I currently have an Xbox360 with a Benq drive and had flashed it with Dosflash16 & IXtreme ver 1.4 awhile ago but want to play some of the newer games and understand I need to update to 1.6.

I have my original .bin file and my hacked 1.4.bin file stored on some USB drives. I am going to update to IXtreme 1.6 using IPrep 008.8 and wanted to confirm I will be doing it correctly. I will be powering my drive from the Xbox’s power brick and will have the Xbox connected to pc via SATA cable.


Steps.

1. In Windows open IPrep 008.8 and load Benq "ix16-benq.bin file and create my bootable floppy.
2. Reboot the computer and boot from floppy.
3. Power the drive.
4. At c:\ type dben xbox serial number.
5. Point to the correct SATA port.
6. When prompt power off drive close tray 1/2 way and power drive on again and continue.
7. Enter the correct SATA port.
8. Choose Read.
9. Save file as benofw.bin
10. Pop the floppy disk out and insert in another computer to make copies of the .bin files.
11. Insert floppy back in system used to update firmware.
12. At c:\ prompt type fben xbox serial number.
13. Point to the correct SATA port.
14. Choose Write.
15. Enter file name bencfw.bin
16. Done

Also will I need this activate.iso file for anything? I have a couple of original games and back-ups.

Thanks for any feedback I can get.

hmmm www.jungleflasher.net faster and easier, and totally dumb ass proof.

I was considering JungleFlasher but I read somewhere that it may have a freezing issue with Via 6421 Sata chipset boards and I am using a Via 6420 so I figured it was in the same range and would be better to use IPrep as I would be less likely to have a problem.

It only freezes with Liteon drives, you will be fine with your Benq.

Thanks, I will go it a go tonight and see how I make out.

sounds about right as far as the steps. altho i dont believe that you need to remove the floopy, copy the files to another comp and reinsert it before flashing. you can do all of that after the fact.

i used iprep for my benq because i didnt like the wqay jf worked. i mean i did it in jf before but it would slow my comp down (it would freeze for a few seconds every 8 seconds or so, so it took longer. but it may be because i need to reinstall it, or like you said, using the via 6421 chipset...
ald also when i did my benq in it, it would rear, erase, and flash. but i would get a write verification fail when using it. altho it still properly flashed it. i googled it and i seemed to be an issue w/ the benq and jf from what i read.

i made sure i had a few backup copies of my ofw.bin file just incase something happened. but like you said. launch iprep, create your 1.6fw, save it to the bootable drive. power off pc. connect 360 and disconnect all other drives (just incase), power on pc, set it in the bios to boot from the usb. power on the 360 and set it in vendor mode, follow onscreen instruction for dben, then fben and follow onscreen instructions, shut down xbox and pc. reconnect necessary connections.

I didn't have a whole lot of time to work on this so I decided to just us IPrep becuase I already looked into how to do it. I did my xbox first. Everything went as planned except when I need to open the drive and push the drive tray in half way since I don't have a connectivity kit I had to pull the power from the back of the cd-rom and it seem to do the trick.

I was worried when I put it back together and turned my xbox on as my video on the screen was messed up and I could hear audio fine. I took it upstairs and plugged it into my standard tx using the video cables and work so I knew it was fixable. When back downstairs and connected back to HDMI and still a problem so I un-plugged my receiever as the HDMI goes through it and that did the trick.

I then did my friends xbox and his was as easy as 1, 2, 3, so I didn't mined using IPrep.

To to all for your feedback.