Print

[Heimdall]

The lock state of the current disk is irrelevant.
What makes you think AID won't boot as you describe?
You can flash a new BIOS using AID - no need for a PC.
You can use a larger disk as you describe.

[fallenangle]

I found the thread I was referring to on the Xecuter Modchip Forum 'Repair Error 16........."

The replies seemed to me to suggest that if a dash can't be found and the Xbox eventually goes to Error 16 even with a chip, if it has an unsuitable BIOS, it will not allow you to boot AID or a recovery disc.

I extrapolated from that if an unformatted empty HDD was put in a 'cold' Xbox you could get Error 16 because there would be no dash to find and therefore you couldn't set the time. If my chip happened to have the 'wrong' sort of BIOS and wouldn't allow me to boot a disc under Error 16 I could be in a bit of pickle.

All my Xboxes are powered off after use and I usually have to set the time after boot up, so such considerations, I thought, might be relevant to me.

Probably worrying about nothing and it has an obvious solution but when you're operating without the safety net  of a PC it is sensible to check out all possibilities, however remote, before going ahead with something like this.

[Heimdall]

You're being a bit paranoid, and are extrapolating incorrectly . Your current Xbox and hard drive boot quite happily, so even if your BIOS has issues with the clock not being set, the dash files you need to overcome those issues and set the clock are on your current hard drive. If something goes wrong while you are upgrading the drive you can just re-install the current hard drive and you are back where you started.

To do the change, power up your Xbox for an hour or two so the clock capacitor will charge, before you make the swap. That way even if your BIOS has issues the clock will still be set, so you won't get Error 16 and you should have easily enough time to boot AID and reformat the new disk.

Finally, all recent copies of AID have loads of BIOSes that bypass clock check, and support LBA48 (and hence large hard drives) and on-disk partition tables. The Xecuter 2.6 is 2x512kb banks, so X2.5035 will fit and is probably the best choice. This means that if the current BIOS doesn't recognise the full size of the hard drive you can use AID to flash a newer BIOS onto the second bank of the X2.6, again leaving you the current BIOS bank intact in case anything goes wrong.

[fallenangle]

Well finally got hold of a (WD Caviar) 120GB HDD and have now installed it on my chipped machine.

Couple of things: I was right to be concerned about Error 16. I thought I'd try putting it in from cold and up came the dreaded Error 16. (red/green flashing LED), So it seems my chip's BIOS doesn't support booting without the clock being set.

After I'd refitted the retail HDD and set the clock I left the XBox on for 45 mins to power up the capacitor. I shut it down, swapped in the new HDD and powered up but this time I received an Error 13 message with the same red/green flashing LED.

I then tried loading my AID disc under the Error 13 screen etc. No go of course and didn't make any sense so I powered off wondering what to do next. A chip BIOS that doesn't boot without the clock being set is one thing but this didn't make sense to me. BTW The chip was definitely on and working fine with the retail HDD.  

So I decided to try something similar to what I've done before to get me out of trouble with a Error 21 on a softmodded machine using a Splinter Cell game disc. In this case I cold booted the AID disc.

I put it in the tray drawer and closed it ASAP and suddenly I received an "UnleashX has detected an unformatted HDD" message. Just what I wanted to see and from there everything was very simple. Must have been the chip rather than the AID disc itself but loading the disc in that way seemed to have kicked the chip into business.

Surely once the clock had been set on re-power up the Xecuter 2.6 should have booted to it's own a pre-installed dash allowing me to load AID or whatever? I just don't understand how I can have received an Error 13 message on a chipped Xbox.

Any explanation?

[lordvader129]

the x2.6 doesnt have "it's own a pre-installed dash" it needs to boot the dash from the HDD or DVD

as for why it didnt read the AID disc at first, the drives can be finicky sometimes, keep in mind even the youngest xbox DVD drive is going to be about 5 years old at this point

[Heimdall]

You struggled initially because you were trying to load AID after the Xbox booted and generated Error 13, which means no dash found - and that is what you'd expect, because there was no dash on the new drive and no DVD to read a dash from, and that would never work. Once you cold booted with AID everything worked as it should.

In other words, that's perfectly normal and expected.

[fallenangle]

Well that's another misapprehension I was under about how the mod chip worked.
  I'd always assumed, obviously wrongly, that if there was no dash to find it would do more than just display the usual error messages.

I thought there would be a simple launch dash of some sort which would just come up and allow you to boot a rescue or install disc. But no in these circumstances apparently you need to load the disc before any error message appears. I don't remember that being mentioned in any tutorial I've read.

Hey ho, you live and learn  but thanks ^^ both for putting my mind at rest. I was a bit worried there might be something wrong with the chip.

BTW the DVD drive is fine with my AID disc (on Philips DVD-R), it's actually one of those less common Hitachi drives and, touch wood, has never given me any cause for concern.