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[Heimdall]

OK. It looks as though your Xbox has been set up in a very strange way, but fixable.

Leave all of the existing files on your C partition exactly as they are. Follow all of the steps in my first post. If we're lucky it will work exactly as I described, and your Xbox will boot into the new XBMC instead of the old one. If not then we can fix it easily from there.

[fallenangle]

No other .xbe except for C:\xboxdash.xbe anywhere and, for a .xbe, a vast 7.4MB in size? Very weird. Just a thought: I was just wondering if the the xboxdash.xbe in this case is not a file but maybe a (renamed?) folder with the expected dash contents inside.  

Be interesting to know what did this and/or how it was done but I suspect we'll never know.  

 

[Heimdall]

It's the XBMC default.xbe.

We can guess what happened. Whoever modded the Xbox didn't fully understand what they were doing, but they knew that most BIOSes have C:\xboxdash.xbe as the last dash they boot. So they deleted everything else from the Xbox, put XBMC on C:\, and renamed the xbe from default.xbe to xboxdash.xbe to make it boot.

Not a crime, but not very smart.

Hopefully they didn't edit the BIOS before they flashed it, so it will still boot C:\evoxdash.xbe before c:\xboxdash.xbe.

[fallenangle]

I hadn't thought about it just being the XBMC default .xbe and just checked my own and indeed the default.xbe is 7+MB.

That leads to a question I've wondered about before. Hope it's not stupid (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif). :-

If we choose to have XBMC as a main dash why do we use a shortcut to boot it from, typically, E;\Apps?  Why not do it in a similar manner to the OP's Xbox ie. using the actual XBMC default.xbe?

[Heimdall]

A few very good reasons:

1. It gives you a much cleaner installation. XBMC is a large application, with a relatively complex directory structure, as compared with the one file plus a config file that you need for all other dashboards. The shortcut is only two files, the same as all other dashboards. This has a number of knock-on benefits:-

2. Updating. When you update XBMC you have to delete and replace all of the directories and their contents, and that's much easier to do if the whole thing is contained in a single directory. If you put the entire XBMC directory structure in the location of the dash for your Xbox then you have to remember which directories belong to XBMC, and which were there originally. Given the number of possible locations for hacked dashboards (and remembering that there are no real standards for the hacked dash location) this would make support very difficult. With the shortcut you leave the shortcut exactly as it is, and simply delete and replace the contents of the XBMC directory, usually in E:\Apps\XBMC\.

3. Testing and Rollback. You can have as many copies of XBMC on your Xbox as you like, just with different directory names. That allows you to install and test a new version, for example in E:\Apps\XBMCnew\. Once you're happy with it you can just rename your current XBMC directory E:\Apps\XBMCold\, and rename the new directory E:\Apps\XBMC\, and the new version is now your dash. If you change your mind you can just swap the directory names back again. Note that you can achieve the same result by simply editing the shortcut .cfg file instead of renaming the directories.

4. Replacing XBMC as your dash. If you want to revert to another dash but still retain XBMC as an app you just replace the two shortcut files. XBMC is still installed in E:\Apps\XBMC\, and is still available as an application, complete with all of your configurations and tweaks.

5. Scripted dashboard switching from menus and installation disks. You can switch dashboards just by editing or replacing the shortcut config file. This makes scripted dashboard switching really simple.

[fallenangle]

Wow, I wasn't expecting an in depth reply like that. Very illuminating. Thanks for taking the time to explain.

[gargamel9141]

I followed your instructions and it worked very well. Thank you so much for your help and patience!
So now if I would ever want to update I just have to replace the e:\Apps\XBMC folder?

[Heimdall]

Correct,  but you should do something else first - make sure you can boot from a boot/rescue disc, as a recovery mechanism in case you have a problem in the future.

Get a copy of HeXEn (Google Heimdall's Xbox Engineering Disc) and burn the iso to DVD-R at 4x or slower using an iso image burner, like DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0. Put it in your Xbox DVD drive, and reboot. Once the Xbox boots the LED will turn red, and 40 seconds later the HeXEn menu will appear. As well as having loads of useful tools, it provides FTP access to your Xbox hard drive, which allows you to repair the contents of your hard drive if anything should go wrong in the future.

[gargamel9141]

Ok, I will do that. Thank you for your help!