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[Duren]

Hey guys.

I recently flashed my ms28 successfully and everything is working as expected (although I did fight with it for a little while and I will explain why near the end).

There are so many tutorials and ways of doing things that I got a little confused, so hopefully this post will help someone new or someone who may be having issues. This is by far one of the most simple methods that I have found.. no worrying about statuses, key injection, hex editing, or even dvdinfo pro commands, stealthing backups, sending custom commands etc.

Out of scope in this post:

- Explaining hardware, BIOS, USB Booting, DOS prompt etc
- Where to get various drivers.
- Where to get the applications listed.

Warnings:

- Opening your XBox case voids your warranty. You will not be able to return it for repair in the future.
- You may render your XBox DVD drive useless if the flash process fails.
- You risk being banned from XBox live in the future.
- Your actions and purposes are just that, your own, I take ZERO responsibility for anything you do to your XBox, other people or yourself.

PC Instructions:

1. Get yourself a VIA 6421 card. I got a a cheapie from NCIX (nGear VIA 6421A) which has one IDE, one SATA and one ESATA.

2. Configure the card properly in your machine, use the VIArena 5.30c drivers.

3. Get the latest Xtreme firmware (5.2), choose a version (a,b,c,d, but make sure it's the ms25), and put it somewhere on the HD.

3. Use Xtreme Boot Maker to select the xtreme firmware you saved on your HD (unknown MD5 is ok), select the VIA entry in the dropdown and autodetect the ID and PORT of the VIA card. Select the two options. Get the tool to prepare your USB key.

4. Copy the keycheck tool (keycheck.exe) to the USB key.

5. Connect one end of the SATA cable to the VIA card. DO NOT connect anything to the other end of the cable yet.

6. Shut down computer and unplug all drives

7. Turn on computer and boot from the USB key.

XBox instructions:

1. Make sure the XBox is off and that there is no DVD in the drive.

2. Crack open the case (use whatever tut you want).

3. Unplug the internal SATA cable from the DVD drive

4. Plug in the AV cable (don't need to hook up anything to the other end like a tv) and the power cable.

5. Turn on the Xbox, wait a few seconds, then gently hook up that free end of the SATA cable from the PC to the Xbox DVD drive.

6. From the DOS prompt, run SAMREAD 1234567 12345 (*1)

7. Considering this VIA card has only one internal SATA port and the XBox DVD drive is the only thing plugged in, you should see only one option on the screen - Pri Master. DONT PRESS ANYTHING YET.

8. Shut off the XBox 360.

9. Press 1 to begin reading the firmware. It will appear as if nothing is happening (normal). You will have some info on the screen.

10. After 10 seconds, turn on the XBox. (Immediately you should see the drive firmware being extracted to the USB key. The firmware's key will be auto extracted and injected into the xtreme firmware you chose, readying a custom extreme firmware version for use with SAMHACK)

11. At the DOS prompt, navigate to the BACKUPS\1234567\12345 folder and run "\keycheck.exe orig.bin xtreme.bin". This will confirm that your key was properly injected into the xtreme firmware. DO NOT PROCEED IF KEYS DONT MATCH.

12. Power off the XBox and PC.

13. Plug the key into another machine and backup your original extracted firmware. It should be in a BACKUPS\1234567\12345 folder, called orig.bin

14. Plug in USB key again and boot to it (DOS prompt)

15. Follow steps 5-10 but instead of running SAMREAD 1234567 12345, run SAMHACK 1234567 12345 (Immediately you should see the drive being flashed - bank 1 to 100%, bank 2 to 100%, bank 3 to 100% bank 4 to 100% but it will say finished.

16. Power down the XBox, reassemble to working order and verify that you didn't brick it and that originals are running. If you have backups try them now as well. They should also play successfully. Unless you want to make backups, your work is done.

17. Reattach all previously unplugged CD/HD drives.

** If you want to flash your firmware down the road, grab the new firmware and read the readme.txt it will explain how to flash a drive with an already modified firmware.

Backup instructions:

1. Grab Xtreme firmware v4.2.

2. Burn Enable0800.iso to a single layer DVD (I used a Maxell DVD-R. For this disc to work on DVD-R, I believe you need you have flashed your drive atleast v5.0 of the extreme firmware. In this tut, I recommended we use the latest, 5.2).

3. Shut off the PC.

4. Having the XBox off, AV and power cables plugged in, unplug the DVD drive's XBox sata cable and plug in the one from the VIA card. (You can leave all your other CD/HD drives attached).

5. Turn on the XBox, insert the 0800 disc you created, wait 5 seconds and remove it.

6. Turn on the PC. Windows should detect the drive, don't worry if you don't get notified, just check device manager to ensure it's listed.

7. Insert an original disc and watch the auto run pop up claiming it's a DVD Video disc.

8. Open up XBox Backup Creator and don't' change any settings. You should be on the read tab with full backup selected. Hit start and it will ask you where to save the ISO. Choose a place and wait until extraction is completed.

9. Once this is done, verify the image was created correctly by going to Image tools tab and hit the stealth check button. Choose the ISO you created and it should verify successfully.

At this point, if you are done, you have the option of removing the original from the XBox drive, shutting down the PC and XBox so that you can unplug the XBox drive from the PC. Once the drive is unplugged, reboot and go back into XBox Backup Creator.

10. Go back to the write tab, select your DVD writer from the dropdown at the top and hit start. Choose the iso you want to burn and wait until it's done. (You may see a bus reset error but don't worry, it should still work, my backups are ok)(*2).

11. Once the write is completed, test in the XBox which you should reassembled while the ISO was burning. My backup booted flawlessly.


Notes (*):

1. Unplugging all drives may not be enough for MTKFlash to detect your XBox drive on the VIA card. I had a HELL of a time getting the drive detected. It kept saying no drives detected. For the hell of it I plugged the XBox drive into the onboard SATA port and guess what, MTKFlash picked it up... even though Xtreme Boot Maker properly hex edited MTKFlash for me to look at the VIA card (IO).. Hell if I know why. So my point is, you may have to play in the BIOS like I did. Disabling onboard IDE didn't work, changing mode from Enhanced to Compatibility didn't work, BUT leaving enhanced mode and disabling only secondary channel was the winning combination.

Aside 1: You can double check that Xtreme boot maker properly assigned your ID and Port by looking at the VIA card's details in device manager. In XP SP2 you should see the ID string and of course resources. The first part of the first and third IO resource should be a concatenated string in the port text box of the boot maker.

Aside 2: Perhaps the reason I had a hell of a time getting the drive detected (going back to note 1) is because the VIA card had major issues being detected in my PC. Maybe because it's a cheapie, but I believe it's because it was fighting with the BIOS for resources and sometimes didn't get them on boot. Once the secondary IDE channel was disabled, it appeared ok. I must say, I've never swapped slots back and forth like I did with this VIA card.

2. I'm assuming that you realize by the size of the ISO that need dual layer blanks. I'm also assuming your drive will take care of bitsetting the disc upon write from DVD+R DL to DVD-ROM like my Pioneer 110D. If not, please research how to do this prior to burning with your writer.

Aside 1: I tried to cut corner and use onboard sata instead of the VIA card to make the backup. Let's just say my computer didn't want to boot with the XBox drive plugged in, even with the tray open. Unlike onboard sata, the VIA card does not have a BIOS so it does not detect anything connected on boot. Windows takes care of it, so your computer should boot. That's why I suggested using the VIA card again for the backup.

I realize the post is a little long and there are quite a few steps, but I hope my troubles and successes help someone else. Revision comments are always welcome.

Thank you to all who posted tutorials on this process.

[GavSt]

Great tutorial, followed it to the letter and it got me through the process almost in 1 go.

The only change i would say is to try the 5.2c VIA drivers before you install the 5.3c's. I tried with the 5.3's but the drive wouldn't show up. Gazcoigne (cheers dude) recommended the 5.2c drivers and they worked a treat. The drive showed up pretty much first time and it also read the firmware 1st time.

Timing of the x360 power up seems to be very important. I used the good old 1, 1 thousand, 2, 1 thousand technique and bang on the 10 worked excellently. any more than that and i refused to read or write.

Cheers for the tutorial mate.

Gav.

[Gazcoigne]

nice one!!

yeah guys i didnt know that 5.3 was out, ive always used the 5.2c drivers and they worked fine for me.

every time ive done a ms28 ive used x360SAM 0.6 and the 10 second trick works flawlessly every time.

plus i was using a floppy (not recommended) as i couldnt find my pen drive!

[turkey_fiddler]

thanks duren i read your guide before i flashed my ms28
gavst i took your advise about older drivers. nice one

this is what i did

i reinstalled windows on my hard drive and started from scatch
i installed older drivers for the vt6421a pci card (v 3.2c)
i placed the PC! card in the highest PCI slot (just under graphics card)
my motherboard is a GA-K8NE (just incase anyone has been through the same as me)
xtreme bootmakers device id and I/O numbers were exactly the same before i made these changes

and what do you know!  first time i tried it worked a charm
 thanks a lot


if anyone else has VT6421A PCI card and is having trouble. DONT GIVE UP and DONT TAKE DRUGS

thanks everyone

[thalungz]

sry if htis seems like a dumb question, but where do i find keycheck.exe ive looked and looked

[thalungz]

screw it, didnt use the keycheck thingy,,,,,,anyways.... this tut is the GREATEST!!, it worked like a charm i love you. ... is every drive as easy as this,

[majik655]

I have more than likely a stupid question but I do not see why this is.. maybe I missed some trick somewhere...

in step 3 you state:
3. Get the latest Xtreme firmware (5.2), choose a version (a,b,c,d, but make sure it's the ms25), and put it somewhere on the HD.
 
WHY make sure it is MS25 ?    shouldn't that be ms28??   so that it will report as a ms28 and not cause e66 on some machines?



Did I miss something?

[LeedsLad]

I would also like to know why you recommended the ms25 for the ms28 drive....

[majik655]

its ok if it is a typo (more than likely is or you just do not have a box that is affected by the update e66 error)



::EDIT::  YES as stated below by myfranco  ..  I forgot to say it is a GREAT tutorial very helpful and alot of great info.  Thank you.   (was not meaning to pick on it.. just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something tricky thats all)

This post has been edited by majik655: Jan 10 2007, 01:35 AM

[myfranco]

I believe it's just typo

Great tutorial. Thanks for your contribution

[GavSt]

QUOTE(majik655 @ Jan 10 2007, 12:07 AM)

I have more than likely a stupid question but I do not see why this is.. maybe I missed some trick somewhere...

in step 3 you state:
3. Get the latest Xtreme firmware (5.2), choose a version (a,b,c,d, but make sure it's the ms25), and put it somewhere on the HD.
 
WHY make sure it is MS25 ?    shouldn't that be ms28??   so that it will report as a ms28 and not cause e66 on some machines?
Did I miss something?

There isn't a specific ms28 firmware in the 5.2 rar. There are other fimwares though which are designed from the other makes of DVD drive that come with the 360. Thats why you use the one designated ms25, its for use in the samsung drives. From what i gather the ms25 and ms28 are essentially the same drives.

This post has been edited by GavSt: Jan 10 2007, 10:27 PM

[majik655]

QUOTE(GavSt @ Jan 10 2007, 01:33 PM)

There isn't a specific ms28 firmware in the 5.2 rar. There are other fimwares though which are designed from the other makes of DVD drive that come with the 360. Thats why you use the one designated ms25, its for use in the samsung drives. From what i gather the ms25 and ms28 are essentially the same drives.

no.. they are different drives...

The reason why you have to choose a version is because the bare bones firmware is based off ms28 drives and so reports as ms28 by default so no change is needed...     if you have a ms25 drive then YES you do need it modified and it modifies it.

So really IF you have a ms28 drive you really do not need to MAKE it report as ms28 it already does.. so no need for the batch file anyway... BUT it is easier as it copys the key over also.  

Great tutorial.

[Hercules Man]

3. Get the latest Xtreme firmware (5.2), choose a version (a,b,c,d, but make sure it's the ms25), and put it somewhere on the HD.

So is this a typo, or do i use ms25 to flash my ms28 drive, im really confused


H MAn