HOW to read your XBOX's EEPROM and GET the HDD KEY WITHOUT removing the chip Or Modding the XBOX

OK.

I attached the leads from the reader to the points shown on the motherboard of the XBOX, not directly to the EEPROM chip its self.

At first I tried to read the EEPROM by introducing an external power sources, in my case an ols mobilephone battery. I couldn't get the set up to work.

I then reassembled the xbox (less top cover, but still with EEPROM reader leads attached) without the external power source. I turned the xbox on and pressed the read button when the xbox was booting/rebooting (it does it fairly quick with these leads attached). I was able to get a good read like this.

It is this read of the EEPROM that I used to try to unlock the HDD without success.

 

That is exactly what I went through.

Quick snap of the BIOS before it went down completely.

I then built my new HD and was able to lock it with the build CD.

I think your problem might be the build CD. If it's not right you can't lock the HD.

Everything else is exactly the same I have done. So hang in there!!

Try rebuilding the CD again and make sure you have your EEPROM in the right location when you do.

 

OK, thanks.

 

so do you have to have the origonal xbox hardrive to get the eeprom to make a new hardrive for your xbox

because my origonal hard is toast it dosnt work anymore

 

No you don't need it. But you do have to be prepared to take a quick snap once the xbox is up. It might shut down without a HD or DVD drive attached.

I have successfully ripped about 7 BIOSii from varying stages of malfunctioning xbox systems. I also successfully re-wrote the BIOS from one motherboard to another one. So I could easily make 1 HD for a bunch of systems for resale. The users can't use the xbox on live, but hey. The xbox will play all the gamers you want.

Anywho, I ripped three systems without hard drives and then built a new HD for each one of those systems. Each one is working perfectly with the new drives. My next one will be using a SATA HD instead of IDE.

The hardest part about ripping the BIOS is with 1.0 MB, you have to solder something into the holes on the two pins to clip on your test leads. Oh I forgot I use clip on test leads and I can usually just clip into the LPC holes and get a good read. Sometimes I clip onto the BIOS legs and get a good read.

But the whole point to my rambling is, you don't need a functional HD to recover the systems BIOS and the reader listed in this thread works great for reading and writing to xboxii BIOSii. ;-)

 

hey thanks alot that really helped me ans saved me alot of money if i could ask you for help throught this process that would be great

 

also would you recommend doing this or putting in a mod chip. i plan on soft modding it when i get my new hd. i already soft modded the old one but it broke

email @ paintballcrazy@gmail.com

 

ask away!

And why waste money on a mod chip. I am soft modding everything. With the xboxhdtools image I have it build the HD with the softmod installed. Then I just lock the HD install it in the xbox and add games. It's is fast and easy.

I the bad thing is the package I use is like 220 megs to download. I can't host a file that large anywhere for free.

 

hello anyone..

after several times reading this through, i found it quite difficult to get it going..

so. this is an eeprom reader? how do you write it?

my xbox powers up, shows christmas lights, but no video, audio etc.

so.. can anyone tell me what i have to do? i will try and assemble this eeprom reader maybe.. but i have looked in other forums, and think i need the eeprom writer. im not sure though. im puzzled..

could anyone help??
(i know. everyone asks for this, but thatnks if you can)

pm me.. or email me.. lickastick18@hotmail.com

 

yeah if you get Christmas lights and no av then you need to check your cables and connection cause it only blinks like that when there disconnected

 

well, it blinks red green for 2 seconds, then its solid red.

is that the same?

 

hey soz if someones already asked this but could you answer me this

I have an old xbox thats pretty screwed the hdd still works and hopefully the eeprom is still intact ! and while trying to softmod the xbox i am usin at the moment i screwed the hdd pretty bad and somehow rebuilt the whole thing thus losing the hd key... bumer... now the xbox wont accept the hdd and i dont have the eeprom.bin file.

rather than goin through the whole process of making a reader and getting the eeprom.bin file then decoding it ... and so on. I was wondering if i could de-solder the eeprom off of my old xbox and put it in my newer one and use my old hdd ??

Any ideas ?? thanx

 

I think desoldering the eeprom and sticking it in your xbox is a very bad idea. Making the reader takes about twenty minutes, getting a read from the eeprom takes about 5 minutes.

De-soldering and resoldering can be quite difficult. If I was in your shoes I'd make the reader.

 

I don't see any reason why just swapping the eeprom wouldn't work.
there is some other xbox specific info held in the chip along with the hdd lock details. It relates to xbox-live. But you shouldn't be on there with a modded box anyway.
If you think your soldering skills are up to it then do try.. Post back with results.

For writing to an eeprom.. There should be no need, and anyway if your eeprom dies it's very hard to source another eeprom.bin file which is xbox compatable.
With the right software the reader should be able to write to the eeprom as well..
http://pic18fusb.online.fr/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=I2CserialEEPROM

http://codesink.org/eeprog.html

I have tools built in to my OS which can handle i2c read/write

As I know not many people know very much (if anything) about this technology here is some more reading..

http://www.embedded.com/story/OEG20010718S0073

 

I have an xbox here with a dead hard drive. The box is un-modded and the owner doesn't want it modded. If I build this reader will I be able to re-build another 8gb hard drive to work in his machine without modding it?

 

Yeh man thanx a lot ill try it and get bak 2 ya

 

@ kalamaf

That is exactly why this article was written. To repair a stock xbox without modding it in any way. Saving paying M$ the stupid money for a pretty simple job.

 

@janrocks

Excellent! So I'm assuming it's possible to use any size HD in order to make room for more custom soundtracks etc.? Or is an un-modded system restricted to the 8 & 10gb original drives?

edit: My Radio Shack rapes us on pricing.. the PCB was $3.99 and the wire was like $4.99 (same catalog numbers as those posted previously in this thread) and they didn't even have the resistors/diodes.

 

Yes you can put any size drive back in. But an unmodded xbox will not take advantage of the larger drive.

An xbox only uses about 8 gigs of any size drive you put in it.

Modding it allows you to use more drive space for storage and other things. Plus it allows you to run homebrew and burned games or ISOs off the hard drive.

Why does your buddy not want to mod his xbox?

 

I think it's mostly due to xbox live, he doesn't want to risk losing his account since he plays online most of the time.

Myself I have a chipped xbox with an 80gb in it but I only play games like once or twice a year, XBMC is my primary use just for streaming video from PC to TV.