your pc, your pc is all you need

if u have ur xbox eeprom.bin then u can prepare new hd without xboxhd, xboxhdm calculates and unlock the hd from eeprom.

u will only need to hotswap if u dont have ur xbox's eeprom so then xboxhdm cannt unlock the hd.

WOW. Did ldot come up with this idea by his own?

Anyways, if I follow this guide and put slayers 4920 files in c:\ the xbox will then appear as a new xbox without an exploit right? BTW, don't you have to put anything in E:\?

Or can I change the files so it will be loaded with an exploit right away?

This seems very good.

ya the hd will appear as a regular unexploited hd, u can autometically install UDE with xboxhdm, in the first page there is a link for ldots UDE for xboxhdm topic. if u follows that thread u can install UDE from xboxhdm so it will be exploited.

I am tring to format my f:\ drive through xboxhdm.
In the tut it says to get all files from c:\ in slayers package. and that I need to put them on the xboxhdm cd.

What do I do If my box is already modded by using UDE2, I wouldn't want to copy over my c:\ drive with an exploit that is outdated.

Also, will xboxhdm work with 1.6 K:5838 D:5659?

Thanks

xboxhdm doesnt depend on ur kernel or dash version. if u want to just format the F:\ drive then u dont need slayers disk. just make the iso without slayers C:\ drive files, you only need ur eeprom.bin in the eeprom directory. just boot xboxhdm and then unlock ur hd then format F:\ drive by option "4" after ur format then lock the hd. you dont have to do anything else.

i cant find the eeprom where is it located cant find it?

it should be in the C:\backup folder if u used evox to backup ur eeprom.

I am receiving error code 21 and can't unlock my xbox's hd. I have the backup image on my pc hd. How can I get the xbox's eeprom?

what kind of backup you have, if you have the xboxhd.bin or hard drive image by HDD_driver then u can unlock the HD by hotswap and restore the hd.
if you backed up your hd by ftp then you can look into your backup folder, thats where evox dumps eeprom.

if he dont have a eeprom.bin then thats the only way.. all softmodder should backup their eeprom, this is the first thing I did when i softmodded. Hotswap always worked for me but it takes me few tries. just put a original dvd in xbox when the game bootsup and then you go to "press start button to continue" screen the hd should be unlocked.

are the linux locking tools really messed up?

No. They aren't and never have been. Then problem was something else.
There was a problem with the code decrypting the eeprom, but I fixed that (hopefully) and will update xboxhdm soon. The official linux locking tool (from xbox-linux) still have this bug.

is this programs locking tools are valid?

what do u mean by valid? do u mean legal.. then they are legal cz they dont contain any MS code and the linux is opensource.

i mean do they work?