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[jsrlepage]

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Alert
This guide describes how to install old, obsolete font hacks! They can cause your Xbox to get into 6-hour loops and other nasty glitches. Try installing UXE or another newer XBE exploit before you just take this old thing...

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This is how I succeeded in installing a software modification under an Xbox with the Splinter Cell exploit.

What you will need :

- Unmodded, unopened, under extended warranty Xbox :-D (that's mine - no wonder I didn't want to do a machine-open)
- Splinter Cell (Tested with a non-platinium)
- Memory Card (I used a MadCatz. meow.)
- A friend with a modded, or someone who made THAT/a hack and can lend you a card with the Splinter Cell hack/copy the savegame hack to your card.
- Home network (or anything, as long as you can FTP to your Xbox).
- Hack 1 : Splinter Cell Exploit (usual place)
- Hack 2 : Catfish fonts (again, Meow)
- Hack/App 3 : Phoenix BIOS Loader, alias PBL, preferrably already signed (usual place) - Acronym : S PBL.
- Restore 4 : Slayer's Auto-installer v2.5


Steps BEFORE exploiting your Xbox

Unpack every archive you downloaded. You should unpack them in different directories, but as subdirectories of the same directory.


Steps to get your savegame on a memory card.

1- Ask a friend to upload them to a clean/without-Splinter-Cell-saves memory Card
OR
1- Ask a friend who has a memory card to copy the savegame to it (backuping his SC saves and deleting them before copying the exploited ones.


Steps AFTER you got a Memory Card with the savegame.

0- Before anything, double and triple-check that your Xbox is accurately plugged (power cord, audio-video output) and plug your Box on your private network.

1- Access your box's current dashboard, go in Memory>Hard Disk and delete any Splinter Cell savegame you currently have - the hack must be the ONLY Splinter Cell savegame present on your Xbox.

2- Still in the original dash, go in your memory card, and copy the two save slots (Linux Installer and the Splinter Cell Savegame) to your hard drive.

3- When you have sucessfully copied the two savegames (the Linux Installer should have a "Debian" logo, and maybe even the Splinter Cell Savegame), insert your "Splinter Cell" game like if you were going to play.

4- Get into the menu, choose "Play", then take the "Linux" profile, and select "Checkpoints" with the "A" or "Start" button of your control pad. Don't worry, there isn't supposed to be any checkpoint entry.

5- BAM! You have sucessfully loaded EvoX! Which means you now have a FTP server. Advice : take down your IP address. You can get it in "System Utils" > "Settings" > "IP" (the first one you see).

6- Now that you have loaded EvolutionX, get to the workstation on which you have the BigFonts, SPBL and the slayer x-iso.

6.1- Extract all the slayer x-iso anywhere on your computer, as long as you know where it is.

7- Load your favorite FTP client - aside from MS Internet Explorer. Get in the extracted Slayers folder, then in System>All>C. There will be a "Root" of a normal and unmodded Xbox C partition.

8- Get your favorite FTP client to connect to your Xbox (login and pass : xbox). Get in the C folder. Backup your Xbox C partition somewhere you know, and DELETE ALL OF ITS CONTENTS. DO NOT DELETE THE C FOLDER AT THE ROOT OF THE FTP (well, it shouldn't pemit you but i tell you anyways.) DO NOT REBOOT RIGHT AFTER THAT. I AM WARNING YOU. IF YOU REBOOT RIGHT AFTER ERASING THE C, THERE ARE HIGH PROBABILITIES THAT YOUR XBOX WILL NEVER. BOOT. AGAIN.

9- Right the milisecond after you scrapped your Xbox C partition, copy the contents of the folder I told you to go to in the 7- point into your Xbox C partition (FTP root, then the folder named "C").

10- You should now have a dashboard that is ASSURED to be NOT the latest and which DOESN'T have a font patch.

11- Get in the extracted folder of the BigFonts. You will see two .XTF files : bert and ernie. Copy both of them to the C partition of your Xbox, in the "fonts" folder. Just to be sure, rename the current Xbox.xtf and Xbox Book.xtf to Xbox.bak and Xbox Book.bak. AFTER that, rename "bert.xtf" to "Xbox Book.xtf", and "ernie.xtf" to "Xbox.xtf". You now have the font hack in place.

12- Get in the extracted folder of the SPBL you got. If you are lucky, you might even have had a homebrew-compatible BIOS within the archive you downloaded. Here is the contents you should have:

(Extraction directory)
default.xbe
evoxdash.xbe
phoenix.raw
xboxrom.bin (1024 k/1 megabyte, you may or may not have it)
boot.cfg
evox.ini
phoenix_project.nfo (you can delete if you like)
history.txt (you can delete if you like)
Source [directory] (delete it, it is not of any use for you - as long as you are not developing)

upload every and each one of the files "not marked for upload" directly into the C partition of your Xbox. When it is done... There is only one thing to do... REBOOT!

13- If you have not skipped any part of the tutorial, you should not have scrapped your Xbox. Now, you will have a Xbox which loads a BIOS Overrider, which itself will replace the original BIOS as long as you deem necessary.


Steps to remove the hack.

I don't know why you would do this, but if you want to restore your box to the original state (Ex. XBOX LIVE), I'll tell you how.

0- Find your Xbox C partition backup (you must have burned it somewhere...)

1- FTP to your Xbox by any dashboard.

2- Backup the current contents of your Xbox C partition - that way, if you want to restore the hack : FTP, Delete C contents, Upload Exploited Contents.

3- Delete the current contents of your Xbox C partition.

4- Upload the data of your backuped old Xbox C partition into your current Xbox C partition.

5- Reboot.

You should now have removed the hack. Keep the exploited save though. You'll need it if you want to restore the hack.

NOTE 1 : Double-check for compatibility with PBL and your Xbox. Old PBL builds do not support Focus video encoders.

NOTE 2 : If you get a clock loop, plug your Xbox on a local network. I did that, it did the trick.

This post has been edited by RiceCake: Jan 8 2005, 06:19 PM

[Angerwound]

nice tutorial.
This should help some people out that don't own Mech or 007 Auf.

[ArcticWolf]

You left out a crucial information.  Your MS dash must be 4920, or the exploit won't work.  For quite some time now, Xbox's dash had been upgraded, which corrected the security defect that the font exploit took advantage of.  SlaYer's EvoX 2.5 CD will revert your MS dash to 4920, but in order to run the CD, you need to have a modchip installed.

[dmoney101]

could you give us the files that have the hacks on them? and could you do an Action Replay version of the tutorial.

[GeToChKn]

ArticWolf:  Actually you don't need amodchip, you can just extract the Slayer ISO and ftp over the 4920 dash ocne you have the gamesave running.  But yes you do need to do that before you install the font hacks.

[themuffin]

QUOTE (dmoney101 @ Apr 5 2004, 03:46 PM)

could you give us the files that have the hacks on them? and could you do an Action Replay version of the tutorial.

i did this fine, (after a long agrivating time on the forum)
heres what you do with AR,
1. get the hack from usual place
2. unzip it
3. take one of the directories from the UDATA dir and put it in its own UDATA folder
(if this confuses you, when this is done, you should have two folders called UDATA each with only one folder inside, but those folders are different, one contains the actual SC save and the other has evox)
4. (i had to do this, don't know if its needed) poke around the other saves that came with your AR, look for a file called datelinfo or such, and put that in both of your udata folders
5. now this is the MOST IMPORTANT STEP, make sure that when you zip the files (there should be two seperate zips) inside of the zip there is still the UDATA folder, because sometimes the zip prog will only zip the files inside and ignore the directory they are in, I use power archiever so it might be different in another case, but its never paranoid to double check
6. copy over to your mem card using the included software(cross your fingers that it doesn't say " invald xbox save")
7. (might overlap other tut) now plug your mem card into controller, boot xbox WITHOUT disc, kill all your previous SC saves on your HD (never tried it w/o doing so, but this is what i was told) and copy over the two save files, one should go under SC and the other will be by itself, called LINUXINSTALLER or such i think
8. pop in SC and load the LINUX save (should be only one)
9. again IMPORTANT STEP....DO NOT PICK LEVELS, IT WILL CRASH, instead pick checkpoints and it should load evox, have fun ma boy

[TidusUK]

you can get the dashboard on edonkey 88mb just search for 4920

This post has been edited by TidusUK: Apr 15 2004, 03:11 PM

[Grospolina]

TidusUK, you're not allowed to post that eDonkey link.  Edit it out or you may be banned.

QUOTE (ArcticWolf)

You left out a crucial information. Your MS dash must be 4920, or the exploit won't work. For quite some time now, Xbox's dash had been upgraded, which corrected the security defect that the font exploit took advantage of. SlaYer's EvoX 2.5 CD will revert your MS dash to 4920, but in order to run the CD, you need to have a modchip installed.

No, that information is not missing.  The tutorial includes the steps required to downgrade the dashboard to 4920 (extract system\all\c from the Slayer's ISO and upload it to the C: partition).  You don't have to run the CD.

However, there are few important points missing (otherwise it's pretty good):

- This tutorial uses Phoenix BIOS Loader 1.3, which usually comes with X2 4977.  This will not work on an Xbox that has the Focus video chip.  Instead, you should use PBL 1.3.5i or higher, and use BIOS X2 4979 or higher (or EvoxM7).

- If you have kernel 5530 or higher, then you wil not be able to run PBL.

- If you have kernel 5713 or higher, then you will not be able to downgrade the dashboard to 4920.

[BLURB5678]

Thanks for the info, got this one working on my 5051 kernel using the "PBL1.4.1 by gueux". I now have the media player installed and working, bringing the best part of our media collection from our home network to our living room. Count me as one very happy camper. All for the price of one memory card and new controller!! Thanks a bunch people!!

 

[brilliantdonkey]

any tips on what to do if it DOES say "This is not a valid xbox save."?

Thanks.

[BLURB5678]

Ok I know this maybe a stupid question, but I read about clock loops every where.  What does a clock loop look like, what does the xbox do and show on the screen?

I know I know   DUHHHH!!

[TidusUK]

QUOTE (BLURB5678 @ Apr 15 2004, 02:27 AM)

Ok I know this maybe a stupid question, but I read about clock loops every where.  What does a clock loop look like, what does the xbox do and show on the screen? I know I know   DUHHHH!!

Im not sure, but at a guess i think its when you turn your xbox first on it runs a little animation then the screen goes black with the X then it starts accessing the hdd for the dashbaord etc, but if you have a loop problem the X will come up and then instantly reboot the Xbox everytime it reaches that screen , this a guess but it sounds right to me

[BLURB5678]

So now I am lost. After everything was working fine, we started putting every thing away. We hooked every thing back up in the entertainment system. Now all I get is a black screen after the X logo. It's like the bios is not loading. Any ideas?

[jsrlepage]

actually, the dashboard tries to load the fonts DIRECTLY, without taking in consideration that they are hacked

this is a bug that has been resolved. i'll update my main, but try to use the Catfish font pack.

To get out of da loop : connect your box to a router, it should do the trick

[nitro66215]

This is the best tutorial ever!!! Worked beautifully. The only thing I did different was load the splinter cell game save via hot swap. everything else was a breeze. Does anyone know how to get the MS Dash to come up?? Thanks.