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[smakusdod]

I posted this as a reply in another topic, it isn't going anywhere, and i have more information.  Please help if you have experience with this, it is greatly appreciated.

i have a dell dimension 3100, onboard sata disabled.

I have the VIA SATA VT 6421L card, with my hard drive on one channel, and the benq on the other. I boot using IDE cd rom with an NTFS for DOS boot cd. the benq drive is off to begin with, otherwise it wont get past the sata boot screen.

once booted up, type YES at NTFS prompt, then navigate to Dosflash, run dosflash with this:

dosflash r d870 1 a0 1 4 c:\backup.bin 0

It promtps me to resend the command, i hit Y, then i turn on the benq drive. it starts swticing between D1 and 51, i power down benq, then power up benq again, and it goes to x73, and says:

Reading Bank 0....

then it sits there eternally.

i've also tried the reset ATAPI switch lik so:

dosflash r d870 1 a0 1 4 c:\backup.bin 1

So far, no luck.  I can get a similar result with dosflash32 via XP, although it gets stuck at bank 0 as well.

Anybody have any clue? im going insane, and i've tried many things over many hours, including switching cables/sata ports around, etc.  When i switch sata ports yes i am also switching the hex to match, etc.

One question i have is that if i have the VIA card, should my mobo matter?  I can try it on an older Asus-based computer if I have to, but i thought if i have the VIA card, the dell mobo shouldnt be much of an issue?  Experts please chime in...

thank you.

[LEXS]

Back it up to a floppy, take the dosflash files an put them on a floppy once you get your backup you know the rest...just backup using a floppy an use ntfsdos to erase an write since i couldnt get the drive to read with the same setup you have.

1. dosflash r xxxx 1 a0 4 a:\orig.bin 0            

2. dosflash e xxxx 1 a0 4 d8 0

3. dosflash w xxxx 1 a0 4 c:\benq-ix.bin 0
 
those are the commands to read,erase an write, just replace the xxxx with you dev io an makesure your directories are correct  first read then make a copy of your read bin then make the ix.bin then place it in the c:\ or what ever directory you are working with then erase your benq banks with the 2nd command then run the 3rd command. Thats it your done...........

[smakusdod]

QUOTE(LEXS @ Oct 30 2007, 09:56 PM)

Back it up to a floppy, take the dosflash files an put them on a floppy once you get your backup you know the rest...just backup using a floppy an use ntfsdos to erase an write since i couldnt get the drive to read with the same setup you have.

1. dosflash r xxxx 1 a0 4 a:\orig.bin 0            

2. dosflash e xxxx 1 a0 4 d8 0

3. dosflash w xxxx 1 a0 4 c:\benq-ix.bin 0
 
those are the commands to read,erase an write, just replace the xxxx with you dev io an makesure your directories are correct  first read then make a copy of your read bin then make the ix.bin then place it in the c:\ or what ever directory you are working with then erase your benq banks with the 2nd command then run the 3rd command. Thats it your done...........

thanks for the help... i don't have a floppy on this particular box, but i will try it with a USB key.  I'll post back if it works.

[smakusdod]

Well, using a combination of the advice of a few individuals on the board, I was able to sucessfully dump, hack, and re-flash the benq drive with the modified firmware.

Here are my exact steps to solve my problem of dosflash being stuck at "Reading Bank 0..."

1) create a bootable USB key.   - this is harder than it sounds, because there is no universal tool out there that we all should use.  I wound up downloading the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, located here:

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197

Note, this is NOT the HP USB drive utility tool!

then i downloaded an image of a boot disk from bootdisk.com, dos 6.22 did the trick:

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Once i had the key working, i copied DOSFLASH to it (so there is nothing but a bootable DOS 6.22 files, plus DOSFLASH on the usb key).  Note, i am talking about DOSFLASH 16, lastest version off of xbins.


Now that I had that there, via windows XP, i confirmed what I/O address range my VIA card was using.  I found that it has 2 channels, in my case, channel 0 started at x00006860, and channel 1 started at x00006870.

Then, i turned off the computer, unplugged everything from my VIA card, except the Benq, which i moved to the first channel, channel 0, starting at 6860 (zeros removed, for use with DOSFLASH)

Went into the BIOS, disabled onboard SATA and IDE, set to boot from USB, then reboot into DOS using the USB key.

then i followed the flashing guide listed in the DOSFLASH nfo file, substituting the address of my VIA card's channel 0 where it should be in the command string, i.e.:

dosflash r 6860 1 a0 1 4 c:\backup.bin 0

Note:  i left the xbox360 power (and hence, the Benq drive) OFF until after i typed in the DOSFLASH command, then i powered on, off, then on again, while the command was waiting (after hitting Y for retry).   i used this powering method EVERY SINGLE TIME i used DOSFLASH.

Everything worked as it should, i had to power the xbox360 on, off, then on again, and it started reading and dumping the firmware to my USB key (which was c:\).

From here, i re-enabled my hard drives, boot into windows XP, copied the backup.bin file off of my usb key, and ran it through the c4eva's firmware-creating batch file that comes with the latest benq firmware, and it created the benq-ix.bin file that i now copied over to my USB key.

reboot the computer, disabled sata, ide, hard drives, made sure nothing was plugged in except for the BENQ, then boot to the usb key again, and erased the firmware on the benq using DOSFLASH.   After that was complete, i reboot AGAIN to the usb key (just to be safe), and wrote the modified firmware to the benq using DOSFLASH.

After this, everything worked perfectly, backups and all.

Here is what i learned the hard way (in my setup, anyway, with my Mobo and VIA card):

Once you've used DOSFLASH once, you have to reboot for it to work again.  You cannot dump the firmware twice in the same session without a reboot, regardless of if it shows you that it is working, it isn't.

Reboot after EVERY use of DOSFLASH, even if you are just erasing the firmware, do this:

read firmware, reboot, erase firmware, reboot, write firmware, done!

In order to get DOSFLASH to actually read/write the firmware, i HAD to have the benq drive on the first and primary channel of the VIA card, with NO OTHER DRIVES ATTACHED TO THE VIA CARD, OR ANYWHERE ELSE.   Channel 0, benq drive there.  Nothing else attached.  If i had any hard drive attached to the VIA, or if i enabled my on-board sata for hard drive access, DOSFLASH would not work.  That is why i had to use the USB key, so i had some kind of storage to dump the firmware to, because i could not have hard drive access otherwise DOSFLASH would not work (and i dont have a floppy drive on this box either, but i suspect a floppy would probably work, especially if it is a usb floppy drive).

Other than those caveats, dosflash worked great, the firmware plays backups great, and the skills of some of the people on this board and community are truly amazing.  Thanks everybody who helped out, i hope this post can save you some time, it took me a good 15 hours to figure this out, because my DELL mobo and VIA card obviouisly don't work very well with DOSFLASH, but following these steps and guidelines, it should work for you.

This post has been edited by smakusdod: Oct 31 2007, 05:23 PM

[xFiReStOrMx]

When I download the DOS6.22 exe file what do I do with it? I've used the HP tool to format me USB disk, what do I do next? I run the boot622.exe file and it tells me to "Insert floppy to write", but of course I want to use USB memory stick. I managed to extract it with winrar (although with errors) and I get a "boot622.IMA" file which is 1.40MB. What do I do with it?

plz help.. im dying to get my 360 going (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

This post has been edited by xFiReStOrMx: Nov 4 2007, 07:54 AM

[xFiReStOrMx]

I just cant get past Reading Bank 0...

I go thru the proccess and get the good drive status code 0x73 and then it just sits infinitely on Reading Bank 0...

i really wanna get this working

[xFiReStOrMx]

Fisrtly sorry for the tripple post but I cannot edit.. Anyway..

I DONE IT!!

I got it working. read the firmware, created iXtreme and then flashed it although it gave errors when I flashed so I just erased it and tried again and it worked fine. Didnt reboot, either just erased then wrote it after it failed from the same screen.


YAY!!

Now I have another question. I tried ti play Skate and it told me I needed to download updates before I could play the game. Now this might be a silly question, but is it now ok to sign up to xbox live and download any dash updates?

ps. BioShock worked tho! But my HIN didn't work.. maybe try burning again.

This post has been edited by xFiReStOrMx: Nov 4 2007, 10:26 AM

[jimmy85.persson]

QUOTE(xFiReStOrMx @ Nov 4 2007, 10:58 AM)

Fisrtly sorry for the tripple post but I cannot edit.. Anyway..

I DONE IT!!

I got it working. read the firmware, created iXtreme and then flashed it although it gave errors when I flashed so I just erased it and tried again and it worked fine. Didnt reboot, either just erased then wrote it after it failed from the same screen.
YAY!!

Now I have another question. I tried ti play Skate and it told me I needed to download updates before I could play the game. Now this might be a silly question, but is it now ok to sign up to xbox live and download any dash updates?

ps. BioShock worked tho! But my HIN didn't work.. maybe try burning again.

I have the exact same problem so please tell me how you got it working.