Hi I unlocked my xbox hard drive by using ATAPWD. I did this by formatting it, using the master password WDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWDCWD (as found on that llama site). However when it came to locking it again, I acidentally froze the drive. I managed to get it to be unfrozen in atapwd by just using my normal PC drive on bootup and then connecting and starting up the xbox drive once atapwd was loaded and refreshing the program. Unfortunately even after locking the drive I started up and got an error code 06 (previously 05 - can not start as the drive isn't locked) which is because the drive can not be unlocked! could this be because the drive is frozen? I thought that until I did a format again and when I booted into atapwd the drive wasn't shown as frozen anymore (I booted the drive and PC connected already at the same time). Eventually I just disabled the locking and removed the passwords and tried to boot into the console, where I got an error 13 (dash problems) and read that this can be easily fixed by running a game that has the update, I put in half life 2 but then still got an error 05 again! Any help? This xbox is NOT modded btw. It's a friend's too.
Sorry for a quick post again but I forgot to mention that I have read there is a fix for this, but it involves having the Xbox modded already. If I had a modchip, would I be able to use it in this Xbox even with the hard drive problems? I am sure that a mod chip makes the Xbox not care if the drive is locked.. or unlocked, and the guide says that I can then lock the drive from the Xbox as it will read the proper EEPROM password. I am guessing WDC is incorrect, consideirng the way to lock the drive is done by setting the USER password, and the MASTER password is WDC, so I am thinking now that the USER password is the one unique to every Xbox (and it's setting also causes ATAPWD to lock the Xbox). If I can't fix this I guess I'll just have to buy another Xbox :/ Modchips are more than the xbox is worth lol ($39.99 at eb games for the xbox versus like $75 for the chip, why can't they make sense and have the modchip at like $30 which is what a PS2 chip costs, meanwhile the system costs [brand new] $120 at eb games or $100 for a used) Again sorry I hate quickly posting after my own post but I think the above (above) information is important.
wdc is the right way to unlock a drive which doesn't have an eeprom key.. at the price of losing ALL the data on it.. BUT.. now you have a drive which is locked to a key not of the xbox.. most likely your pc motherboard eeprom. .. so buy a chip or build an eeprom reader http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/357863 only options as you have no eeprom backup. You do know that even with a chip if the drive is locked to a wrong eeprom key it will not work? .. but a chip will override an unlocked drive status. I kept an xecuter2.6 on a solderless thingy because it happens to be the fastest and easiest way to repair the most common fault.. a dead hdd... even so.. posting the damn thing to me to fix will cost more than a fully working replacement.. and if the dvd drive happens to be a samsung 605b (not F) that has some value so keep hold of it if that's what you have
Thank you for your reply varnull This clears it up a lot. I'll build an EEPROM reader sometime when I get the parts. -Travis
That's surely your best option.. they work out real cheap though the software versions seem critical. There is another way which involves replacing the eeprom on some other piece of hardware.. an old stick of ram was suggested and then using the i2c tools contained in linux.. but I never got that to work properly.. again there are many variables. One thing I never thought of doing until just now but would probably work is to replace an old pc mobo's eeprom (happy hunting) with the one from the xbox and then using the pc bios to lock the drive to the mobo.. now theres a thought... hmmmmm.. maybe a use for one of those old p3's after all.
Those other options are interesting. I happen to have an old (early 90s or late 80s) PC lying around that I do not use (nor does it work). I haven't read about the RAM method, but I would think that when you start the system up the EEPROM's contents would automatically be overwritten when RAM is used (unless of course it's connected read-only some how). But that would probably involve soldering and I'm not too comfortable with something that small.. -Travis
