Please help! I'm a complete newb! lost the orig.bin which of course contained my key. It's a hit 78 drive, plz advise or just let me know if i'm sol! thanks!

You can get the key from what ever f/w you currently have on the drive. Just dump the f/w and extract the key like you would if it where original f/w

If you can't read the f/w off the drive and need to replace it then I think you’re screwed.


read How To Recover Your X360 Drive Key

see my problem is It cant read the fw cus it wont spin discs...

You can get your key even if it doesn't run...

Please advise, thanks for the help!

Please explain!?!?

just go through tutorials on XS. you dont need a spinning disc to dump your FW. just use the mtkflash program at dos to dump it.

He has a Hitachi drive... mtkflash is only for Samsung.

Just read the pinned topics and tutorials.. it will describe how to extract your key.

he cant get it to spin discs and since its a 78 how do you get the key

a common problem of the v78 is that a plastic piece part of the assembly (on top in fact) that makes the DVD spin is quite fragile. It will often break, leaving the drive in what seem to be good condition except the dvd never spin.

You will need to disassemble the drive and glue, the two or three parts in which it broke, back together.

It will most probably work for a while after, but plse take a copy of your KEY and print one as well (hd dies, get reformatted...)

you can also check Xbox360 / Hardware General

-soso

soso im the one who is trying to get geo freaks drive key and ive tried everything i think a part of the drive relay is fried so???? any suggestions

if it is not mechanical (the round plastic piece on top broken), then I can only see to find someone to desolder the chip and extract the fw with a programmer.

-soso

Just for my own knowledge... why does the drive need to spin to extract firmware??

I am not as familiar with Hitachi since I own a Samsung.

Then maybe you need to read some pinned topics and tutorials.

The v78 has to spin up a disc to extract the key using FW-ToolBox, which is the only thing that can dump/flash the v78 without removing the chip and using an external programmer. If it were a v59 or lower you could get the FW off it with just the C4EVA .bat files that come with the FW and get a backup of the FW that way to get the key, but since it's a v78 ya have to do it a certain way and unfortunately that way involves spinning up a disc.

@ CGLUE - Have you seen if the motor is bound up at all? or tried another laser? The Motor controller IC on these Hitachi drives seems to be failing a bit too and that could be the cause as well, which means either replacing it from one from anther drive, since it's impossible to find, or desoldering the FW chip for sure.

when I last talked to garyopa he said the ready went out on it anyone here brave enough and have the skill to desolder the fw chip pm me

Just to let everyone that has or will read this, the board is shot and is not economical to repair. The MCIC (controls the motors) and main IC (controls everything) are shot, plus there's a burnt trace on the 5v line to the MCIC. All that damage really points to something done wrong to the drive, most likely 12v run in on the 5v line, which happens if ya plug the molex connector in upside down into the Xecuter or Xeno kit if you're using that to power your drive.



The key was extracted by removing and dumping it, so it wasn't damaged in any way and there's still hope for the 360 with a new drive and the key from this one.

BE CAREFUL everyone, it doesn't take long if the thing gets plugged in upside down to take out the MCIC and other things start to fry as well.