Xbox HDD Sevice screen

[Zorlon]

If you done that you would have 2 HDD's working with the one xbox motherboard, and a xbox motherboard with neither HDD working with it

Just get the device save some cash and fix your mess up

On second thought I have no pc laptop or otherwise that runs right to use the vga esc connector so the eeprom reader is out.

It uses a Serial connection not a VGA connection your Win95 PC is bound to have the correct connection with your mouse plugged into it probobly if the mouse is as old as the desktop it's in, if I am thinking of the correct connection


You really really do need to read up more before doing things

If you like take a photo of the rear of the desktop with nothing plugged into it and I will tell you if it has serial or not

You can always buy a serial port board for the old thing, they usually have 2 ports on em, a Serial Printer port and the serial mouse port

I was going to say use a USB mouse instead but you can't win95 doesn't support USB last I looked, if the comp has PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard you could use those instead (Not Playstation 2)

P.S. Jackhammer could you please verify the connection the little device uses?

P.P.S. You can still use the Win95 PC without a mouse, Tab and the arrow keys will get used lots to navigate things. (beter if you have PS/2 ports though just get either a PS/2 mouse or a Serial to PS/2 converter (a PS/2 converter is not recommended to be honest though) another option is buy a Ps/2 mouse with a USB converter so you can atleast use the mouse with your laptop as well, another option though again I can not recommend this as a lot of the old converters just did not work, but there is a DB-25 serial to DB-9 serial converter

[soratron]

What I ment in my last post was I'll get me a new xbox later down the road when my dad has time to fix the pc's optical drive And have more then 5 bucks in both saving and spending accounts And more then 20 bucks left over from bills, if I get new xbox plus mom's b-day present and pay utility bills and the rent I ow them then I cant Get the eeprom reader til later. And I already downloaded a C:/ drive and E:/ drive file for hdd but since my laptop the only working pc I got does not come with a serial port that looks a lot like a vga port in reverse I'd do what jackhammer said and use the eeprom reader which from reading over all the post is the only real file I need to repair the hdd and for needed info my xbox is a v1.0.4 model. With a Thompson drive Can the xbox read cd-rw?
Also When I used xboxhdm on the 95 pc when it wanted to read the disc it kept looping back to tower start up power on status after I clicked option 3 unlock lock hdd saying it encountered an undefined mode what is that supost to mean?

[Zorlon]

RW.. possibly with some drives but the quality of the read will be very very poor so if it's software it will lag and possibly just crash out, if you copy files from the disc via the xbox reading will fail at some point

the above makes RW reading kinda pointless

[Jackhammer]

P.S. Jackhammer could you please verify the connection the little device uses?

That one in the video looks like a 9 pin serial port connection. I don't think I've even got one on my PC, maybe there's one on my old one in the loft.

He could ask the seller just to be sure.

[soratron]

Iknow about 25 pin and 9 pin serials I grew up on pc games from little howie to G-NOME and age of empires But my main problem now would be the xboxhdm when I could make the tower read the disc it kept backing out returning to the screen you see when you turn the tower on. unless I chose option 4 So I can't get to the options to lock or rebuild one from scratch and that sounds like what I need to do with this hdd in order to get the xbox up and running.
And like I said before I'll invest what I can in a new used xbox then if I have the funds Since the eeprom ships from england I'm usa idaho there's some shipping charges involved that make it not very high on the wishlist at the moment. And before you ask why I'd keep both when It's fixed I'd give the repaired one to my nephew so he has an xbox and xbox 360 I'd install a larger hdd 120gb And install a few games for him.
So reply please if you know why my pc keeps restarting when I chose option 3 from xboxhdm.

[Zorlon]

It didn't sound like it what you mentioned VGA that it not a 9 pin serial

Up to you what you buy or don't buy

You may be able to fix the bricked HDD with a hot swap with the working xbox so you can recover the eeprom via FTP if you made a backup onto the now bricked HDD, if you did not though then it will remain bricked.

If your PC keeps restarting it is possible that the disc is not being read correctly, though I don't even remember what option 3 is, try being more specific when asking things

[Jackhammer]

@ soratron

here's an old Xboxhdm tut, it might help.
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=244043

[soratron]

Thanks jackhammer, zorlon option 3 is to unlock, lock or build an hdd from scratch where it reformats the drive to xbox format with the c dive e drive and eeprom found on the disc so what I'm planning is buying the eeprom reader use the old pc to make the eeprom.bin backup move it to my laptop add it to the c and e files create a new xboxhdm disc and then choose option 3 rebuild from scratch and see what happens from there. I checked I should have enough for the reader after the month after all if I get this xbox back on it's feet i'll use it to test my skill at installing a larger hdd. But I still have to wait for my dad to finish fixing the only working pc with a serial port first so Can you guys keep this thread open till maybe sometime in the middle of July It'll take the xbox a while to get here and I don''t get paided till july 3rd.
Not sure but could the problem I have with the disc be because it was scratched to heck and back or because I was using a cd-rw instead of a -r?

[Zorlon]

either one of us can re-open it if needs be

[soratron]

Before I make the disk is there a certain write speed I have to burn it at?

[Zorlon]

Slowest possible is always the best way to burn, this rule can be applied to everything you burn to CD and DVD

You sometimes get rip groups say burn at X speed in there nfo files but usually that speed is there slowest, seen plenty say 4x but burning at 4x with a drive that has a max of 4x is a mistake as the burn has a good chance to come out bad on that drive, not many drives can burn at 4x now anyway for CD-R

The rules for DVD burning is no different to CD burning

P.S. I have ordered a new (well second hand) HDD for my xbox and have an olde PC that I will be using to set the HDD up with to replace what I currently have that is a 120GB drive

The replacement is a 750GB drive (it's still IDE it's the biggest IDE drive you can get after that you would require a SATA to IDE converter)

Anyway I will be going through the process myself soon.

For now I am sorting out my 3 2TB drives and moving a lot of files to the empty 3rd drive, as it happens those are all xbox USA disc images that i am moving to it as I have just about ran out of space on both the other drives (that reminds me I need to check these and see if there are any EU exclusives on the xbox that I would be missing), I am running low on space mostly due to getting a full Dreamcast GD-Rom set (well as full as a one as you can get at the moment there are still plenty of missing Japanese games)

SlaYers Auto-Installer v2.7]SlaYers Auto Installer v2.7 Link offered as link in guide is dead

[Zorlon]

Been updating myself on the whole process, well part of the process as it happens

1. The eeprom.bin

You never once needed to use FTP for this, funny not many mention this, plus this is quicker to do prior to setting up the FTP.

I used the same method used to get data onto the xbox in the first place, for me that's my xbox Action Replay 8MB memory card, the thing I can not use with Windows 7 so I used a small x86 emulator by the name of Oracle VM with Windows XP installed and the USB passed from Windows 7 to the Virtual Machine so the Xbox memcard is read directly with Oracle I also installed the Xbox Action Replay 1.40 software/driver

Now for you to be able to copy the eeprom, first copy a save to the memory card, then pop it into your xbox, use one of the many file browsers from the xbox (I just used the one built in to XBMC as that's what I use but most custom dash boards have one)

copy the eeprom.bin into the deepest file path on the memcard, wip it out of the xbox and pop it back into your PC, run the xbox action replay software and drag the save to the computer in the software

you should now be able to find a save stored in the install folder of the Action Replay default is "C:\Program Files\Datel\Action Replay XBOX\Saves" the save is zipped, just extract the zip to it's own folder and in the deepest file path you will find the eeprom.bin file for use on a new bigger HDD, or just for recovering a HDD


2. linux HDD tools... on a new replacement HDD

2.a Creating the CD

On your laptop you need to create that Linux CD

extract both xboxhdm and Slayers 1.7 (password for slayers is in the readme.txt file) I also extracted the iso with C-xboxtool (you will be wanting that prog anyway).

First make sure the eeprom.bin is in the the linux\eeprom\ path.

Next step is to copy the C contents from the Slayers extracted iso that is in the SlaYers 2.7\SYSTEM\ALL\c\ path, these are just your basic original dash files, anyway they are copied to the linux\C\ path.

you can build that Linux CD now with the make-iso-win.bat

remove all HDD from the target PC
hook the new HDD directly to the PC to the main IDE cable on the master slot (make sure the pins are set to master drive)
the CD-Rom drive can be on Master of the secondary IDE

Boot the PC to bios mode first and change the Primary HDD setting from auto to user, it should fill out the information for you...

you can insert your CD-R now... save and exit

Your CD-R will boot now [Note watch this boot as the first menu will automatically proceed on it's own if you do not respond to it]

2.b. Getting started

once everything loads hit enter (a new drive should already be unlocked )
once everything loads type xboxhd hit enter
once everything loads type yes hit enter
once everything loads type 6 hit enter
you can see here if the drive is locked, look at Security enabled (if No it's not locked if Yes it is locked)
hit enter

2.c. Formatting the drive

once back at the menu type 1 hit enter
once everything loads type yes hit enter
It will ask about an F:\ drive if the drive is bigger than 12GB, just type yes hit enter
It will ask about formatting F:\, type yes hit enter

2.d.Rebuilding C

C drive... once everything loads type yes hit enter

once this is done type 8 hit enter
now just type reboot hit enter

[reboot I have noticed does not always work and will sometimes just repeat a message, if that happens just restart the comp manually]

2.e.Locking the HDD

once restarted and everything has loaded type 3 hit enter (linux HDD locking/unlocking)
once this is fully loaded type lockhd -a and hit enter
once fully loaded type y and hit enter
It will give a report on it's status, (Security enabled: Yes = drive locked)

2.f.Just about done

Shut down that nasty old PC and remove the drive from the PC and replace that olde small xbox HDD with your freshly prepared HDD
Close the xbox back up.

That is it, it should boot up just fine back in the big olde xbox.

How easy is that , just run through the exploit after that.

This is skipping the clone drive option, that you can still do if you like after 2.d., but this can take some time and it is quicker just to do the save exploit.

myself I will need to use the clone option as my CD/DVD drive only works with DVD+R/-R's so none of my retail games are read in it.

I will run through the drive hookup if you are interested in the clone option, but at the moment I am clearing my current xbox HDD in preparation for the new one (to make the clone option go a bit faster) that I should have by the beginning of next week I hope, I will also be digging out more info anyway to enable the whole drive to be used as normally the xbox would not read all of a 750GB HDD

eeprom recovery from your naffed up drive

you may still be able to recover the lost eeprom via PC with the xbrowser option of xboxhdm, and copy it to the floppy drive or maybe to that win98 HDD, hooked up as a secondary drive.

you may need to unlock the drive first for that...

This is presuming you actually did back the eeprom.bin onto the current naffed up HDD in the first place

Large HDD's

My digging just confirmed what I thought on huge HDD's you will get loss of data after apx 256 GB unless you format the bigger partition/partitions with Xbformatter that runs directly on the xbox, this I will require myself to get full use of my new HDD

I got this already myself, the 1.3 version supports partitions up one TB, great if you have a SATA II drive with a IDE to SATA II converter, it is still good for the 750 GB drive I will be getting to enable the whole drive


EDIT....

Yay just got my HDD through the post, a lot quicker than expected , it will be later tonight though by the time I clear my old HDD up a bit, been doing that for apx 12 hrs, not much to do there now to be honest

I can also clear my front room of an open computer and xbox and a pile of olde HDD's

Hmm... I wonder if my xbox is not reading my originals now because I patched the bios to NTSC mode and all my games are PAL

[soratron]

A thousand gratitudes Oh wise and most exalted one [aladdin joke] I looked at your post and found in the tut 2 things that were the prob on the disc 1. I had no eeprom, 2. I still had hdd master set to auto. When my paycheck arives probably after 4oJ And after the eeprom reader 10 usd 5.oo F gets here and I find a mouse for the old windows 95 only pc with serial that still works. I would've used my mom's but for some reason it just won't boot at all.
So thank you guys for all your help in finding a solution to my problems from my wii to the xbox. so when I can get to fixing it I'll tell you how it went and the next time I need help or can't something to work I'll check with you guys before I start messing around.

[Zorlon]

You missed

eeprom recovery from your naffed up drive

you may still be able to recover the lost eeprom via PC with the xbrowser option of xboxhdm, and copy it to the floppy drive or maybe to that win98 HDD, hooked up as a secondary drive.

you may need to unlock the drive first for that...

This is presuming you actually did back the eeprom.bin onto the current naffed up HDD in the first place

[soratron]

I backed up the ms dash and eeprom.bin to niffed hdd. And no offence but the only way I could get a floppy to work on new laptop was a usb drive and the laser actually snaped out with the last floppy I used and no I didn't break it it was high school property headin' for the trash Salvaged before going into dumpsters.
And the whole take out hdd thing watched the youtube vid and looked at your guide for all its worth I think getting the eeprom reader and formatting a cd-rw [only disks I have left] to run as a usb stick and copy eeprom.bin to it would be more up my technical alley I just hold 2 wires in certain spots wait for error and press read in pony whats it program.
PS the tower hdd has parents stuff I reformat do anything to it I'll be finding new work 6" under.

Found on amazon usb option for serial. so I can use laptop.