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[Ould]

Hi Guys,

Been a while since I have been on this board. I have an original Xbox which I modded and still use for XBMC. :-)

I am new to the 360 and have a few questions but first a little background on my 360.

Last week sometime. I am working away at my job(I work at a University) when one of the custodians comes in and asks "You don't play video games right?", so I answer "Yeah sometimes, why?", he replies "Well I found 3 xboxes in the garbage over at one of the parking garages". I am thinking they are probably junk but we take a tour over there to see what is what. Turns out much to my surprise it is one Xbox 360 console and 2 HDDVD drives. I grab everything and throw it in the work van. No cables or controllers though.

I take all the stuff back to my office and begin reading up on the 360 scene and again to my surprise I find out there are now hacks for it. Great! On a side note, I also have a PS3 so I am not too worried about use Live on the 360 as if I want to play online stuff I can do it on PSN instead. So I am getting a little excited about a new hacking project at this point but am still figuring the Xbox probably doesn't work hence why it was in the trash but I figure what the hell may as well track down a power supply, av cables and see if she works at all.

I managed to find a power supply just up the street from work for $20 and I got a set of HD AV cables from Ebay for like $10 or so. I managed to get everthing together by last Thursday evening so carted the console home with me(now dismantled of course). I hook everything up and not surprisingly I get an RROD. But being new to the 360 scene I wrongly assumed it was the heat/cpu/gpu/solder issue so I head out on Friday and pick up the required supplies for the "fix" (thermal compound, washers, screws blah blah) I get all that done pretty easily and try the console again, still no workie, it's not even heating up or doing much of anything. So I am a little disappointed at this point but being stubborn I do some more reading and realize the console isn't even turning on, hence the chips not even getting lukewarm. I begin to suspect the dude sold me a bum power supply at this point as the LED on the supply flashes green, red and back to amber very quickly when the console is fired up.

I figure I am not gonna bother going after the guy over $20, so I hack the cable off the power supply and rig up an ATX power supply to the cable. Now we are in business I think. I hook my frankensupply up to the xbox and cross my fingers, "She's alive, she's alive!!!". It boots into the dashboard perfectly now but since I have no controller that was as far as I could go at that point. I picked up a controller last night for $30 locally, complete with a play and charge kit too.

So now I had a little play around in the dashboard and find it's an old version of the dashboard which I think is good for hacking? I don't remember the exact version but it is 6XXX.  I think the reason it was in the garbage is cause the hard drive is pooched as it turns out. When I plug it in I get an error, the hard drive has the click of death. Now for the questions, sorry for my rambling story but I thought some of you may get a kick out of it.

1. Can I put any 2.5" hard in the Xbox enclosure and use it? Or does it have to be a specific version/brand? I will probably pick up a 250/320 gig drive I figure. What is the procedure for upgrading the hard drive?

2. I am planning to build a jtag cable to see if my Kernel is exploitable. I am guessing it should be as it is a pretty old version and the console is a Xenon with no HDMI and build date of 2006 if I remember correctly. IF it is exploitable do I also need to do the DVD firmware hack? i.e. do I need to do both a kernel hack and dvd drive hack? is it recommended to do both or just do one or the other? I am not realy concerned with using Live on this console as I have a PS3 for doing any online stuff I need to do.

3. Assuming my kernel is exploitable Xbreboot vs freeboot/cygnos? any thoughts on this. I like the idea of the mod chip for easy flashing and such but cost is about $70 locally, is it worth it? Is the chip more future proof? I don't mind spending the money. I was also reading about using a USB SPI flasher but I figure by the time I dick around building that and building a PIC flasher to use it I would probably be half way to buying the cygnos not to mention the time factor so undecided on this, any thoughts?

4. I have watched a couple YouTube videos of guys booting backed up games directly from the Xbox dashboard as well as from alternative dashboards. I have read how the latter is accomplished but I couldn't find much info on how to run the games from the xbox dash which is how I would like to run my games if possible? any tutorials on doing that or point me in the right direction.

5. Lastly is there any possibility we will see an Xbox360 specific version of XBMC for hacked consoles? I know this probably isn't the best place to ask but I thought I would throw it out there as I still use my original Xbox for xbmc in the bedroom. And I have seen the video of it running in Ubuntu on a 360 but I am hoping we will see a native version ala the original.

Thanks and sorry for the length of the post but I am pretty stoked, something to tinker with again. :-)

Kevin

[thwack]

QUOTE(Ould @ Jan 28 2010, 01:41 PM)

1. Can I put any 2.5" hard in the Xbox enclosure and use it? Or does it have to be a specific version/brand? I will probably pick up a 250/320 gig drive I figure. What is the procedure for upgrading the hard drive?

After you've JTAG'd it you can - just pop it straight in and format. Otherwise on a non-JTAG'd 360 it's a matter of formatting it using a connectivity kit to your PC - there's tuts in the HD section on these forums.

QUOTE(Ould @ Jan 28 2010, 01:41 PM)

2. I am planning to build a jtag cable to see if my Kernel is exploitable. I am guessing it should be as it is a pretty old version and the console is a Xenon with no HDMI and build date of 2006 if I remember correctly. IF it is exploitable do I also need to do the DVD firmware hack? i.e. do I need to do both a kernel hack and dvd drive hack? is it recommended to do both or just do one or the other? I am not realy concerned with using Live on this console as I have a PS3 for doing any online stuff I need to do.?

You've got a 6XXX dash so it's def. exploitable. You might as well flash the drive whilst you have it out (Google 'Jungleflasher' for a low-down on how to). You'll prolly need a Via PCI card to do this (unless the sata on your PC mobo is compatible).

QUOTE(Ould @ Jan 28 2010, 01:41 PM)

3. Assuming my kernel is exploitable Xbreboot vs freeboot/cygnos? any thoughts on this. I like the idea of the mod chip for easy flashing and such but cost is about $70 locally, is it worth it? Is the chip more future proof? I don't mind spending the money. I was also reading about using a USB SPI flasher but I figure by the time I dick around building that and building a PIC flasher to use it I would probably be half way to buying the cygnos not to mention the time factor so undecided on this, any thoughts?

Save yourself some $'s and go the XBR route - there's no real extra benifits in buying a chip at the moment. You won't need to build a USB flasher as you'll only have a 16mb onboard NAND to flash, which takes 20 minutes via LPT (again see the tuts in this forum for a how to - basically a DB-25 plug, some wire, 5 X 100ohm resistors and a switching diode).

QUOTE(Ould @ Jan 28 2010, 01:41 PM)

4. I have watched a couple YouTube videos of guys booting backed up games directly from the Xbox dashboard as well as from alternative dashboards. I have read how the latter is accomplished but I couldn't find much info on how to run the games from the xbox dash which is how I would like to run my games if possible? any tutorials on doing that or point me in the right direction.

Again, in the hacking forums here you will find your answer

QUOTE(Ould @ Jan 28 2010, 01:41 PM)

5. Lastly is there any possibility we will see an Xbox360 specific version of XBMC for hacked consoles? I know this probably isn't the best place to ask but I thought I would throw it out there as I still use my original Xbox for xbmc in the bedroom. And I have seen the video of it running in Ubuntu on a 360 but I am hoping we will see a native version ala the original.

One of the most asked questions about JTAG'ing is will there be an XBMC? Well, probably, but more than likely it'll be incorporated into the hacked NXE dash, rather than a standalone prog (or at least I hope it will....)

[AZImmortal]

1. If you perform the JTAG hack, then you can use any size hard drive.  I don't know the exact steps to get it formatted properly because I haven't done it myself.

2. Your console WILL be exploitable.  You don't have to mod the DVD drive, but you won't be able to play regular backups if you don't.  You should do both.

3.  At this point, XBReboot is ahead of Freeboot.  As for whether or not to get a Cygnos, I feel that it would be unnecessary, but that's a personal choice.  I would personally just buy a USB flasher if you didn't want to spend the time to build it yourself.

4. Look for NXE2GOD (NXE installed games to games on demand).

5. This would definitely be the killer app, but the official XBMC dev team has stated that at least for now, they're not interested in porting XBMC to the 360.  However, they encourage others to do the porting.

[Ould]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the responses, just what I needed.

Over the weekend I made some progress. Got my drive flashed with iXtreme and confirmed my console can actually play games. lol.

Yesterday brought the console into work, I am a tech so have a better workspace and most of my soldering stuff is at work. Soldered in the jtag hack and simple lpt cable. Managed to read my nand and flashed xbr this morning, real work got in the way yesterday so couldn't quite finish. Haven't had a chance to test xbr but had no problems flashing so hopefully she works once I test er out at home.

Now just need a replacement drive for my dead 20gig and I should be gtg with some homebrew. Woot!


Thanks again,

Kevin