Hi i've been tryin for a while now to update the firmware, I've read up on it quite a bit, and discoved that my mobo (asus SLI-deluxe) nforce chipset was nearly impossible to get the orig.bin from. So i ordered a pc card of VIA 6421, then I tried using using mktflash through iprep using http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=599152 tutorial. Ok a couple times I got lucky and it actually read my drive (after typing (mtkflash r /m /orig.bin) as master xtreme, so i choose the drive and it always just goes to the falshing prompt and does nothing, even when i try a bad flash technique, it doesn't work, i never see an orig.bin file appear on my flash drive. I've tried everything, I disable the silicon raid contoller that is with the mobo, i also disable and unplug all ide drives, and i even hex edited the mtkflash for my VIA 6421 and still no mercy. Now things have gone from bad to worse cause the drive is pretty much bricked, it still boots up gives no errors, but won't read anything, so am i skrewed, is it at all possible to get my orig.bin?

wrong forum this is hardware

oh haha yea i'm newely registered

If you were using an iPrep formatted USB stick then you should be using "iDump 1234567 12345" to dump the drives FW.

With the ms28 you must use the bad flash technique and a Via SATA chipset to dump/flash the drive. Which bad flash method were you using? the 2 wire trick or powering the drive off then back on?

If you can't get any response from the drive at all now you'll have to pull the FW chip and dump it with an external programmer, and that's provided it wasn't tanked with the 2 wire trick and killed some other IC or the FW chip itself.



Moved to Newbie Chat

yea at this point i think its a lost cause. the drive still works fine, its not bricked, i thought it was but i noobed out and realized i forgot to connect its wire. the problem i'm having is just getting the orig.bin.

specs:
ms28 tsh438 drive
using rosewill VIA 6421 PCI card
Asus A8N SLI deluxe mobo with AMD 64

yea i disable all that i need to (the ide and silicon controller) and i boot into dos using flash drive. I then mtkflash r /m /sata orig.bin, and usually it can't find the drive or it goes immidatly to port 9000 master/slave a0. I've tried the 10 sec bad flash, even when it really read the drive, and still it never works. I had more luck using MTKflash NF4 with my onboard sata than with the stupid VIA 6421 card, but both prove pretty futile. MTKflash NF4 using the sli 3114 chipset found the drive much more often, but the bad flash never work no matter how many times and different ways i try it. I guess i should try the wire trick, but i don't wanna brick the drive. I also used the idump technique to keep dos from freezing so quickly when i turn on the box, it works but still jumps to port 9000 a0. i guess all thats left to do is try using a 0800 disk, and if that doesn't work i'm just puttin it back together, and thanking god for me not having bricked it.

make sure your drive is connected to the master sata port and not the slave

Do you have the 360 and PC chassis connected together to share a common ground?

You did install the drivers for the Via SATA card before formatting and making the USB stick as well correct?

I always power the drive externally, makes turning it on/off for the 10 second trick easier, which I've always done around 2 seconds on. This is how I do the ms28 drive...

1. With the PC off, connect the SATA cable to the card and drive. Also connect whatever you're using to power the drive, but do NOT turn it on yet.

2. Boot the PC from your USB stick and when you get to the C: prompt power the drive on, either via the 360 or Xecuter/Xeno kit, which ever you're using to power the drive.

3. Type in mtkflash r /m /sata orig.bin OR iDump 1234567 12345 (depending on which you're using the Xtreme Boot Maker or iPrep formatted USB stick) and press enter.

4. The list of any SATA devices it's detected should come up and one will be named XTREME, at this point power the drive off, select which ever number is the XTREME one and then power the drive back on, should only take ya a couple of seconds to do it. If all that was done right it should take off and dump the FW in 5~10 seconds.



There are no Master/Slave when using SATA ports.

ye sorry there aren't for the sata pci cards as mines onboard there are sorry again

There's still no Master/Slave even with onboard SATA ports, that implies that there are 2 drives on 1 channel and that's not the case with SATA. IDE drives are like that, hence the jumper on them to set them for Master/Slave/CS, but SATA drives are a 1 cable 1 drive deal. There are ports though, 0 or 1 thru however many SATA connections there are.

oh i know why i was thinking that probably because my sata hd is set to maste

SATA HDDs don't have M/S/CS jumpers, they have either no jumpers at all or ones to set them between 1.5gb/s or 3.0gb/s or to enable/disable some other drive function, and that's it.

got me going now gonna take a picture of bios to prove it!

ok after looking my sata mode is set to IDE which probably why it shows as master and slave
also sorry for hijacking the thread

There's still nothing there to show Slave for an SATA channel, only imply. Ya have...

IDE 0, (Primary IDE Channel) - Master/Slave
IDE 1, (Secondary IDE Channel) - Master/Slave
IDE 2, (SATA Channel) - Master
IDE 3, (SATA Channel) - Master

It doesn't matter that the Bios says Master for the SATA drive, there can only be 1 drive on an SATA channel and it's always going to be the Master drive, never a Slave drive.


@ Mgmedick - Getting anywhere with your drive?

yea thanks for the help guys i had work sorry, thats whats making me so mad is that this has taken me nearly 2 weeks and i got no where hahha. ok well alls well and good what you said RDC, but my drive freezes the dos when i boot it up, i'm not using any other sort of power device to boot the drive other than the 360, so maybe thats the prob, but i hope not cause i'm broke and don't wanna spend any mo dogh. yea when i boot into mtkflash i have to time it right to enter the command then power the box seconds later, but when it works it jumps to port 9000 a0 master slave and freezes again.

My sata card does have a jumper but as RDC said it just controlls whether port A&B or C&D work, and i've already made sure i'm using the right port on default setting.

i havn't ground the pc and xbox cause my pc is in a plastic clear case, i guess i could connect it to some metal HD supports, but would that even ground it, cause it will reach the plastic... and could all this trouble of mtkflash getting as far as transfering the orig.bin and then freezing be caused

my plan of attack is to find another sata drive, my friends or one i find around the house, then use it with iprep, and when i get into dos just unplug the sata and plug it into my box drive then power on. if that still freezes then ill prob just have the box already on then plug in the sata from the other drive, i know that may trip an error, having the drive on without sata attached, but thats a risk i'm willing to take haha..

if anyone has any other ideas that would be helpfull thnks, and thanks for all your help so far RDC, its been a godsend

I've never grounded my external PSU to my PC, but anything is possible and trying it sure wouldn't hurt anything, unless you go grounding out a voltage line instead of connecting chassis to chassis. The PSU in you PC should be metal and that's ground right there, so are any of the Black wires on the molex connectors from the PSU, like the 2 center ones on the HDD or ODD power connector, Yellow (12v) Black (GND) Black (GND) Red (5v).

Since ya have the PCI SATA card, try a friends PC too, yours may just be a picky stain about it for whatever reason, Bios version or something that ya can't even do anything about. I use the Via 6421 card also and it's worked well for me thus far.