Advice please - Do I need to hotswap my drive to fix my Xbox?

Hello, this is my first post here! Hopefully someone can help!

Okay, I am a little bit experienced with softmodded xboxes. Ive modded many, updated to new builds of xbmc, installed dashboards etc. However, Ive had my first serious hitch with a modchipped xbox.

It was given to me as a hand-me-down a little while back. Its a very old xbox with an upgraded hdd, and was chipped about 3 or possibly even 4 years ago. The dashboard was set as an old build of xbmc (1.0) so I decided to update it with the most recent T3CH build. I ftp'ed it over, as ive done a hundred times before. Now however, the box does not boot. It freezes completely at the T3CH splash screen.

Normally, id fix this by using a boot disc, Ive tried the evox boot disk, the slayer installer (2.7) and the auto installer deluxe. None of the discs are booting however, even though they work in my softmodded box.

This means I cant ftp into the box to find out what went wrong, and I really dont know what to do next. Unfortunately I dont know the modchip that was used - the splash screen for the xbox before xbmc loads is an orange phoenix - I dont know if this is characteristic of any specific chip?

Im thinking I might have to unlock the drive by hotswapping it - will this work? I dont have the eeprom for that particular xbox, but I do have a backup c drive from my other box?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Dave

 

Interesting problem.....
look like you are a pro modder and you still get stuck with this new problem. It gotto be hard to fix this xbox.

Since you have modchip on xbox, any switches are available.
hmm... it's phoenix bios.

Ok first try to trouble should this xbox. Needed working autoinstaller disk, UNLOCK hdd (minimum 8GB).

Open the xbox and remove hdd with the unlock hdd. Turn on xbox tell me what you see. which error code?
Then insert autoinstaller disk inside DVD drive and reboot xbox. Does xbox load disk this?

 

Thank you for replying!

At the moment I am thinking that this currently broken xbox has an old Thomson drive, therefore it will be much more picky about what discs is chooses to read. My softmodded box is newer, and has a Samsung drive, so it isnt so picky. As it chooses to read games without a problem (sorry, I should have mentioned this) it means that the BIOS is still set to boot from the DVD drive first.
So, does it make sense that I should just keep trying different media until I find one that works? If all else fails, im going to come back to your method, and pick your brain further!

 

yep, if the DVD drive is dead, it can't read the autoinstaller disk.
But you replace the hdd with an unlock 8GB, I will find out the way to fix it.

 

Excellent, Ill try that this evening, and let you know how I get on. I have a spare Xbox stock HDD, so Ill be able to fix it somehow!

 

don't use other xbox hdd, unless it is unlock. You can use the PC hdd.
So this is what I need to know.

-open xbox look at the chip and wires to see if any switches there. discribe the modchip.
-replace hdd with an unlock hdd and turn xbox on. tell me what happen here. any error code.
-insert a working autoinstaller disk and reboot xbox. let me know if it loads. where it hang

 

aye return wouldnt it just be easier to just unlock the xbox hd with a pc then replace the C drive from there?

 

the problem now is his xbox can't read any CD or do anything.

 

Hello!

Thanks everyone for all the advice, the problem has been resolved!
This is what worked for me -
I cloned the HD from my softmodded xbox onto an xboxhdm boot disk. I then hotswapped the drive from the non-booting xbox and copied the drive data onto it. I had installed the splinter cell exploit on my hard drive prior to cloning, so when I put the non-booting drive back in the xbox, I was able to run splinter-cell, and crash it to the UnleashX installer panel. One swift soft-mod later, and everything was hunky-dory!
An overly long-winded and roundabout way of doing things, im sure, but what do you think?

Dave

p.s. When looking inside the (supposedly) chipped xbox, I couldnt see any signs of a mod-chip, and now that it is working again, the Orange Phoenix normally seen at boot is gone. Im not experienced with much other than the soft-mod technique, so could somebody let me in on what this means? Was the bios simply flashed rather than the box chipped?

 

so your info was wrong at the beginning. This xbox is NOT hardmoded. IT was softmoded at the first time.

And yes, hotswap will fix softmoded xbox for sure.