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[Kaitou_Ace]

my question is do we KNOW the hdd is banned?  or are we assuming it's banned?

[ruffles_x]

QUOTE (Kaitou_Ace @ Nov 11 2004, 11:44 AM)

has anyone tried flashing eeprom and NOT chaning HDD?  i really don't want to lose my 160.  also, i'm gonna look into the xtender if it's the one that lets me fit 2 hdds in my xbox.

me in my 2nd xbox, and the xbox got banned again.

then i changed to a fresh eeprom and a clean stock HDD(both never been online before) and im back in live... 72 hours and counting

Thanks and sorry about my bad english

[datapusher]

QUOTE (Kaitou_Ace @ Nov 11 2004, 09:44 AM)

has anyone tried flashing eeprom and NOT chaning HDD?  i really don't want to lose my 160.  also, i'm gonna look into the xtender if it's the one that lets me fit 2 hdds in my xbox.

Yup.

just for shits and giggles, I kept the same hard drive in, flashed the bios to read everything from F instead of C.  Moved all non MS signed crap to F and deleted all the xblive updates and unknown items in my memory.

I changed the eeprom and gave it a wirl.  I was able to play for a few hours last night.  Passed out and woke up around 6am and played a few games.  Woke up this afternoon talked to a guy online and when I went to sign on, `the dreaded cannot connect message and after I went and troubleshot the connection.  i was banned again for modification.

This leads me to believe that they do have the HD serial listed in their db.  Or that they check for any changes in the HD from when you first logged on to live.  if this is the case, my only issue was that I had bought a used xbox that the original had been used on live before I got it.  And by adding a new hard drive and signing into live, there was a number mismatch and I was flagged.

So the next step is to see if i can play with my stock hard drive and a new EEprom.  keep in mind this hard drive was used on live before I bought the Xbox.  So this is just a test.  All it costs me is $8 and a gamertag which I got from the Halo2 case.

If I happen to be banned with this test I will put in a stock Hard Drive that has never been on live and flash it with another eeprom (anyone wanna donate one?  NTSC).  And if i am banned on a virgin stock hard drive and with the mod chip off.  The only possible conclusion I could come up with at this point in time would be that MS has found a way to detect the modchip even while off.

[uk-hitman]

Well I have just joind the merry band list of user .
And a Happy band we are . Have also sent a cracking email to there support calling them everything under the sun .

My xbox aint modded but has a 10gb drive in it because the old disk was making one hell of a noise .   Thus Micro$oft calls it a mod .

I cant understand why some of you are going out and buying a new xbox to play Halo2 , you are falling right into there trap ..

I must question the fact that M$ can examine your HDD with information on it , Im sure there must be some kink of law against this ..Im sick fed up of them thinking they are god .

I m not buying another xbox but away to get a new PS2  v2  screw U M$ ...

Sorry lads   rant over  

Oh and Hi to all . sorry my first post has to be such a rant agains Micro$oft

[maxipad1982]

i keep getting the error "sorry the xbox live server is currently busy, please try again"
which i've never had b4. and now thats happening ALOT!

[moksi]

THIS IS NOT REALLY MOKSI...but i dont have a username and didnt want to set one up.
i have read this entire thred and have no idea what M$ is doing but i want to throw out what my xbox is doing because i am not banned and just about everything i have done would say that i should be.

i have had the same xb for a while (v1.0) and i played live with free trials back in january and again in march (2 separate trials, 2 separate gamertags, same xb).  so i had been playing on live with a completely stock xb for about 4 months (ending in april).  i just recently modded my xb with a x3 and played french halo 2 for a little while.  the day i got halo 2 i swapped for a seagate 80gig.  
(i backed everything up from my xb, reformatted the drive using x3's awsome disk manager thing, and it allowed extra space on my F: drive, i then copied stock stuff back to the new 80 gig and put XBMC and some games on the F: partition. all the other drives are stock (i think) and i made brand new UDATA, TDATA, CACHE folders.  i played halo 1, just to get something in the cache folder, and started up XBMC, just to make sure everything worked still.)
i then went and picked up halo 2.  i came home set up my xbl account (from a 1 year starter kit i bought about 1 year ago and never set up) and signed on and played a couple games.  i didnt play for most of the 9th until night and i played for about 3 hours, i then didnt play for almost all of the 10th when my roomate signed on (with another account he made using the 2 month trial) and he got on fine and played for about 1 hour.  as far as i know i am still not banned but i will come back and let everyone know if i am.
with my setup this kinda disproves that you cant be on live b4 you mod, and also that you cant have a bigger hd.  unless i just havent been banned yet.  but ive been on for 3 days now and have had no problems.
just thought id share what i got.

[Kaitou_Ace]

well i now put complete stock into the eeprom and hdd serial hypothesis.  of my 5 systems, 2 were banned and 3 were not.

the 2 that were banned both had files on c.  however, 2 that were not also had files on c.  the fifth had just reformatted all partitions.

the only common factor between the 2 banned machines that seems to have made the difference was the HDDs.  both systems that were banned had previously used live within the last 2 months on older HDDs.

any questions about my 5 let me know.  if you skipped the pages, i did post the specs on all 5 machines a few pages back.

[Kaitou_Ace]

well i now put complete stock into the eeprom and hdd serial hypothesis.  of my 5 systems, 2 were banned and 3 were not.

the 2 that were banned both had files on c.  however, 2 that were not also had files on c.  the fifth had just reformatted all partitions.

the only common factor between the 2 banned machines that seems to have made the difference was the HDDs.  both systems that were banned had previously used live within the last 2 months on older HDDs.

any questions about my 5 let me know.  if you skipped the pages, i did post the specs on all 5 machines a few pages back.

[Master Reefed]

I tried to Format F, after I had already signed up for LIVE, but I didnt have the extra space...does that mean that no changes (#'s) were changed cause I didnt have the space,it still had to unlock the drive, correct?

I havnt been banned yet. but now they'll prolly hunt me down after writing this  


I have another BOX already softmodded, if one of the mods wanna PM me, I am willing to experiment with it.


btw... I deleted all traces (files) associated with  any modifications Before actually signing in with HALO 2. Basicly a virgin BOX,filewise...if that helps any.

[KTM666]

This is what happened to me: I have a Aladdin2 (whatever) chip, 120 Seagate hd and live bios, I used to go Live one year ago and it worked, but it's some months now I haven't connected and it coudn't have happened by mistake as when the Xbox is in modified mode it has a manually assigned IP and just can't technically connect to the Internet, so I don't think they could have scanned my stuff. On the 11th I tried to go Live but what happens is that it comes out with a "can't find Xbox live", the error you find also in troubleshooting at xbox.com. They say it's because of some servers problem, "try again later", but it's three days now and it ain't working yet. The strange thing is I never really got connected to Live lately cos it stops just before...I tried to connect with another modded xbox with no new hd and it is working, Anyway, a friend of mine with an exact copy of my xbox he's playing halo 2 on Live even now. I just don't get it...

[KTM666]

QUOTE (Kaitou_Ace @ Nov 13 2004, 07:48 AM)

both systems that were banned had previously used live within the last 2 months on older HDDs.

Just read your post, it can actually be this one. I don't remember exactly but I do think I had the older hd on when I connected to Live a year ago, and now I tried to connect with the new one.  Anyway I'm not getting the "mod xbox" error but that other "can't find xbox live" shit...

[balugabutt]

OK. here is what I have...

I have a 1.1 xbox with a 1.0 eeprom because my 1.0 went bad and the HD was locked so I had to flash the new one with the old eeprom.

It has an X2.3b Pro with the wire install. The newest Evox BIOS and a 60gig IBM locked HD. All the evox files are on the C: drive.

I have NEVER been on live. If someone has a 2 week trial they would like to let me use then I will test and see if I get banned. I will even pay something for the trial.

I would have to look on my PC but I think I have another virgin eeprom and I know I have an extra stock HD that did not come with this XBox.

If one of the people trying ti figure this out wants me to try anything special. I am more then willing. I want to figure this out before christmas so I can buy Halo 2 for my son and not have him banned.

Let me know...

just checked and I DO have the virgin eeprom...

This post has been edited by balugabutt: Nov 17 2004, 10:25 PM

[Devil Fire]

Ok folks here it is.

I've been playing Live for a long time now with a modded box.

Modchip: Xenium ICE 2.01 BIOS
XECUTER2 BIOS
w/ Evox installed
20Gig WD HDD

As long as I booted up with the TSOP BIOS on my modchip I was able to play on Live.  After Halo 2 came out that changed.  I was banned.

After I was banned I switched my HDD to a WD 15 Gig HDD with a new Eeprom.
I formatted the drive and updated Live.  I was back on Live.  Stayed on for 5 min. then turned off the system.  Went back the next day to check......banned!  This was still using the TSOP BIOS and the HDD had no Evox or modded files on it.  It was stock EXCEPT for it being 15 Gigs.  I also have after XBOX that is totally stock and I"m still getting on just fine on that one.  They are checking for your HDD size and mod files.  Your HDD must be either a 8 or 10 Gig HDD.  I'm going to try and find another Eeprom (if someone can help find one that would be helpful) and unlock an old stock 8 gig WD HDD from a different XBOX and see if it works.  I'll let all of you know asap.

[Realm Lord]

I've got an Apple-x (cheapmod) and haven't been banned so far.  I've got a locked 160 gig maxtor drive, with *everything* on the F drive, and the modchip bios is set to boot from F:/evoxdash.xbe.  When I boot it up by hitting eject it boots from the stock ms dash on C:.  Crossing my fingers but in 3-4 days of playing its been fine!

Edit: I upgraded the HD several months before live 2.0 came out.  I did play on live on my stock hdd with evox on E: for a while.  Never had it on C:

This post has been edited by Realm Lord: Nov 19 2004, 06:35 AM

[sarisn]

QUOTE (cloudjoe @ Nov 9 2004, 09:14 AM)

Since (As far as I know) Xecuter is the biggest chip maker of them all. Maybe its the combo of Xecuter 2 + Larger HDD? Anyone banned with a different chip? Thier system? So that $300 for the system and $50 for XBLive must have just been a charitible donation to the poor Gates family then huh? Last I checked you could actually do what you want with the things you own. I never tried to cheat on XBLive, and I hope that there is never a way to do so. So give me a break

It's obvious that u don't get it right. MS is banning ppl because they have modified their console. They dont care how. What they care about is that u and many others play about 50 games (or more) with ur bigger HD without buying the games. So what u say about not cheated in Live doesnt mean anything. You cheated by modifying ur console so end of story. Ur wrong and u know it. I'm very glad i didnt modified mine 2 years i own it so it looks like i'll continue to play in Live with the same xbox and no extra cash spent.