Still trying to get to grips with this modding stuff, so apologies for the noob question...

I did a softmod a couple of months ago, I used xboxhdm linux boot disk and have the UnleashX as the front end.

Anyway, I had a 40GB Seagate drive, and it looked compatible from the list, so I decided to try and swap it in. I was following the quide at http://www.XS Filter -/html/xbox-tutorials-185.html, and everything seemed to go well, but when I put the 40GB hard drive in, I no longer have the UnleashX interface, it's just the regular Xbox interface. I did copy the contents of the C and E drives, so they were added to the linux.iso, so I reckon they should have been added, but wondering why I don't have the unleashX interface.

Do I need to softmod again, or is there something I'm missing?

The link to the tutorial has been blocked, but it will almost certainly be one of two things:

1. Because you didn't bypass shadow C before you copied your C partition to make the new disk
2. Because you didn't select the correct options when running xboxhdm.

Read the link in my signature about softmod hard drive upgrade options, then consider using lxhdm, which is implemented in HeXEn (Google Heimdall's Xbox Engineering Disc). Alternatively read the "Build a new softmod disk with eeprom" link.

Ah yes, I see that the tutorial is blocked. The title is "Install Larger Hard-Drive into SoftModded Xbox", first hit on google.

Thanks, I'll have a look at your link. Will using lxhdm help me get over the issue I have when booting to an error 21, as the Aerogel capacitor had to be removed, and I'm not really inclined in putting in a replacement? Or are there any other solutions to this error whilst leaving the capacitor out?

If having the capacitor removed means that your Xbox throws an error 21, and you installed the original softmod correctly, then the method of building the new disk will have no effect. However, if it's a bad softmod problem then HeXEn will fix that for you, because it will properly install Kingroach NDURE 3.1 or Krayzie 1.1.1.

That tutorial is incomplete, because it totally ignores properly installed softmods with shadow C protection.

I'll never get this done...

Whats the latest version of Hexen, is there any specific file/version I should look for?

I got a torrent last night called "HeXEn (heimdall's xbox engineering disc) rar", but when I burn the ISO, it's not bootable. I burned it on the same setup that I was able to burn the xboxhdm.iso, and that iso works fine.

Should the Hexen file contents be visible when read through Windows Explorer, because when I try to read the Hexen burnt disk, I get a message that the drive is not accessable, that "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable". The rar file it was downloaded in extracted fine without any errors.

hexen is a xbox disk.. it boots on a softmoded/hard moded xbox.
The best way (i find) to view the files is to use magic iso or similar and use that to open the iso in windows.
you may want to find a better copy of it..
Google can find it "non torrent"
try searching for this in google:
heimdall's xbox engineering disc hexen -torrent

Its a good idea "when you have softmoded the box" to use krazie tools profesional mode or hexen disk to start the box with shadow c dissabled.
Then you can ftp the C and E drive to your pc. and use that to build a xboxhdm master disk (thats what i call it)
this disk can then prepair any hard drive you like and it will be softmoded.
if you have a flopy drive you can then make a locking flopy with the eeprom of any xbox you want. us the xboxhdm master disk you made to prepair the hard drive. then use the locking floppy to lock them.
This way you only ever need the one cd. and the floppy can be edited to lock which ever eeprom you have.

Alternatavly you can burn a new cd every time with the eeprom.

Ok, downloaded another Hexen torrent, "HeXEn 0.99B11-22.rar" this time, file inside unfortunately is the same as the first one I downloaded, has the same CRC, CA0663C2.

Have tried burning with Nero and ImgBurn, but end up with CD-Rs that have clearly data burned onto them, but with no files visible, and seemingly 0 bytes on them.

Any other boot disks I can try downloading that might be able to help me get going on this?



Thanks, didn't see your reply whilst making my last post there.

I was wondering whether the Hexen disk was for the xbox, but when I tried it, the xbox just booted to the unleashX interface. Is there anything else I need to do, other than put it in the xbox, and reboot it?

You need to burn the iso as an image to DVD-R. You then cold boot the Xbox with the HeXEn disc in the drive.

Alright, I've checked the burned Hexen disk in MagicIso, and I'm seeing the files there, so that's one variable out of the way.

But it still won't boot in the softmoded Xbox.

So at this stage, I'm wondering what the best way is to proceed...

I was planning on putting the original 10GB hard drive into storage, so perhaps it would be best to do this now, and just continue with the 40GB hard drive I seem to have successfully turned into a hard drive that works in the Xbox, but isn't "softmoded". For that drive, I backed up the eeprom, and copied the C and E drives across to the 40Gb hard drive, using the tutorial I linked to earlier.

Or would I be better off starting from scratch again? In which case, can someone point me to a good tutorial, as the one I used originally doesn't seem to have been the best, as I ended up with that error 21 at each cold boot.

Thanks.



Alright, will try that, I was burning it to CD-R's.

burn it at the slowest possible speed.. "dvd-r 4x or slower"

if it will not boot with the hexen disk this is what i would do..

provided The 10gb hard disk is soft modded properly i would put that back in the xbox
i would boot with hexen and use it to install krazies 1.1.1 ndure softmod (unleash x basic install not minimal)
i would follow on screen instructions and after a rebbot and it says Press A to enable shadow C: I would press A i would boot again with the hexen disk and then FTP in to the xbox when hexen is running.

I would then copy the C and E partitions from the xbox to my pc.
I would unlock the 40gb hard disk and boot to windows with it connected to the pc.
I would use xplorer360 to view the contents of the drive and i would populate the C and E drives on the 40gb drive with the C and E files i had ftp'd from the 10gb xbox.
(one folder at a time to help reduce the possibility of xplorer360 crapping out)
I would then relock the hard disk and it should be ready for the xbox..

an alternatave to xplorer360 would be to burn a new xboxhdm disk with the C and E files that were ftp'd from the 10gb..

its importaint to get them from the xbox when the shaddow C is disabled. You can tell that hexen has dissabled the shaddow c because the light on the xbox will be red.

If the 10gb hard disk would not boot teh hexen disk either it could be that you need to clean your dvd lens. or burn it slower. or possibly use better media.

you can still dissable the shadow c without hexen if you use krazie tools in profesional mode. or add a specialy named .bin file to your xbox via ftp..
"i dont remember what it is but it could be "Shadowc_off.bin"

Yep, still no dice.

Burned the DVD-R and it won't boot in the Xbox, and when I try it in MagicIso, it gives me an error message that it's "missing primary volumn in the ISO file".

Burned with the slowest speed it would allow me (1x), I've used the burner and the media (both Philips), and they've worked with the few games I've done previously. I'm testing PGR on this Philips media, and its running fine, so unlikely the lens.

Could be the burner, it seems to have given up writing some Maxel DVD-Rs I have that were working previously. Tested with another burner and it wouldn't acknowledge either media, only CD-Rs, and a DVD-RW funnily enough. Maybe I just need a new burner. I'll give it one more go on a laptop burner, it's seen little use, so hopefully the drive will work ok. I know media is cheap, but it's still a pain in the hole when the drives are churning out coasters.

Nothing frustrates me more than wasting dvd's or cd's
Im super cheap when it comes to the things. the loss of a dvd to me is compareable to some one els losing a 1tb hard disk..

any way if you read my previous post you should see that its possible to do without burning hexen or a xboxhdm cd. As i have coverd the diferent options.
Its also a possibility that there are no softmoded files so the hexen disk simply will not boot because the system is not softmoded.. (again i coverd that in the abpove post)

hope you get it sorted out.
Il bow out now and leave you in the more than capable hands of heimdall

Finally, the laptop burner has made a Hexen disk that I can now boot on the Xbox.

Thanks for the detailed post, there was only the first line about burning at the slowest possible speed before I went to dig out the laptop, so I'll keep that in reserve and press on with what the Hexen disk can do for me.

I've had my share of trouble with burners too, looks like the two standard ones I have are beginning to have issues, they both seem to be handling reading/writing of CD-Rs ok, but are more tempermental with the DVD-Rs. On a side note, if anyone has any recommendations on a good, reliable DVD writer, I'm all ears.

Thanks again for all the help and direction.

i find flashing firmware to them usualy helps keep them going most of the time its the OS that makes the things burn poorly..
I notice that if you NEVER EVER EVER use the built in windows burn to cd function they work for longer.

Ok, I've managed to install the Kingroach Softmod from the Hexen disk, and the Xbox is now booting to the UnleashX frontend, without throwing up the error 21, so happy days in that respect.

So now looking to make an xboxhdm master disk as described above, as I have another Xbox (found in an electronic waste dumpster, no less!) and will eventually upgrade both to 80GB, but for now, just want to get the 40GB up and in there, but falling at the first hurdle, how to disable shadow C. Do I boot with the Hexen disk, and use a command from that? Or is there some tool already on the hard drive when I installed the Kingroach NDURE 3.1?

The tool you need is called NDURE Toolset (or something very similar), and it's available from the UnleashX menu under System Settings (or something very similar - I can't remember exactly what I called it, and I can't check because I'm not at home at the moment, but it's fairly obvious). Once the LED turns red then shadow C is bypassed and you can take a copy of the real C partition.

However, don't use xboxhdm, use HeXEn option 2.4 to upgrade the hard disk. It's really simple, and has on-screen instructions.

Drat, I'm getting an error 13 now. I was having issues with the network settings, trying to get them to work, trying between static and DHCP, shutting down and rebooting, and it's now giving me this error.

Am I going to have to do a hotswap again? The unit seems to be running legit games, so hopefully it's not terminal.

Will HeXEn still boot?

No, HeXEn doesn't boot.

I can hear it checking the DVD drive, then the hard drive makes some noise, which finishes with a short quiet buzz.

When I swap in the unmodded 40GB that I built yesterday, the Xbox boots up ok to the MS dashboard, so something either got corrupted or damaged on the 10GB hard drive.

EDIT: I was reading another thread about the error 13 http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=733429 and see shambles1980 says a newer game should restore the corrupted files. Would something like FIFA 06 do this? Do I need to do anything to prompt it to repair, or is it automatic?

EDIT 2: It's ok, I see your post where you explain what to do, I'll give that a go.

EDIT 3: It doesn't seem to be restoring the dash. I tried 2 games, FIFA 06 and Midway Arcade Treasures 2, and when I go setup an account, it goes back to the Xbox splash screen, and when I reboot without the disk, it still goes to error 13.

it could be a corrupted hard disk issue..
you can try to save files to the hard disk (save game) And see if it will do that..

I think Error 13 is a clock related error. and basically says I cant see the time so i want to change the clock but i cant get to the dashboard..

Given you installed the softmod with hexen it should be fine..
Did you delete anything when the shadow c was disabled?? you could have deleted/renamed something that you should not have done...

You need to find away to replace the files..
although your xboxhdm disk dosent have the correct dash files on it you do seem to have the correct eeprom so you can use that to unlock the hard drive and replace the files and check for errors using xplorer360.

I dont use kingroach to install my softmod i use krazies. but i will assume that it also installs save game backups as a backdoor.
I always use splinter cell backdoor because it is the easiest to find a exploitable copy of (probably helped the game sales Lots)

If you did install a back door and if it was splinter cell then boot up with splinter cell and load the save game exploit to help repair it.
At the least it should give you back your ftp access.

HeXEn always installs all of the gamesave exploits as backdoors.

Error 13 isn't the clock error, it's dashboard not found. Error 16 is the clock error.

My guess is that the disk has failed in some way, or that as shambles1980 says you deleted something while you had bypassed shadow C.

I tried with a couple of games, and it seems to be saving games alright.

Don't believe I deleted any files. At the time, I was trying to get the network working again (after using HeXEn to put on Kingroach, I couldn't connect the xbox to the PC like I could previously), and was rebooting quite a few times after changing setting (static/DHCP and IP numbers), as I wasn't able to connect to the PC with FXP.

When you say "corrupted" and "failed" in relation to the disk, do you mean like a non-recoverable situation (physical damage/wear) or bad files?

Should I try rebuilding the hard drive, like what I did with the 40GB hard drive yesterday, see if it at least can get past the error 13 message? And then do another softmod on it with xboxhdm? Or just proceed with the 40GB, should that be possible?

Thanks again for the help, it's much appreciated.

It would definitely be worth trying xboxhdm to rebuild the disk, but if all you were doing was changing the IP address from the UnleashX dash then it's very possible that the disk has physically failed, because changing the IP address can't remove the softmod.

Seems I just hit dead ends with this...

When trying to rebuild with xboxhdm, when I get to the page with 8 options, I get a return of "Invalid choice!" when I select most options

Also, items 1 to 5 are bounded by "disabled" in brackets, like this:



It worked fine when I built the 40GB. Not looking good for this HD, is it?

Is it (usually) possible to unlock these hard drives, and check for errors or the SMART data in a regular PC?

i use xboxhhdm 1.9 (cd based) and i can unlock them.
I also use hddregen2011 to repair disks.

Yes, the version of xboxhdm I'm using is 1.9.

I put in the 40GB that I built a few days ago, and the same options are disabled. Both hard drives are saving games saves, but the original 10GB, I'm not so sure about its physical integrity, the soft buzz it's making when it comes to a point where the Xbox system no longer needs to access it could maybe be an issue with the hard drive head, when it's coming into park?

Another thing I notice when xboxhdm is booting up, when it finds hda, and the messages are scrolling up, I can see some message like "Drive Ready SeekComplete Error" flicking up numerous times as the messages scroll up, and it happens for the 10GB and 40GB disk. Is this message normal? And is there any way to pause the messages?

Since the 40GB hard drive doesn't look like it carried the softmod from the attempt to upgrade from the 10GB (because I didn't understand about disabling shadow C at the time), I'm wondering if there is any way I can use my other Xbox hard drive to to attempt to rebuild on the 1st Xbox?

I have backed up the eeprom file from the first one, so is it possible/feasible to use the files from the 2nd Xbox, combine with the eeprom from the first Xbox, to build a new hard drive for the 1st Xbox?

Do I need to softmod the 2nd Xbox first? Or is it possible to somehow clone an Xbox hard drive, and put the eeprom on it? Is the eeprom on the hard drive, and specific to the Xbox it was originally on?

The eeprom isn't on the hard drive, it is used to lock the hard drive.

Yes, you can in principle use the files from one Xbox to softmod another, but the easiest way is to build a clean softmod file set and use the eeprom to lock the disk to the appropriate Xbox. The link in my signature "Softmod with eeprom" tells you how to do this. You can then use xboxhdm to unlock the 40GB drive (no hotswapping, so no danger of bricking the disk), install the softmod on the disk, then relock the disk.

it will kick up a lot of errors if the diskk is locked so unlock it (the 10gb) and then restart using the "reboot" command you should then be able to re build the disk..
Personaly i would unlock the hard disk (10gb) then use hddregen2011 either in windows or from a bootable usb/cd to try and repair it.
a 320gb hard disk with 0 errors takes aproximatly 2 hours with a ata 100/133 cable or 7 hours with a non ata 80 cable.
With errors its totaly dependant on the ammount of errors that there are, ive had 160gb hard disks report that it will take them 8 months to repair. (i bin them)

regarding the 40gb you really should just build a correctly made softmod xboxhdm installer disk with the eeprom that you already have.
so like heimdall says follow the link in his sig.

Thanks again for the pointers...

I understand a bit more about unlocking/locking, so did get back in to try and rebuild the c and e drives. First couple of times, it didn't work, I can't remember the errors, it doesn't leave them up long enough, but I eventually got it to "wipe the fatx" after a couple of goes, and then xboxhdm seemed to rebuild successfully, but after locking the hard drive again (never thought I use a floppy disk again!), I still get error 13.

So I got HDDregen, and it's running now, and finding errors. It flew through the first 20%, and regenerated the first 18 errors, but it's up at about 50 now, and hasn't regenerated any since the first 18.

I have to go out for a few hours, so will leave it running. If it hasn't progressed much, should I assume that the hard drive is kaput? When I got this unit a few months ago, it was filthy inside with a good layer of dust, so I'd say it was well used and loved, so maybe the hard drive was waiting to fall over he edge?

When I came back after about 4 hours, the PC was at a "Press F1 to reboot, F2 for setup..." screen, is it looked like it crashed out.

Tried running a few other thing like prescan, but when it was hitting about 20% each time, the process would slow almost to a halt with delays and attempts to regenerate the bad sectors, so I guess the hard drive is toast.

I'll go back to the 40GB and try the "Softmod with eeprom" procedure from Heimdall.

Alrighty, back in business. I followed the instructions for the "Softmod with eeprom" with the 40GB, and all went smoothly (only thing that I stumbled on was how to run the ndure script, but I tentatively pressed ENTER, and it was the correct thing to do).

Couple of things just to clear up please:

On a cold boot, I still get the error 21 (reboot, and it goes to the UnleashX interface). Is the only way to get this error not to show up is to use the Hexen disk again? I had gotten used to the UnleashX interface that's on it now, and would prefer to use it if possible for now (still a novice at this, and like to use the "file explorer" to boot emulators).

Also, as UnleashX is booting up, there is quite a bit of disk access, is this normal? It's about 10-12 seconds.

Anyway, thanks for the help and pointers, I really appreciate the guidance, and I've learned a lot. Going to have a look inside the old 10GB, see if I can see any physical damage, and need a couple of magnets.

if the xbox boots up hexen. use hexen disk to install the softmod this will get rid of the error 21 screen.

you can tell it to regenerate everything in range even if not damaged..
when it locks up "freezes" stop the process and then use windows to format partitions 4gb chunks..
if it cant do 4gb try 2gb excetera..
When you have asmany formated as you can run hdd regen again.
and repeat eventually you will be able to windows format the whole drive.
Do a scandisk on it then hddregen it again.
if your lucky it will be able to run all the way through..
If your getting lots of delays check your ide cable.
If it keeps poping up new bad sectors it may be a good ideaa to give up on it.

Thanks for that.

Tried a few of the suggestions above, but it was becoming too time consuming, so have gone with the last, and have given up on it. When I looked at it in closer detail, it looks like there was a small dent on the top of the hard drive case, so maybe something fell on it. Anyway, lesson learned, when the hard drive is in the Xbox, replace the cover! I'd been working with the cover off the whole time, so it's likely my fault anyway.

Anyway, I built a nice disk for that Xbox unit, xboxhdm, ndure3.1 and it's eeprom, so have that to hand if anything goes bad again.

Thanks for the help and suggestions, learned quite a bit with this episode, and will delve a little deeper now.