How to : Softmod your Xbox w/ JUST your PC!!

Hey Everyone

I figured out how to softmod a stock XBox with JUST your PC!! I thought that this would have been impossible, but a few days of googling, some clever thinking, and its all possible....

I gotta warn you tho, like I've read everywhere else, modding is not without risk, there's always a chance that something can go wrong..... You have been warned!

The main problem that I found modding this way is that you WILL NOT be able to boot back into your original MS dash, I am not sure why, and I'm guessing that you will not be able to play on XBL. I just bought my XBox for the sole purpose of modding it. Also, modding this way, you will need to keep the stock XBox HDD, I have not tried upgrading it using this method. All your game saves will still be there, but you won't be able to access your music you have on the stock XBox player, I recomend deleting it so you have some extra space on the stock HDD.

I have tested this mod with I think are all XBox versions, 1.0 - 1.6b, and they all work using this method.

Here's what you'll need:
Torx 10, 15 and 20 screwdrivers to take apart the XBox
1 blank CD
I recomend "Shademand's XBox Softmod Kit" Get that from the usual places
XBoxHDM, latest version, from the usual places
Your Xbox
Your PC
Whatever you need to take the side panel off your PC

Making the XBoxHDM CD:
After you get Shademand's kit, copy all the files from the "C" folder into the "C" folder of linux in XBoxHDM. Create the ISO and burn it with you fav software.
Now you have the CD you need to mod your XBox!

Now, you need to take apart your XBox so you can get access to the HDD. Remove the 6 Torx 20 screws from the bottom, and remove the cover. Now move the ribbon cable going to the HDD, and there is a Torx 10 screw under it. Remove it, so you can take the "HDD Tray" out. Unplug the cables from the Xbox's HDD so you can take it out completely. Remove the 4 Torx 15 screws so the HDD comes out of the tray. Plug the power and ribbon cable back into the HDD.

Now set up your PC, remove the side panel, unplug all HDD's connected to it, but make sure that your CD/DVD drive is connected to the secondary channel, keeping your master channel for the XBox HDD. Take the master cable, make sure it can reach the XBox HDD, so it can plug into it (have your XBox and PC close to eachother) Now set your PC to boot from CD and power it off.

Now we gotta unlock your XBox HDD, this is REALLY simple, unplug your DVD drive in the XBox, I unplug both power and IDE cables, and power up the XBox. It should boot to "error 12". When it does, unplug the IDE cable from the XBox HDD, and plug in the IDE Cable from the PC. Power on the PC and let the XBoxHDM CD boot up.

Now we Mod!! Pick option 1 from the menu, when it detects the HDD, type in "xbrowser". This will bring you to "The Midnight Commander". This is where it all goes down.....

On the left is what is on the CD, and on the right should be "C" and "E", thats the XBox. Press "Tab" to move over to the XBox side of the menu, and go down to "C" and press "F8" to delete it (WHY!!?? This is where all the mod files go) Delete it recursively, go down to "OK", when it deletes go to ""skip" and press "Tab" again to go back to the CD side. Go to the "C" folder where you put all the files from Shademand's kit, just highlight "C" and press "F5" to copy and hit OK. Everything will copy to the "C" folder. This will take a few minutes. When its all done, hit "F10" to quit, when it says "done" on the bottom of the computer screen, unplug the PC's IDE cable from the XBox HDD, and plug in the XBox's IDE cable back into the XBox HDD. Now turn off the XBox and hook the DVD drive back up.

Power it back on for a softmodded XBox!!!! No action replay, mem cards, exploits, just PC! I'm not bashing the other ways to mod, I just got no action replay, mem card or anything, and I wanted to mod my XBox

I hope this helps anyone out there who wants to softmod their 'Box.

With this done, you can now get an Auto Installer like Slayers and install apps and stuff. I found the best way of getting stuff onto the XBox was thru the app "dvd2xbox". Create an xISO with Qwix of whatever you want to put on it.

I wish I had a few pics or something to go along w/ this..
Thats it, thats all, I hope this helps out a few ppl.

ace700

 

hey, i cant find
Shademand's XBox Softmod Kit

 

@garethuk7: btw your not supposed to post email addresses

 

garethuk7
- edit your post and remove your email quick, thats not allowed. You can get banned from the forum site.

Google or do a torrent search. You should find it rather easy. Or visit sites out of the .com prefix where sites in other languanges located out of the united states host these types of direct downloads.

 

cheers guys

 

could i use unleashed x? if i dont have Shademand's XBox Softmod Kit! and how would i do it? cheers

 

Hey
I have not used UnleashX, so I would have no clue where to start, man, sorry.
Do you know anyone that has a modded XBox? This could help if you do... Get Flash FXP and FTP their C folder to your PC. Then use these files in the "C" folder in XBoxHDM.
ace700

 

yes i have 1! but dont i need eeprom.bin off the unmodded xbox to unlock the drive? cheers

 

Hey
This is the beauty of modding my way, no locking/unlocking w/ eeprom! So you got another modded xbox? Here's what you do: I'm sure you can FTP into the modded one, so FTP the entire C folder to your desktop of your PC (I assume you're running windows) (and make sure the evox.ini and evoxdash.xbe are there, as these are 2 of the important ones, there should be more too, can't think of them right now ) Now that you have the entire C folder to work with, copy ALL the files inside to the "C" folder of the linux of the XBoxHDM. make the ISO and burn it w/ your fav software, nero, etc. Now you have your CD to mod it with. heres a quick run down of my guide above:
set up pc and xbox next to eachother so master ide from pc reaches xbox
unplug the dvd drive from xbox and power it up, it should boot to error 12
unplug xbox ide cable, plug in pc ide cable
boot up pc, make sure to boot from cd!
when it boots up, pick option 1
then type in xbrowser
on the xbox side, delete the c folder (F8)
copy all new c folder contents from cd to xbox hd (F5)
hit F10 to exit after all copying is done
unplug pc ide cable, plug in xbox ide cable
power off xbox, reconnect xbox dvd drive
power back on for modded xbox!
I've got a 100% success rate modding like this, I hope others do too. I'd do a vid, but I got no xbox to do
I hope this helps
ace700

 

hey, i have copyed my c into linux c and made cd! pluged xbox hdd into pc, then run the disc and choose option 1 and then xbrowser it sayss found harddrive then looking for xbox partition table but then it says no xbox parition tabe found on /dev/hda and under that says done!!!

guess that ant right? it its the orig xbox drive that i am using andit does work in xboox! any ideas cheers

 

Hey
cool, so you got the "C" folder!
Sounds like the drive is still locked, did you unhook the XBox's DVD drive and start it up w/ the xbox hdd still attached so it boots to error 12? You have to do this before plugging in the PC's IDE cable, this is what unlocks the drive, so it will lock again automatically when you power down. Make sure that you unhook all HDD's in your PC while you're doing this as well, or you may format them and lose all your PC data, we don't want that!
You're well on your way there now!
Hope this helps
ace700

 

i have just tryed it again and after option one when its looking at hdd i geting
hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }


any ideas? cheers

 

i found this hop it gives you an idea what it could be!?!

CONCLUSIONS:


kernel: hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
kernel: hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }

This says that there was an error on the harddrive, and that the command was aborted ("Command aborted"). As far as I have found, such errors once in a while mean nothing serious. As long as there are no "Uncorrectable ECC error"s or other grave errors like checksum error, bad address mark etc. it should be nothing to worry about. Such "aborted commands" occur e.g. when an unknown sector is requested, that is not present on the harddisk, buggy drivers (-> the driver sent a command that was not understood by the drive).

 

let me tell you my story it all started a about 6 mouths ago when i bought a broken xbox off ebay (on perpose ) i then spent about 2 mothnths reserching how to get the eeprom off the x box (IT HAD A BAD HARDDRIVE) anyway i built one of thouse eeprom readers with a resitors and 2 zenoir dioods and after i had built the reader about 4 or 5 hours trying to get it to work and i was sucsesfull in geting the eeprom file off i then got a replacement hd of ebay (10 gigg) and proceded to bulid the hd from scracth well that took a few weeks too as i eather had error 16 or the mutiple reboot thing anyway turns out it was cos i had cloned a harddrive and a folder on e drive contained cache files in the bin format so after i had deleted thease files my xbox sucsessfuly boots now to the ms dash
i now want to chalange myself evan more and install a soft mod to my xbox hard drive i have noi issuses with locking and unlocking (well i have sppent the last 4 months trying to fix my x box can some plz give me a link to Shademand's XBox Softmod Kit as i fell i am now ready to give iit a go you can pm me privitly if you like and thanks for a invaluble thread

 

@ garethuk7
Hey, any luck after? I may still be able to help you, can you walk me thru what you are doing? I may be able to give you a few pointers or something... What about trying this, after you unplug the DVD drive, power up the Xbox so it boots to error 12. Now power up your PC with just your CD/DVD drive attached(I don't know if this makes a difference, but I have my CD/DVD drive as secondary master, and hook up the XBox HDD to the Primary master, I don't have them on the same IDE cable) With your CD in the drive, set your PC to boot from CD, and then get into the "detect HD" of your PC (I have it under "standard CMOS", but I have an ACER PC) wtih your XBox powered on and the DVD drive unplugged, swap the XBox and PC Ide cables, so the PC is connected to the Xbox HDD. Now hit the button to detect HDD. If it detects it, mine says the name of the HDD, and how big it is (8803 MB) Now exit and boot from CD, everything should work now, it should have the HDD detected and everything should boot normally.
hope this helps!

@ 1272allan
Thats cool that you brought an XBox back, I killed mine trying to mod it first I used a chip to bring her around again, I couldn't figure out that eeprom stuff
Sorry I can't post any links here....

 

hi people will this work on a 1.6 box ??

 

Hey
Yup, this will work on all XBox versions, any kernel, any version, as long as the dash is LIVE enabled, it'll work
I've tested it, it works

 

so if i slap this on my hd then as soon sa i boot it will go stright to evox dash????

 

i forgot to say i am in the uk
so will this work

 

I cant seem to unlock the hdd
idid everything that you said
any sugestions?