360 Modification USB Drive v1.6 Posted by XanTium | May 22 17:36 EST | News Category: Xbox360

FrostyTheSnowman released '360 Modification USB Drive v1.6' to replace the 360 Modification Disc(info) tool. From readme/nfo: [QUOTE] Features: - Complete Modding Solution for Samsung/BenQ/Lite-On - USB-Based Successor to 360 Modification Disc Project - iXtreme v1.6 (12x) Firmware - 0800 Mode for Samsung/BenQ/Lite-On (thanks to iXtreme v1.6) - USB Flash/Thumb Drive Bootable! - Supports Samsung TS-H943 - Supports BenQ VAD6038 - Supports Lite-On DG-16D2S - Supports Previously Modded Drives - Supports Previously Spoofed Drives - 100% DOS Based Dumping & Flashing - Fully Automatic Dumping & Flashing - Step-by-Step Instructions - Backup of all drive-related files to USB flash/thumb drive! Changes in v1.6: - 360 Modification Disc v1.6 discontinued in favor of USB-based version (this one) - NTFS support dropped, backup files are now saved to USB flash/thumb drive - NTFS-related freezing issues fixed (due to dropping of NTFS support) - Many code fixes in regards to backup firmware files - Bugs fixed in backup folder generation - Overall speed/performance improved [/QUOTE] Official Site: n/a, by FrostyTheSnowman Download: n/a News-Source: xbins.org

so is this better than iprep+ dosflash?

It's not 'better' necessarily, both iPrep and 360 Modification USB Drive have the same result in the end, except 360 Modification USB Drive also supports Lite-On drives which iPrep does not.

Also, 360 Modification USB Drive is A LOT easier to use for first-time modders because it does everything automatically for you without any special steps, whereas iPrep needs to be prepared specifically for your 360 drive every time you use it.

iPrep is a great program though, don't get me wrong. It's just kind of complicated for first-time modders.

i'm going to flash my friends Lite-on DG-16D2S soon, using your USB Drive method, do I still need to get a spear to extract the key and all that mess?

just snooped around the other mod disc thread about v1.53. i do need spear. blah, thanks though for the new tool, will try it out as soon as i get my hands on a spear.
i assume though that when i start i will simply connect the drive to my PC, power on with USB boot drive in, and follow prompts?

thanks a lot for this frosty!!!!!

Does this automatically extract the key for the Lite-On drives or do we still need the hardware?

Hello, I already got my Liteon key, so If I understand correctly... I can put my key to latest ix1.6 firmware then with this progg copy it to a usb memmory then.. just plug it to my xbox360 elite.. and it will update my fw from 1.4 to 1.6 ??? is that correct?? can anyone write a step-by-step pls thx

Ok, ok sorryy... I just got the file.. started reading the tutorial.. so this usb thing is only to boot your PC in some kind of DOS mode, that will allow you to connect your pc to your xbox and do the same sh*t... useless to me. Jungleflasher will do da job.

You obviously don't get it genius and you don't know how to read either. I am guessing you greet people at Wal-Mart for a living.


I don't mean to be a 1st class A-Hole but now I understand why people get so fed up with some of the posts on here.

Iprep does indeed support liteon

sad but true...

My apologies, I was incorrect... iPrep does indeed support Lite-On drives (it's been a while since i've used/worked with iPrep).

Hi, i'm having some trouble with this USB mod.

I followed the tutorial to make my bootable USB drive, but when i try to boot from it, the text FreeDOS FAT followed by a blinking cursor appears, and it hangs there.

I tried 2 different USB drives, and all the USB ports on my pc.I know that i can boot from USB on my pc, because i used iprep before, and also some usb linux distro.

Any ideas what could be the problem?

did u remember to copy the files from the firmware folder after you prepared the usb drive (files in the folder not the folder itself)

Yes i did, i followed the tutorial and i did exactly as it says.

Just curious if anyone has tried this with a ICH9 controller set to legacy mode.

I also followed the tutorial to the letter and had the same problem. I have tried about 10 times today. I too have booted iPrep with no problems although that was with my old usb stick.

my usb key died yesterday

anyway, still couldn't use your "360 modification" since it can't flash liteon drive without probe and stuff


edit : I mean 1.5 flashed liteon...

Sounds like its a compatibility problem with FreeDOS and USB boot support with your PC's BIOS...

It would be very easy to replace the FreeDOS system files with MS-DOS system files if you wanted to do it, and would probably fix the problem.

PM me for instructions on how to do this.

i need some help. i got the usb loaded with the files, and plug it into my computer, i load it and i follow the steps, cept when it tells me to remove the power for 5seconds, then plug it back in, when it gets to that point at the end it asks if the dump was successful y/n i cant type in anything and end up having to reboot my computer

sorry for double post, but frosty i woulda just PMed you but it wouldnt let me =( i hope you can help

Try harder next time.

And I'm pretty sure Walmart greeters can read. Sometimes they have to read stuff off of receipts, if those alarms go off by the door. So please apologize to Walmart greeters. It's not nice to pick on the elderly.

i am also having the same issue as snk64 hey frosty would you mind posting how to replace free dos with ms dos if so thanks in advance. i dont know what files i need to remove

I hope the CD based version isn't going to die as not everyone can boot a usb stick. Like me.

I love your discs and hope they stick around.

can anyone detail the 360 Mod Drive vs Jungleflasher - or why use one or the other. Thanks.

Just used this to flash a samsung spoofed as a benq this morning went very well.

So simple now looks like this will take over from iprep for me.

Was wondering does anyone know if this software will support a samsung spoofed as a Lite-On DG-16D2S??

readme indicates all spoofed drives

My Brother has the above system but has lost the original Lite-On drive!




cheers

omb

I used the disc based version to flash my spoofed sammy and it worked fine, so I don't see why the usb based version would be any different

Delete the following files from the 360_Modification_USB_Drive_v1.6 folder:

Command.com
Kernel.sys

Add the following files from your MS-DOS distribution to the 360_Modification_USB_Drive_v1.6 folder:

Command.com
Io.sys
Msdos.sys

Then follow the rest of the USB creation tutorial.

ok total noob to lite-on

and i hate reading long boring tutorials.. but alas.. my oldi rrod kicks back ever since that lame 1.5 fw.. so i lost it and did something and its gone!

salvage hdd, sammy drive, fan and lots more..

now the arcade is cheap but possibly a liteon!

how do i do what i have to do with this usb! is it like the sammy plug play

or ck3 pro+an a l probe!

sumbody coment!

cheers

Awesome tool. I'm going to have to use it when I finally upgrade my 360's DVD drive. (Still running iX 1.0 )

Hmm... FrostyTheSnowMan... didn't you used to hang out at ngemu a long while back?

I tried this , and it does load MS-DOS, although it gives me an error message about HIMEM.SYS and something about line 1 in COMMAND.COM, but after that it loads.

However, another problem appears: when it prompts me to press any key to continue on the "Before we can begin, we will need some information for your PC...", i press a key and it quickly skips over the part where i have to enter my sata port, and the same happens with the com port screen...

Someone..please please help..i'm going crazy over this...
here's the situation - I have an NForce3 board...which works perfectly with the Benq on my 360...( i modded the drive to 1.41 using this board)
So basically what i have is a BENQ with ixtreme 1.41 running on it...
I also have a via 6421 card, but the main port (internal) is broken....

Now i'm desperately trying to flash my 360 with the "360 Modification USB Drive v1.6" but have been totally and utterly unsuccessful till now....

Whatever method i try..i get the "mtk vendor intro failed" error...
(btw i have my component cable connected to the xbox)
Am i entering the port info incorrectly...coz i wont say i've tried all the permutations, but ive certainly tried a lot of them...

Could someone please guide me through this....
Would really appreciate any help....


______________
There will be BUGS

guys

do we need the bull ck3 probe and pro kit with this to flash liteon?

please posty

Hi, hope someone can help me out a little here. i'm trying to flash a stock liteon with a ck3 kit and probe. The problem I have is when I boot from USB, I input my VIA port (B800), then my comm port (1) and then tell it I am working with a Liteon. All goes well up till this point when it says it cant write to dos partition do I want to Abort, Fail, Ignore, Retry.......none of which do anything if i choose them. I then have to ctrl_alt_del to get out of the app.

Its as though the stick is somehow write protected :S

Any ideas would be great, Thanks in advance

Yes, you'll need at least a usbextractor to get the key from your liteon, but since you mentioned ck3, you'd need a ck3 pro which comes with the probe

LOL, yeah, I was a HUGE emulation fan back in the day, I was on that site daily (I was even around before it became NGEMU, back when it was called PSXEMU.com), I was totally addicted to ePSXe for the longest time.



Ah yes, that means you probably got your MS-DOS system files from a Windows ME or 98 distribution, which doesn't like the older HIMEM.SYS file...

I'm on vacation until next Sunday, but I will most likely release an official 'MS-DOS' based version of '360 Modification USB Drive' if FreeDOS does indeed cause issues for some users (which seems to be the case so far).

I would expect the MS-DOS version out next Monday (not tomorrow, but the next).

NOTE: If '360 Modification USB Drive v1.6 is currently working for you, don't worry about getting the updated one, it's only a compatibility fix for some users that have issues with FreeDOS on their PC.




The 'MTK Vendor Intro Failed' part is normal, and is supposed to happen.

This is how it should go:

Connect your drive
press ENTER
MTK vendor will fail
press Y
press ENTER
disconnect the power to your 360 dvd drive
re-connect the power to your 360 dvd drive
dumping should start

Please note that the MTK vendor intro failure is normal for my USB drive, and is a big part of the process. Follow the above instructions (just like it says in the actual software too) and you will be fine.



That is a known bug, at first I thought it was related to legacy keyboards, but now it seems to be a bug in Microsoft's CHOICE.COM support application which my disc relies on for firmware checkpoints...

However, I am releasing a new version not this week but next week (Monday, the 1st of June) that will fix this issue, as I will be dropping the 'firmware dump checkpoint' and replacing it with scripting that will automatically validate if the dump was successful. So this bug will be corrected in the next version.



Hmm, yeah I have actually received many PMs regarding this, it seems to me that many people do indeed want the disc-based version to stick around. Perhaps I will update both for each release in the future, so that people have both options available.

So, when I release '360 Modification USB Drive v1.7' (whenever iXtreme v1.7 is released) i will also release '360 Modification Disc v1.7 too.

Thanks for your reply...
I already tried this, but it does not seeming to be moving forward. Everytime it shows a different code...but it does not read the drive. Could it be because i did not "disconnect" the power but used the power button to switch the 360 off and ON.

Also, when i go check the properties for my on board SATA, i get multiple device ID's. Do i need to use a particular ID or any of those would do?

The problem is that you are using your onboard SATA. As stated in the readme and also on the menus in the disc, you need to use either a VIA PCI VT6421 SATA card or an NForce3 chipset. Nothing else will work, AFAIK.

Without the VIA VT6421 card you might not be able to use my disc at all. Some onboard SATA chipsets work with some drives, but the VT6421 is the one that does work guaranteed.

Aside from that though, if you insist on trying to use your onboard SATA, just use the first ID that shows up, like it shows you in the VT6421 tutorial.

Also, if the drive keeps showing a different status and won't let you continue, just unplug/reconnect (or in your case switch your CK3 on/off) until it continues.

For example:

1. Connect your drive
2. press ENTER
3. MTK vendor will fail
4. press Y
5. press ENTER
6. disconnect the power to your 360 dvd drive
7. re-connect the power to your 360 dvd drive
8. dumping should start, it doesn't, go back to step 6. (do this until it does start dumping your drive)

This applies to any screen that shows the MTK vendor failed error. It's normal for the VT6421 too, but the on/off trick might not work with your onboard SATA the way it does with a VT6421 card.

If you continue to have trouble I recommend simply buying a VT6421 PCI SATA card. (they are really cheap, only like $10 on Newegg)

Yeah they're pretty cheap, but I just looked on newegg and the cheapest I found was $24. They got them for $12 here. It's where I got mine... the shipping wasn't the fastest but it was cheap so meh. http://tekgems.com/Products/la-pci22-vt6421a.htm

As mentioned in my first post...i'm trying on an nForce3 chipset...and i also happen to have a 6421 card, but the primary port on that (the one near the front of the machine) is broken...and i assume that is the only one that works..?
But i'll surely try your method .. and hope that works...Thanks

@BigIG91 --yea they're super cheap..got mine for around 9$ on ebay ...just dont feel like buying another one since i have an nForce3...
but i guess i'll have to buy another one if this doesn't work

Ah, I must have missed your earlier post, you should be ok with an NForce3 chipset.

Try the multiple on/off method described in my last post and it should work fine for you.

Also make sure that all your other SATA drives (including CD/DVD-ROM drives and HDDs) are disconnected from your onboard NForce3 SATA chipset when you are using '360 Modification USB Drive' to modify any 360 DVD drive.

NOTE: You can try using the 'good' port on your VT6421, just try using a different port number (from the windows device manager) for your VT6421 when using it with '360 Modification USB Drive'.

Thank you VERY much, I know I appreciate your discs and I am sure many others do as well. We wouldn't bother asking for a certain version of your work unless it worked so splendidly, so once again, thank you for keeping the CD version alive and kicking.

FrostyTheSnowman, can you address this? I don't know what the pros and cons of one vs the other are. Thanks!

Hmm, ok, im sure someone on this forum is going to blast my logic to hell on this one, but here goes:




JungleFlasher PROS:

1. Supports every known drive for the XBOX 360 game console
2. Very technically capable, many options for complicated modification operations (like spoofing)
3. Has direct access to the hardware in each XBOX 360 DVD drive (through the PortIO driver)
4. All-in-one solution (if you have the required firmware files for each drive type beforehand)
5. Supports USB and Serial cables for Lite-On drives
6. Very well designed GUI
7. Compatible with most SATA chipsets

JungleFlasher CONS:

1. Needs to be installed before use
2. Only works with 32-bit Windows operating systems, no other operating system type is supported at all
3. Not 64-bit compatible
4. Designed for professionals, not for people new to modding
5. Requires the PortIO driver to be installed in order to function at all
6. Suffers from freezing issues related to the Windows HAL and driver incompatibilities




360 Modification Disc/USB Drive PROS:

1. Automatic, easy to follow modification process for Samsung/BenQ/Lite-On XBOX 360 DVD drives
2. Does not require an operating system of any kind to be installed on the PC
3. Easily moved/used on different PCs without any prior preparation of the PC
4. Has built-in menus that guide you through every step of the process
5. Firmware files are included, no prior firmware file preparation necessary
6. Runs in DOS, which is MUCH more reliable for hardware flashing operations (DOS is still used to this day for BIOS upgrades by many motherboard manufacturers)

360 Modification Disc/USB Drive CONS:

1. Not intended for complicated modification operations (like spoofing) unless the drive has already been spoofed beforehand
2. Does not support Hitachi-LG XBOX 360 DVD drives at all
3. Text-based menus (no shiny/pretty GUIs)
4. Requires the user to figure out their port for their SATA card beforehand
5. Does not support USB-based dumping cables for Lite-On drives (MS-DOS limitation)
6. Requires either a VT6421 PCI SATA card or an NForce3 chipset (although other chipsets do work)



I'm sure these facts could be easily fought on both sides all day long by fanboys, but the simple facts are that both solutions are great. iPrep is also a good solution. It all comes down to what the end user wants to do, and how easy they want to accomplish it.

P.S. On a side-note, this is post 1337 for me, how ironic...

* DOUBLE POST *

Ok, just to confirm to the modding community, I am going to continue development with both 360 Modification Disc and 360 Modification USB Drive as joint-releases in the future.

In fact, a 'bugfix' version of both will be released on June 1st with the following fixes for both:

- Replacing FreeDOS with MS-DOS due to booting issues on some PCs
- Adding 'validation scripting' to confirm that the firmware backup is correct instead of using the [Y/N] confirmation prompt that is causing keyboard lockups on some PCs
- Cleaning up and revising the instructions/steps for the modding process on each drive to make each step as clear and easy as possible to follow
- An 'official' tutorial will be included that will outline each possible step in the modding process in great detail

So in response to those concerned about the future of the 360 Modification Disc, don't worry, I will continue to update and joint-release both the 360 Modification Disc and 360 Modification USB Drive in the future.

Release of the revised 'bugfix' versions of both is slated for June 1st.

Hello, FrostyTheSnowman,

I did everything according to the tutorial, but I had some problems. I was suppossed to:

* Indicate the SATA port (I managed to do this)
* Indicate either COM 1-2-3 or 4 port (I managed to do this too)

Then I was supposed to choose a location for the Liteon backup. I chose C:/.
When the backup started, I immediately got a message that said: "Unable to...... part1.bat"

Did I do something wrong?
If it's not asking too much, would it be possible for you to go step by step all the way until the end for newbies like me?

Thanks a lot!

FrostyTheSnowman,

First time I will be using your app. I just want to know one thing. I have 3 360's here that have BenQ drives and all have iXtreme 1.4.1 on them.

All I do is run your app and it will install the latest iXtreme 1.6 on them with no fiddling about with using the original firmware to create the ixtreme firmware with correct keys? Do I need to place the original firmware dumped from the drive anywhere on the USB drive?

Easy fix.

When it asks you for the location folder, just put in the name you want only, no C:\ is necessary.

Neither my disc nor usb drive support custom paths for the firmware files, you just simply put in a name for the folder and they are dumped to the location the disc tells you.

So instead of putting 'C:\' like you did, just put in any name you want for the folder (which is created automatically by the disc/usb drive) and you should be fine.

Oh, and yes, I will be creating an exact, step-by-step tutorial for my disc/usb drive in my next release which will be released next Monday, June 1st.



Yep, both my disc and my usb drive will automatically dump your current firmware, convert it to the newest iXtreme v1.6 (with your correct keys) and flash it back to the drive.

The original firmware files are not needed to use my disc.

Im glad you finally did what the crew from modcontrol.com did, the boot CD thing was a terrible idea. booting from flash drive makes alot more sense.