I will share my complete experience with the Xeno Top Gear.... please note I knew NOTHING about anything on the 360 before starting this. I was well versed with every other system and mods/chips etc, but not the 360.
Drive: Hitachi 47
Coming into this, every console I have has a mod. So I could not leave the 360 out of it. I had heard of the firmware hacks to the dvd drive but never kept on it. Also, the real reason for this was that my dvd drive was having a very hard time reading brand new games. Would sputter and spit and click. I figured at the same time I did the firmware I would swap the laser out in the dvd drive.
I saw the price difference between the Blaster and Xeno products and purchased the cheaper of the 2 as well as a replacement laser.
Before it arrived, I read the textbook .pdf several times, but I am the kind of person that such a thing really doesn't click until I am doing it, and also, I need to know WHY I am doing something...
The instructions that come with the Xeno are barely instructions....They really assume you already know everything that you are doing to your system.
Taking apart the 360 was not very fun, but once I realized what that metal object was for that xeno shipped it, made things a ltitle easier... :-) Its easy enough to install the cables for the unit, but is anyone else having their wires scraped a little bit by the top of the metal wall that it is coming through? I also cleaned the laser of the dvd drive while I was in there...
I had a gut feeling from reading many threads that my motherboard was not going to play well with my hitachi drive, but I was going to give it a try anyway.
I tried the hard drive hookup first. This worked without any problems and I even used explorer 360 and moved some data to it. Now on to the dvd drive.
I have a ASRock DualSata Mobo and the Sata ports are Ali branded... The VERY first time I hooked the xeno port to my pc windows saw the drive. It popped up in my computer and I was all like "well that was 50 bucks well spent!" because everything I read said that getting your drive in windows and in mode b was the tough part. comparing the device manager for the drive to various threads on the internet showed me I was seeing what I was supposed to be seeing.
Ok, now I have the drive in windows....now what? I was putting in an original game and having it come up to "play dvd" so I figured its working correctly. Just about this time, there was a new blaster 360 video for using it on 78 drives.....Watching that video gave me the name of the software "firware toolkit 3.0" and I was on my way...
At least I thought I was...Everytime I tried to dump/make a backup of my drive with this tool my PC would hard lock. And by hard lock I mean, nothing, not even mouse movement... After trying several idiotic things like safe mode, unplug other sata drives, etc, I was beggining to beleive that my sata chipset was not going to work.
I had grabbed a collection of the 360 xbins stuff off a newsgroup download and started poking through the other methods for flashing drives and saw from forums posts that the maximus garyopa firmware was popular. Reading through the text and batch files gave me an idea of how they worked. I felt it would not hurt to try to use it to make a firmware backup. And guess what? It works!
Now I am wondering if the Firware toolkit 3.0 was only for 78 drives? (still do not know). What I did at this point was to make backup copy of my firmware and even open up the firmware in the toolkit to see the key and made copies of that as well.
Now that I was feeling ballsy, I decide to try the real deal, and flash this sucker. Ran the batch file with the required arguments and it failed at the part where it was supposed to get the drive version. I noticed that where I was running this from was VERY deep file structure-wise and moved it to the root of my drive. Now its able to get farther.... up until "Flashing 1/9 sector" and then it would freeze..
Reading around and finding other peopple having this problem and most saying that its probably a sata issue. I decide to try to use my Sata II port on my mobo. The drive shows up in windows again this time as a different name..... This time it has a "scsi dvd drive" in the title. And also, putting a game in did nothing nor could I click the drive letter for it...
Well that was waste of time and I hook it back up to the sata 1 port. For shits and giggles I decided to burn the slax iso and boot off of it. I did this several times playing around seeing what it did, etc. When I booted into windows and stuck an original game in the drive, something happened that had not happened the first 29 billion times I have put a disc in.....After 30 seconds or so, the drive spit the disc back out.......
Well that's something different huh? I procede to run the flash batch file and guess what? It goes all the way through terribly fast and flashes without a hiccup or problem. WHAT THE HELL! I mean, at this point I am happy, but I need to know WHY it worked this time. Was the drive showing up and working in windows but not REALLY mode B? And the Slax iso corrected that? I still am not sure. I will tell you that my motherboard has bios ooption to let the sata port simulate "ide mode" and I was fooling around with those to see if makes a difference, but in hindsight, it didn't seem to make a difference.
Ok, now we THINK we have a flashed drive cause a batch file told us we do, and I am a trusting person. Now,.. back to that textbook pdf to read on the proper way to backup/burn... and what programs to use.
Oh,... Isee this stack of dvd-r aren't going to do me any good, I need to go out and get some dvd+r DL!. I pick up a 3 pack of Memorex DVD+R DL @ $8.99 and proceed to use clonecd (21 days remaining in trial) to start the burn.
Oh great... now I am reading about bitsetting!? And certain burners work and other don't!? Crimany! This is now bordering on sadomasochism. Still, I trudge on. I have a cheap ass Sony DW-Q30A, a drive which is about 29.99 at microcenter. Link
http://www.cdrinfo.c...ArticleId=15850 for the drive. This drive has served me well for ps2, xbox, wii, etc so I am feeling confident my burner will not be a problem. And burn at 2.4 speed? Wow. I really do not understand the science behind burning slowly and why it matters... To this point even Wii forumgoers say to burn at like 2x and burning at 16x, I have yet to have one not work flawlessly. Anyway....
/Cutesy music plays.... Burn Successfull! I label the disc and stick it in my 360, and the drive does its typically "I think I can I think I can" Psyche! Click click. Damit! 50 attempts later and there is no way this drive is going to read this disc. So many variables as to why.... Is my drive REALLY flashed? Does my burner suck? Is "Is it live or is it Memorex" just a marketing ploy?. I put an original disc in and although it takes a few tries, it does load the game...reluctantely.
Now I am byond irritated with my dvd drive and I grab the package that the replacement laser came in. I finally find a tutorial to replace the laser online and proceed to take a solder blob off the newly purchased laser. Again, I do not know why I need to do this, but a guide says so, so I am doing it. I get the new laser installed and put back together and the system does boot up.... I have noticed that with the Xeno, sometimes the hard drive is not sitting perfect in the drive slot and can make the system not boot. I bruce Lee the drive back into position and boot up. back copy, same, maybe even worse than before.
You see, by this point I had sort of an intimate relationship with the sound of my dvd drive. I could tell by the sound of the motor and spinning and how ramped up it got if a title was going to boot. With this new laser in, it never even really got ramped up. The original game booted fine after several more attempts.
Screw this. I remember having to tweak the pots on my ps2 back in the day and scour a guide for the Hitachi.(Moda's guide) With my trusty volt meter in hand a non tweaked reading on the dvd pot read as 3.9k ohms. Well according to the guide i was following, this was simply too much resistance. After about 40 minutes of turning the damn thing too far each direction, I was able to get it set to 3.2.
Put the system back together, bruce Lee the hard drive into correct seating and try to boot the backup. It boots. And, FAST. I am talking like it boots the friggin disc like a system SHOULD. No hesitation, no screwing around, just data loading. I even kind of missed the sweet conversations the drive used to give me. I then booted up an original. Same thing. Lightining fast and no hesitation. I decide to get a reading from the POT of the original laser and it was clocking in at 3.7, which could explain why I had slightly better success with the first laser, even on originals.
So, after 3 evenings, about 12 hours total including reading and swearing, I am done for now. At this point, I am not even sure what the hell this 50 dollar product did for me. Provide easy hookup? Um, ok. But if I dont plan on having it hooked to my pc a lot, it this feature usefull? Easy hard drive data transfer. Backingup data on my 360 drive? I personally do not give a shit about that. Game saves, maybe. Content? maybe. Did it put my drive into mode b? I still am not sure. According to guides, if the dvd drive shows up in windows, then its in mode b., I sure could not flash it though. Only after booting off of Slax, having the switch on the Xeno engaged and having it spit a title back at me after 30 seconds would it flash.
Now I am reading Xeno is coming out with higher quality stuff? So is what we bought complete garbage? I dunno. Hope the read wasn't too boring.
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Topic: Blaster 360 And Xeno Top Gear, Discussion Thread (Read 595 times)