Hello once again everyone here at the xBox Scene "Skinnex" community forums. This time, we have a new and very fascinating problem for the scene to solve. First, however, let me supply you with some background...

Once, I had the xBox "modded" with a softmod, and upgraded hard drive on a Krazy "ndure" version 1 (not 1.1, just 1(.0)), and I thought I might upgrade to 1.1 because of the useful benefits that may be associated with that new version. I went ahead and downloaded the gamesave file, even though I did not have the game anymore. I ran it from the file itself, and first tried hitting the "upgrade from 1.0" button, which failed with some kind of retarded reason. "Thats okay", I said, and just tried to install "anew", because I knew I could always restore from backups, or my old hard drive. It failed, pretty much and presented me with an error thirteen whenever I tried to boot, and error fourteen when I tried to boot with a burned dashboard CD. I slapped the old hard drive back in, restored (but not my backed up games on partition "F", which obviously isn't there on an original hard drive), and used "chimps", that wonderful amazing tool, and recovered back on to the new hard drive. While doing this, I learned an interesting lesson: Using "chimps" will always format your hard drive completely, and so you cannot just copy over JUST partition C, without partition E. Although if you try, you will see the first frame or so of the MS dash, interestingly enough. Anyway, after I formatted and copied again, I was "back in business" and was ready to copy my games back to the hard drive. I copied one, it worked. But now, when I go to launch it, it just sends me right back to the MS Dash. I used DVD2XBOX, and the copy process yielded no errors, so I don't think that is it. Another thing that coincidentally happened right around the time that this stopped working (around the time of the recovery), the Dualboot eject button thing does not work any longer. I made sure the setting was activated before I upgraded the hdd. Now, if I boot the machine, then open the drive, I am presented with error twenty one. I don't know if that has anything to do with anything, but I thought I'd throw that one in there. In my current situation, I would be set to use a recovery disc to completely PROPERLY reinstall the 1.1 or 1 softmod, but my DVD burner is out of comission, which means I'm left with the laptop that only burns CDs, so a recovery disc would indeed need to be a recovery CD. I believe that "frosty" disc from "the usual place" is indeed too large at over a gigabyte. Or, a recovery app might work, or some kind of "virtual cd" or "compressed CD". I don't know. I don't really care about upgrading so much as I do running games from the hard drive, because it speeds up loading times Tons, and If I move my box from place to place, I need not worry about taking discs with me.

Thanks for reading my long "speech" there. Hopefully someone can provide some advice for at least one of my numerous questions, the primary of which would be running games from the hard drive, but you can talk about anything else too though.

Good luck!

- 2 Bunny

So, nobody has figured out any solutions to this other than a reinstallation?

- 2 Bunny

I took my time to completely read your first article. I can't find a question in it?
You are describing what you did, and between the lines I can read that your game backups from the harddisk aren't working anymore. Your dual boot isn't working anymore either.

You don't provide much information to work with.
You are expecting the Community to tell you to delete file x and add file y so that everything works fine again.

I have the impression things already went wrong when you ran the gamesave on the backup of your game. It's not designed to work that way. It's very well possible that your shadowc is active and that it will perform some actions on your shadow instead of your real C.

If you don't follow a tutorial to the letter, you need excellent understanding about how things work, or they won't work at all.

Are you able to get your harddisk in the same modded state as your original modded harddisk? (Using chimp or so?)

regards.

Yes indeed. Everything is as it was before with those two exceptions (the games off the hard drive and the dualboot).

Thank you for taking interest in my question that seems to have lay "dormant" for so long.

- 2 Bunny

Do you have a ftp connection between your pc and your xbox so that you can examine and alter the xbox harddisk contents?
What dashboard are you using on your xbox for the moment?

Yes, I think all versions of the xBox Media Center include an FTP Server. The contents (of the hard drive) are the same as the old hard drive. I think the old hard drive was able to dualboot, and the first time I had upgraded the hard drive it was able to dualboot, but now it can't for some reason. REALLY weird. Maybe that failed additional attempt had overwritten part of the old softmod and started a new one where dualboot wasn't enabled. But that's just a theory...

- 2 Bunny

error 21 on dual boot means that the dual boot dashboard file is missing. As for games, chimp's cloning tool might not properly clones the E drive or something. Best way to sove all these problems would be just reformat the whole hard drive and xboxhdm and recreate the hard drive.

Or you can launch a small dashboard like evox/ unleashx. While its launched format the C/E/F etc drive and copy your softmod files to xbox without rebooting. Its little riskly since if you reboot the xbox before copying everything it will give you error. (even though the dash formatted the drives, it will run because its running from RAM).

So, let's say I used that "Kingroach" aplication of yours that you would normally use in conjunction with xBoxHDM. It creates two folders for the drives, so I would basically just overwrite everything with those and it would work like I had used the xBoxHDM installer script?

- 2 Bunny

YES but you have to do it from a gamesave using FTP (so the shadowC will de disabled)

or use the E:\shadowC_off.bin if it's at Krazy "ndure" version 1.0 (then reboot)



in any case look at the C:\ it will have extra folders that the normal MS dash does not

also when your done save a good copy of C:\ and E:\ so you can allways use it (use generic fonts with s1.xtf and s2.xtf)

So for that "bin" thing you were talking about, I just find it on my hard drive and run it, or does it need to be opened with something?

- 2 Bunny

you just copy any file to E:\

and rename it...



NKPatcher just look's for a file name and if it's there it will not start up the shadowC



NDURE 1.0 and 3.0 E:\shadowC_off.bin



NDURE 1.1 and 3.1 E:\NKP11\shadowC_off.bin

So basically, to recap, I just use my bootable UnleashX CD that works/starts/does FTP Client and I make sure that I just take any file and throw it on the root of my e drive and rename it to shadowC_off.bin, then I just take the files I got from the "KingRoach" installer thingy, copy the contents of each lettered folder to their corresponding drives on my xBox, reboot and BAM everything is changed over? I guess I always thought when you softmod that something is physically changed on one of the chips in the system, but I guess this is not the case.

Anyway, I'll go through and backup what I want to keep, then use that KingRoach installer again, then do the "shadow C" thing, and see what happens. So exciting.

- 2 Bunny

This depends upon what softmod you have on your xbox.

Stop guessing and thinking. A softmod just alters files on the harddisk.

Don't forget to reboot after you added the shadowC_off.bin to your E or E:\NKP11
The shadowc is only turned off upon the next reboot.

regards.

All right, well I have a Krazy version 1 (point nothing), so if what xman said is correct, then I must just have to put "shadowC_off.bin" to the root of drive E, then reboot the system with my UnleashX bootable dashboard CD in the DVD drive, and then copy the files. I'll just back up here real quick, and give that a try, and see what happens.

- 2 Bunny

Don't worry, xman knows what he is talking about.

regards.

All right, so here's how this one went down...

So, I made the ShadowC off File thing, put it on the E drive, rebooted with an UnleashX dashboard boot cd in the drive, and used FTP to copy everything over from there. The only part of this that did not go smoothly was copying over the really large "shadowC.img" or whatever it is called file. It ususally copied over most of it, then it would tell me it failed. So, I burned it to a cd, and tried to copy it over manually, but the CD only made the machine freeze, and I forgot that when you eject it, it takes you back to the dashboard...
LUCKILY, since the rest of drive C copied okay, there was some weird backup other variety of dashboard FTP Enabled (thank goodness), where I was able to start the FTP session again (using FileZilla this whole time to avoid glitches with the Windows FTP client, since the other dashboards are defaulted to a different setting other than my dashboard to only enable one connection at a time instead of five), copied the rest of the files over, and left my apps and xBox Media Center, and linux and stuff like that. I did the xbe shortcut in the E/dash directory in place of the evolution X that was in there. So, now, I was basically at where I was before, booting to the xBox Media Center. The problem with that was, the fan setting for this exploit which was much different than my old one, after the green ring/microsoft logo, then you see an orange ring and it automatically switches it into "high gear" right before the (xBox Media Center) dashboard launches. That delay was never there with the old one. So anyway, I have had to adjust the fan speed manually in the xBox Media Center. So you hear (when you start it up): hummmmmmmmm, VRRROOOMMMM, hummmmmmmmm. The instant you launch any other application, it throws it back into noisy mode. Of course, I figured, well, you just go into the exploit's "home dashboard" and go to the WAFFLE ZONE and just adjust all the annoying settings, so that you don't have a little orange ring and VRROOOOOMMMM when you start the machine. But to my horror/shock, this exploit conained no WAFFLE ZONE TOOLS. GASP! I figured, "oh well, I'll just go under this dashboard's settings menu and manually turn the fan speed down". I tried that, and saved my settings, but to no avail, it was still noisy. Now, on a side note, I remember that my old exploit "krazy ndure 1.0" had an option in its nearly identical UnleashX "home dashboard" to change the "bios loader" or something to that effect. I remember there were two options, and when you pressed the other one and booted the system, you could achieve similar results to what I am experiencing now, so you'd turn it on, and the microsoft logo would show up, but before it loaded the xBox Media Center, a red ring of light would briefly appear, before it shut off in compliance with my dashboard setting to have the ring of light off. No noisy fan, but maybe if I had that option of "bios loader" or whatever it was, I could skip this part altogether. BACK to present time... I have discovered that so far, this "upgrade" has not really fixed any of my problems. I still an unable to run games from the hard drive even after re copying them. It goes to a black screen for a second like it is trying to launch it, but then it just brings you back to the xBox Media Center and does the exact same thing it did before, in the little picture on the bottom of the screen where you can click "open tray" or "close tray" (since no disc is in the DVD drive), you are now presented with the option "Play DVD" even though nothing is in the drive, and nothing happens if you press the button. Of course, this disappears as soon as you restard the unit though. I have not yet tried to run anything on a high definition television set, so I cannot tell you how/if that works. The last problem I always encountered before was with internet television, specifically MegaVideo. Yesterday, I tested it out with an episode of Early Edition, and was amazed to find myself having made it further through the episode than ever before (for those of you just coming in, before the video would freeze, and after fifteen or so seconds, return you to the menu - and yes, I did press the white button, and "dvd player" instead of "mplayer" like is so often suggested). Eighteen or nineteen minutes, to be exact, and it hadn't even stopped as a result of that glitch, merely as a result of me not using the analog stick correctly to adjust the volume. It tried to fast forward, and then it crapped up, so I had to manually stop it. Unfortuanately, even though the xBox Media Center supports "resume from", this doesn't work with flash video in the xBox Media Center for some reason. However, I went to use it again today, and discovered the same problem I always had, the video cutting out after just a few minutes. So, those are the main problems I have tried, and failed to cure through this whole ordeal: Games running from the hard drive, linux in HD (maybe, maybe not, have not tried yet), and internet television freezing randomly.
It may be worthwhile to note, while you were talking about "shadowC" and that it is not enabled in the first place if you launch a dashboard from a gamesave, that that might have been how I failed back on my first attempt at upgrading the Krazy ndure because I was launching what was meant to have been run from a gamesave right off of the xBox Media Center from the file explorer. Do you think that had I did the "shadowC" thing then, that it might have worked right?

Sorry for that long "speech", but this is a very confusing problem that is hard to "condense" into few words. Thanks for all your help and looking into this everyone!

- 2 Bunny

You can adjust the nkpatcher fan speed by adding a file fan.bin to the E:\nkp11 folder.
It should contain a couple of bytes that represent the prcentage of full speed the fan should run.
Once Xbmc kick's in, it will set it's own fanspeed which is why the speed changes at that moment.

If you search this Forum, I am sure you will find some more detailed articles about this topic. There are even pre created fan.bin files for specific speeds.

No one ever told you that reinstalling your softmod was going to fix your problems.

What exact procedure do you use to backup a game and run it from your harddisk?

Have you tried your internet TV stuff on your pc already? Does that run as expected?

Xbmc is not capable to play HD video content without issues.
It's not a limitation of the program, it's a limitation of the xbox cpu power and ram memory.

About your linux issue, you should have the E:\ndts folder with the option to disable the nkpatcher vga patch.

regards.

Three in the morning? You're up early! Anyway, there is a lot of questions/answers/clarifications that need to be made/answered/asked, so I will separate it.



All right, the fan.bin thing clears stuff up, I might look for one. Actually, I never had to make the xBox Media Center override the fan speed until now. Before, I could leave the box unchecked because the other one wouldn't try to mess with the speed on me in the first place. About the fan thing, could it just be made to xBox default? It almost actually seems to me (may just be my imagination/getting used to it) that the fan slows down after some time in that mode (for instance, if you are running a game, or DVD2xBOX or something). Does it normally slow down after a while with FAN.BIN files?



For the running games from the hard drive problem it was supposed to.



The same as I always used to do. DVD2xBOX application. I found later that my "home dashboard" (UNLEASH X) had this option too, but never tried it.



Yep. I can usually always go to TV Shack and watch a little early edition. Its not even like the same failure can even happen, because there is no "menu" to go back to. I noticed though, that of all the other hosts, only megavideo and one other one work at all on the xBox, and the other one did actually work (on the xBox) to my knowledge, but, most newer episodes of house weren't on that host.



I know, but the episodes really aren't high definition. Well, house is, but early edition isn't, that's for sure. Its like from 1995, and high definition wasn't terribly prevalent back then. Probably got recorded originally with a VCR thingy. The exact same thing happens with house. Those might be 480p, but I get usually much further into house than I do Early Edition I noticed.



So I want to disable the patch to use Linux in HD?

- 2 Bunny

It looks like your stuck in a loop with this soft mod issue,might it not be better to slap a chip in and start afresh?
As for Linux as long as you havn't got a 1.6 box everything should be as you want,
But be aware that the xbox cannot always fully function in true HD mode because of its limitations,and in truth I have HD Sky tv running through a LG-HD monitor and its still not as good as expected.

No.



But it is not...



Yes, I know, some HD video, and the system is incapable of anything above 1080i (pretty much 1080p is the only obstacle that is not physically impossible, and to be honest, I've never had to hook it up to a 1080p telly anyway ). This problem is with the system or mod or "vga patcher" like whatshisname said, and I've seen it work before in HD, so you can't tell me it can't be done .



That is not really at all what we were talking about.

Sorry!

Any more suggestions from anyone, or from the conversation between me and that other person (whatshisname) that we were having before are more than welcome! Good luck with this TOUGH ONE for the ol' xBox Scene "Skinnex" Community Forums.

- 2 Bunny

do this

1 delete everything on E:\ except the dash or dashboard folder

2 delete everything on X:\ Y:\ Z:\

3 reboot to the MS dash, it will recreate all needed folders on E:\



and see if your games now work



put back what you want on E:\



the fan and led get reset on a "IGR"

use the fan and led .bin files if you want to change them...

I was only trying to offer some objective advice, I wont be bothering again.

Really sorry for all these "setbacks", but we are at yet another standstill! Imagine that... Yeah, I wasn't thinking, and after messing around with the settings a bit, accidentally set my "home dashboard", UnleashX as my default dashboard again, so I was trying to change it back to the xBox Media Center, but I accidentally overwrote the xboxdash.xbe file in the main C drive (I forgot that this is not your typical Krazy NDURE softmod), and now I get what I had that one time: error 13, and error 14 (If I try to boot from a burnt disc).
BUT! All is not lost. I anticipated potential troubles like these, and I kept my original hard drive, so when I get a chance (I don't personally own any torx screwdrivers, gotta get 'em from a friend), I will most certainly give starting completely over a try, and with either a Krazy or a KINGRoach 1.1.

Anyway, while we're on the topic of those whatever.bin files, do you know of any place where I can get precompiled LED.BIN files also? I found the fan ones easily, but the led ones, not so much. Also, do you know if there is a way to change the softmod's boot order to launch like a backup dashboard? I mean, I know that I could not have avoided my current problem with that, because that was the softmod boot file, but after that, could I have it look in multiple locations for one? I know this is possible with a TSOP sort of thing, but just wanted to know if it was so for softmods too.

Thanks for all your help everyone!

- 2 Bunny

will it still boot using the orig game that it was softmoded with ??



when you get it working

check my sig and get the NKPatcher11_U04

look at the read me...

also check Kingroach sig for his modded version



here is part of the runtime setup file (ref only)

it does have a 3 boot order, but if you use a redirect xbe it will boot it even if what it's pointing to is invalid (IE: XBMC redirect xbe)

NOTE do not put a dash in the shadowC as it's not ready when the dash path is tested



you can setup what you want (may seem overwhelming but it not that bad)

the LED.BIN values are in the table (it's just 1 hex byte)

green is 0F

It boots originals, and only originals (an UnleashX dashboard CD yielded error 14). The problem is, I was borrowing a disc from a friend also for the modification. What I'd like to do, is revert to stock, use a gamesave exploit, and then use a Krazy or a KingRoach from there.



So, how do I benefit from NkPatcher 11.u04? How do I benefit from the "modded" KingRoach file?



I used Universal Extractor on the setup file, but i couldn't find that file anywhere. What format is it in?



How much of that did you type, how much of it do I need to replace, and how much of it was there to begin with? It does seem pretty overwhelming. I'll look into that and go from there.


Oh, one more question that I keep forgetting to ask, lets say I wanted to revert to stock on one of my drives, is there any kind of disc that can automate that process, or can it be done easily from FTP? If your recommend a disc, it has to fit on a CD, my DVD burner is out of comission, so I've only got the laptop and that can only burn CDs.

Oh, another question that I also keep on forgetting to ask. I was kind of hoping to save myself the step of using the other drive or cracking open the machine, and I was wondering, since through my friend, I have access to all three games, and I cannot access the dashboard, but I can boot originals, do any of the exploit games have the option to load the save directly from a USB drive? This time, I have a usb drive formatted to FATX and ready to go, so all i would need is Windows software, but it doesn't do me any good if the xBox can't utilize it.


Thanks so much for all your help everyone here on the xBox Scene "Skinnex" Community forums for "staying with the community" and working with me through my "blunders".

- 2 Bunny

Xman954 showed you a piece of the source code of the nkpatcher program.
The interesting thing in that piece of source code are the byte codes used for the led's to have a specific color.
You only need a 1 byte file with the same codes in it.
If you want the led to become green, just add a 0x0f byte in the led.bin file.


It is configurable trough the files (fan.bin, led.bin, video.bin and a few others).
You sometimes needed to recompile the older versions of the nkpatcher for specific settings.

It will help you understand what you are doing.

Plain ascii. It's part of the nkpatcher sources.

Yes, disable the shadowc and copy the C and E m$dash files back to the C and E partitions.

No need to crack it open. Use the correct torx screwdrivers and unscrew the bottom torx screws. The top lid will come off without any need for cracking it.

I don't think that's possible. I have never read someone doing it.

regards.

Right, but I guess I don't understand modifying the BIN file to 0x0f.



Failed to locate any such file in his signature or on this site.



I don't know how to adjust ascii though. I guess I could live without changing the boot order or some of that other stuff. I'll just find the bin files.



Oh no no. LOL! I was just describing opening it up. I would use screwdrivers, like I always do. I just say "crack it open" as a "slang expression". LOL!



Oh well. One feller on YouTube, where I asked the same question at about the same time (just so I could get a couple of opinions) said you should be able to, but after watching videos of the game, I think there is no option to load it from the card directly. Oh well, by now, I had borrowed the torx screwdriver for a day and "cracked it open ", and have now put the "NDURE KingRoach" onto the old hard drive. I forgot to loosen the center screw for the hard drive caddy, and the ide cable isn't long enough to reach over during the chimps cloning process that I use. I'll just have to borrow it again.

At least we're making progress!

Anyway, thought I might add that now that it boots, booting the xBox and opening the dvd drive gives me error 21. As a sidenote, I found that last time, I think my "shadowc" image didn't copy right, and that is why it let me edit the contents of the c drive. I think this time it did, because in the xBox Media Center, C appears completely empty. It actually would've been helpful last time because I wouldn't have overwritten the main boot file. Oh well. Live and learn.

- 2 Bunny

If your C partition is empty (shadowc working), ftp the unmodded stock M$dash files to that partition.
It should solve your error 21 problem. If you can't ftp to that partition, format it from within your unleashx dash (if you are sure it is empty)

regards

Remind me again, what the stock files that go on the root of the C drive are? Because when I first attempted this looong looong ago, I had no Idea what I was doing and figured I could just run the gamesave dashboard without actually installing the softmod (looking back, I really feel stupid now that I know what I'm doing), I tried putting the xbox media center on it, replacing the ms default.xbe, but I think I left everything else intact. All that to say, the thing required you do a backup before you installed it (I was able to boot the game to change my mind about acutally doing the installation) and it did a backup of what it thought was the unmodded drive. I had altered that a little (as described above), so I didn't get a clean backup.
Anyway, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I believe should be in the C drive of the unmodded console:
xboxdash.xbe
settings_adoc.xip
XBox Book.xtf
Xbox.xtf
Audio
fonts
xboxdashdata.185ead00
xodash

And, in case I actually didn't overwrite it, is the ms dash unmodded xboxdash.xbe file about 1,916 kb when viewed over ftp in a file explorer/browser (firefox, in this case)?
If so, then I think I've probably acutally got it and can proceed with the dualboot thing (useless, but quite nifty).

- 2 Bunny

All right, Update!

I went ahead and trusted my backup. Sure enough, it was a good backup. I copied the entire contents of the backup folder to my ShadowC image folder, and when you launch the xbox media center, then go into the folder, and hit the xboxdash.xbe, the xBox MS dashboard comes right up! No patching required like with my Krazy Ndure 1.0 that I had before.

My only issue now is the dualboot. No matter what, I always get error twentyone. I'll start the system, open the DVD drive tray, and then the microsoft logo comes up, and then the drive starts to close, as if the softmod "took", and then it is about three quarters of the way closed, it pauses briefly, shows error 21, and finishes closing. Does this have something to do with any other files in the non shadow c, because my shadow drive is just fine.

I'm really excited to have this finally taken care of and "wrapped up"!

Just one last thing: Does anyone know where I can get a precompiled led.bin file? Did an internet search, only got three or four pages, and each one yielded fruitless results. Is it very difficult to do all that complicated sounding stuff that some of the other people were talking about in the thread posts? Are there any tutorials or anything on how perhaps?


I would once again like to thank the persistent community here at the xBox Scene "skinnex" community forums for "bearing with me" and getting through this difficulty. I am pleased to have now a far deeper understanding of softmods and patching and soon to come: dualboots

- 2 Bunny

Find the winhex trial program on internet.
Create a file led.txt in notepad and put one letter in it (for instance the 'A').
Save that file. Rename it to led.bin. Open the winhex program and load that led.bin file in it. Change the first byte in that file to one of the color codes that xman954 was showing. You can enter the 2 hex digits, just like it's shown in the sources. So, for orange you should change it to FF. Save that file and ftp it to the xbox expected location.

Your error 21 is likely caused by some missing files on your real C drive. If the softmod is running, the shadowc is active. If you run the M$dash, it will run from the shadowc.

If you have a dualboot, the M$dash will run from the real drive.
The bios will be brought in it's original state so that it's possible to use xbox live.

This means that the dashboard on the real C partition needs to be functional.

regards.

All right, will try.



Don't see how that is possible. I just recently installed the new softmod over FTP and made sure no failed transfers occurred. Could the NDure toolkit help in any way?



Well, not necessarily. I have disabled the shadow a few times so that I could check on the contents of the drive, but anyway. Yes, I have the MS dash set to run from the shadow image. That means: Shadow disabler bin file is NOT present, and all stock ms files are on the root of the drive. Keep in mind that it does run if I start The xBox Media Center first, and then go to file explorer and press the xboxdash.xbe file button on the root of the shadow c.



As in not the shadow? Or a different file on the real C drive?



Where do I put it on the real c drive?

- 2 Bunny

yes use the tool set (to get to the REAL C:\)



you should have C:\xboxdash.xbe (NDURE boot strap)

and C:\xb0xdash.xbe (orignal MS xboxdash.xbe)

So, do I still leave the rest of my ms dash on the shadow c drive? Do I need to transfer any more of it beside the xbe file to my real c drive, or just the single xb0xdash.xbe file?

- 2 Bunny

Yes, you need it to run the M$dash from Xbmc when the shadowc is enabled.

That is a question we can't answer.
Only comparing what is on your real C partition with what should be on it to have a functional M$dash will provide the answers.
The M$dash is not just that one xbe file.

You have a functional M$dash on your shadow c partition. At least every file and folder you have there should be on the real C partition as well. Ndure adds some stuff to that so that the M$dash get's exploited.

regards.

All right, so here's how that went down:

I went ahead and checked my xb0xdash xbe file, and I added all the folders to the real c that weren't already there. When i started up, it would start up ONLY to a random "sign in to xbox live" screen on the ms dashboard. Weather you start it with the dvd drive open or closed it would do that, and you could not boot burned dashboard cds either. Luckily, I was able to recover it and get back to where I am now, but it is really quite a pain to launch it manually every time. So, you either didn't word that last reply right, or something is busted here. It is all fixed for now, and we're back to error twentyone on dvd drive ejected, but it would be nice to have a fix for this.

- 2 Bunny

That's not random, it's one of the triple boot options.
Depending upon the existence of a bios.bin file in your e:\nkp11 folder, it will boot the M$ online dash (the screen you are seeing) or the regular M$dash. The contents of the file are not important. It's the existence that counts.

This is again normal. The softmod is disabled so that you don't get banned when you use xbox live.
The idea is:
power on with power button = modded state with Unleashx or Xbmc dash.
power on with eject button = unmodded state to use xbox live (boot M$dash or M$ online dash)

After you ftp'ed the missing stuff to the real C, have you tried booting with the power button?
Are you sure you haven't overwritten some files / folders on your real C?

The xboxdash.xbe on your real and shadowc are 2 different files with the same name...

regards.

I believe I only have a fan.bin file in my nkp11 folder at this point. The thing is, I couldn't do anything within that "sign in" screen. If you pressed "sign in to existing account" or whatever it was, or the settings button, nothing would happen, just the noise that I had pressed the button, but the screen just stayed there. Same if you hit back. Next, if you hit the middle button though, it would reset, and take you back to the same screen. If that was not a glitch, and indeed a feature, it was very much broken. And how is it triple boot? I thought the tray can only be open or closed, which would only mean one of two, which would only mean dual, or so I thought.



Yes, I did try booting with the power button, and yes, it did the exact same thing. I did not overwrite the xboxdash.xbe file though. Just for the record, which files and folders belong on the root of the REAL c drive, not the shadow? I think that might be where we are going wrong here. I Think I might've overwritten the fonts folder, which is how the whole exploit takes place, I thought, so That is what I am worried about being the possibility. I would use the Krazy NDure at this point, but the gamesave loader for that is broken, and would have to be done manually, which broke the xbox before. I can't afford to do that anymore, because I am presently using my backup original hard drive.

Thanks for all your help everyone! We can get through this.

- 2 Bunny

Oh, update! (Don't forget to read my post above though)

I just tried running a game from the hard drive again with the new "amazing" softmod, and still no dice. It starts, the screen flickers a bit, and then it takes you back to the xBox Media Center, but here's an interesting clue that may prove interesting: When it takes you back to the dashboard (there is nothing in the dvd drive) after the failed attempt at launching the game, it shows in the little dvd drive icon at the bottom (where it would normally say "open tray") "Play DVD", even though there is nothing in the drive. Pressing it does absolutely nothing at all, but it goes back to the normal ("open tray") as soon as you reboot the console. I'm using DVD2xBOX. Any ideas here?

- 2 Bunny

PS: Don't forget to read my post above this one, it wouldn't let me "edit" for some reason.

Yes, this might explain the broken OnLine dash coming up. It's the Online dash xbe that is exploited.
If the exploit doesn't kick in anymore, you are stuck with that dash.


This could be a problem with the gamesave folders on the E partition. Maybe the UDATA or TDATA folders don't exist anymore. Maybe the E:\cache folder doesn't exist anymore? If they exist, are you sure those are writable? Are you sure you still have some free space on the E partition. Have you tried to erase the XYZ partitions? Have you erased the contents of the E:\cache folder? Are you sure dvd2xbox was able to rip the whole dvd without a problem? Sometimes, parts of a dvd becomes unreadable. If you launch the original default.xbe from the dvd, does it start the game?

Triple boot:

1. Power on with the power button.
2. Power on with the eject button, no bios.bin file in the E:\nkp11 folder.
3. Power on with the eject button, bios.bin exists in the E:\nkp11 folder.

2 or 3 gives you the M$dash and M$online dash.
I just don't know which one does what, as I never power my system with the eject button.

If the xbox clock chip indicates a battery failure when you switch on with the power button, you will get the M$dash clock setting screen. After the clock is set, you can IGR to get to your modded dash.

regards.

All right, Gotcha.



So for the dualboot, basically, I need the main xbe file from the shadow c to be my xb0xdash.xbe on the real c drive. I also need every other folder that is in the Shadow C (the full ms dash) on the REAL C drive, even if it is not alredy there? What about those duplicate files that are xb0xdash_ffp.xbe or somethign like that? What are those, and do they have any significance?


Oh, and update on the copy games, I got bored of trying to mess around with DVD2xBOX, so I did it the OLD SCHOOL WAY in the NDURE ToolShed, and used the "copy game disc" button from the dashboard there. That worked with Big Bumpin' (that and enter the matrix are the two "trouble games"), but a few files just refused to copy on enter the matrix, and nothing would make it work. It could read the files perfectly fine, just couldn't copy 'em. So, I tried that in DVD2xBOX, this time with ISO Ripper turned off, and at the end it said "certain number of files renamed...", and I think that has something to do with the filesize/length/length of title limit of the FATX file system. So, after some trial and error, that problem is now fixed. Now, just that pesky error 21 on dualboot...

- 2 Bunny

Take a look at the xbox linux forum. They have a list of all the files/folders that belong to the M$dash. An even better solution is extracting a Slayers rescue iso. It contains the stock M$dash 5960 files and folders of the unmodded dash. You might be able to google for those as well. Carefully verify that all stuff present there exists on your real C drive as well.
Your C drive will contain extra folders like the bios one and the shadowc one which belong to the softmod.

I can't remember the existence of a 'xb0xdash_ffp.xbe' file.

It is already a couple of years ago that I tried to understand the way the softmod was working.
I forgot the details of the "eject button" boot sequence. It was my opinion that the xb0xdash.xbe (with the zero) was launched instead of the xboxdash.xbe (the normal M$dash main xbe).
I just don't understand how they can do that without altering the bios.

And as you know, my opinion isn't important here. I will try to launch the xb0xdash.xbe and see if that brings me to the M$dash. This would prove that at least part of my statement is correct.

That file does launches the M$dash. In your case, you will probably get the error 21 as well.

regards.

I know, I already have a working full stock MS Dash on my Shadow C drive. I just can't dualboot it. My question is, what MS dash files and folders do I need on the root of my real c drive. Launching xb0xdash.xbe from the non shadow (the REAL) C Drive presents me with error twentyone which leads me to believe that I need to have some sort of ms dash on my real (non shadow) C drive.

Here is what I've got on the C Drive:
(Folders)
bios
media
resc
shadowc
xboxdashdata.185ead00
xodash
(files)
filler1.img
filler2.img
shadowc.img
xb0xdash.xbe
xb0xdash_ffp.xbe
xboxdash.xbe

Here is what I have on the shadow C drive (a fully functioning ms dash, both xboxdash.xbe and xboxdash_ffp.xbe load to the same working ms dash):
(folders)
Audio
fonts
shadowc
xboxdashdata.17cdc100
xboxdashdatta.185ead100
xodash
(Files)
settings_adoc.xip
xbox book.xtf
xbox.xtf
xboxdash.xbe
xboxdash_ffp.xbe


I'm gonna try putting the xboxdash_ffp.xbe from the shadow c onto the xb0xdash_ffp.xbe on the real drive, and maybe try to add (maybe) some other folders in (but not the fonts folder I believe)(I might not try messing around with files so much, because I just got my hard drive cloned and put back in, and it is very irritating to have to go through with mokeying around with taking it apart).

When it all boils down, here is the question: WHAT PARTS OF THE MS DASH NEED TO BE ON THE REAL C DRIVE IN ORDER FOR IT TO BOOT TO IT WITH THE TRAY OPEN? (Thats caps, not yelling ) That is the big question here. Based on that post above, it sounds like I need to have everything there, but with experience we know that cannot be true. To update, I tried making xboxdash_ffp.xbe from the shadow drive xb0xdash_ffp.xbe on the real c drive, but still no go, still error twentyone. Can anyone figure this out? I am completely stumped.

- 2 Bunny

The filler1.img, filler2.img and shadowc.img should be in the shadowc folder instead of the root of your C partition.

I have no idea where that xb0xdash_ffp.xbe comes from. The name simply doesn't ring a bell to me.

My xboxes have the debug dash on their C as well. So I am unable to tell you what is needed for a functional M$dash.

There is an article here created by ldotsfan where he explains how you can manually do all the ndure script actions with xplorer360. Those are the only differences between a normal M$dash and an exploited dash.

Extract a Slayers iso. Check it's M$dash file and folder structure.

Check your folders on your real C. They should contain files as well.
Just a correct root structure isn't enough.

If you run the M$dash from within your modded dash, the one on your shadowc is running.

If you run the M$dash from an eject button boot, the one on your real C is running.
The shadowc isn't active at that moment. The xbox is running unmodded. It won't play backup disks either.

regards.

All righty. Gave that a try. I got rid of the duplicate shadow c and filler .IMG files, and I got rid of the filler2.img and filler3.img from the shadowc folder (I deleted them from the folder so I would have enough space) and copied every file and folder from the Stock MS Dash backup to the real c, but running xb0xdash.xbe or starting the machine and then opening the tray still fail and present me with that stupid error twentyone. Do you think maybe sending a message to idotsfan who seems to be more educated about this might help? I tried some of those pointers in his tutorial, most of which I had already done, nothing worked anyway. Both xb0xdash.xbe and xb0xdash_ffp.xbe do the same thing (they do the same thing when you launch them from the shadow c: They work, but if you put them on the real c and name them with a zero instead of o, you magically get an error twentyone). I wonder if I have the MS dash labeled wrong.

- 2 Bunny

the xb0xdash.xbe is 1,961,984 bytes ??



if you have a E:\NKP11\boot1.bin

or E:\boot1.bin DELETE IT

No boot1.bin

The xb0xdash.xbe is exactly that size.

Does that help any? I kind of thought, could I maybe do a redirect xbe file to redirect it in a way we know actually works? If not, carry on.

- 2 Bunny

The only way to find your problem is checking all your files and folders on your real C partition.
You must have overlooked something.
Maybe there is a file that didn't ftp or copy over completely due to the disk being full or another reason.

The correct M$dash C files and folders of the 5960 dash are in the slayers rescue iso. You can extract that iso with the Qwix program. You will need to check every file and folder to see if the one on your real C partition and the one from the Slayers have the same length.
I know it's a terrible job, but it is one we can't do for you.

I know you have a working dash on your shadowc, but I have more trust in the slayers files.

If you see something suspected, report it first before you start experimenting with it.
Rushing things might break the softmod.

Error 21 is what you get when the M$dash can't find a file or folder. The tricky part is finding which one.

You can't redirect anything. The xbox is running unmodded so the xbe's need to be signed ones.

regards.

All right! It got fixed. It turned out the backup I had been restoring from was missing a handful of files in the xboxdashdata.185...blahblahblah folder, and it now miraculously works! Even the uaudy in the MS Dash works too - nifty. I found out what happens if you don't have uady installed and you try the <<eggsbox>> thing, it gives you a long list of credits. That developer who thought he'd/she'd hide that thought he/she was cool and undercover, but it turned out to be a back door for exploits! I can't believe I didn't try that at first anyway makes me feel kinda stupid. But thanks for all your help obcd and all those other countless people who have assisted me in my troubles in this thread you're all so helpful. Good Job.

- 2 Bunny

It wasn't a back door for exploits. It was an "easter egg" to launch the credits screen.
As the audio exploit only worked on older dashes, the easter egg was used as a method to launch such a dash. I have only seen a couple occasions in which it could be used to rescue an otherwise messed up softmod.

I am glad you fixed your issues.

regards.