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[Skwalin]

ok, sure it's checking the HD, but what about it?
does anybody have the skills to find this out, it could just be checking the serial #, or maybe it's checking the contents.....  Frenchy version saves?
If somebody can say what exaclty it's checking, there may be a way around it after all....

[Skwalin]

Whether you are already screwed, or you were wise enough to wait and see where people were with Live and Halo 2,  we can both profit by finding out what it's checking, then those who are banned can get a new one, and those who arn't can change it.  Whatever IT is....
The point is that we need to find out what it's checking, therefore why we canfind out how we can/did get banned.  Thusly fixing all our problems.

[Edwin]

Lets accept several facts.

• The bans issued in the past two or so days have been for SEVERAL reasons. Not just one.
• EEPROM mismatching. If you changed your EEPROM after signing on LIVE then their database has something different than your xbox.
• French save games. Think about it. Will they ban everyone with a French game? Maybe till it is release over there. Also look in your save game manager of your xbox. It has the time stamp and date of when your profile was created. Obviously if yours is dated before the release of the French version a ban is coming. Keep in mind those who don't have their clocks set maybe off the hook as they probably took this into consideration.
• Monthly (bi-monthly?) routine banning of those they had a backlog of xbox's to ban.
• As stated above and in several other threads, HDD sizes do not matter, playing Halo 2 doesn't matter (some where banned with Wolf, Mechassault, ESPN, Madden). One thing is uncertain for sure. Those who have been banned have not stated for the record wether or not they played/have/saved a profile/game save of the Halo 2 leak.
• Stuff on the actual HDD (roms, emulators, xbmc, games, dashboards) do not matter.

[tribefiend]

Here is what I am doing.  

I have a 160gb hdd in my xbox.  I got home tonight to play halo 2 and I disconnected my network.  I set the settings to not logon within the dashboard.  Played offline for a few minutes.  When I went to sign on with the game in and the chip off I got the update screen.  proceeded to update.  

I then had the sense to check here and see what was going on with bannings.  At this point I have not signed onto live yet.  Except for update.  Then I swapped out my large hd for my stock untouched hd.  Went back in and connected, got the update screen again.  

I am currently on live right now.  

I will post back reporting the status of my banning...which I hope won't be.

[tricksterg]

EDIT::  CALLING ALL CARS.  THIS LIVE BANNING NEEDS TO BE FIGURED OUT.

this thread has nothing but no progress. I've gone through 3 eeproms in the past 24 hours.   this shit is really pissing me off. gimme some live w/ out worrying.  
I'm compiling a list of possible reasons why banning occurs.

1.  That code from Halo 2. Which needs to be explained.  I don't know anything about hexadecimal.  But I'm sure banning has to do w/ XBOX hardware info.  
halo2.xbe
0x0041158C, "XboxHardwareInfo"
0x00411594, "XboxKrnlVersion"
0x00411770, "HalDiskSerialNumber"
0x00411774, "HalDiskModelNumber"
2.  Hard Drive (partitioning, non-retail files stored on those partitions, Serial number (btw mine is all zeroes)
3.  Previous detection of non-retail bios (flagged by M$)
4.  MAC address flagging
5.  Flagged, Logged of previous "MODIFIED XBOX ERROR"

Also i'm creating a list of possible real solutions.

1.  Get another Xbox solely for Live (I don't want to do this at all although this is why it's at the top of the list becauase right now it seems like the most real solution, and i'll stop wasting money on unbanned eeproms.)
2.  Retail HDD swap. (could this be feasable?  what is XboxHardwareInfo does it look for a correlating stock eeprom & retail HDD?)

Someone reply saying they swapped their retail hdd in and no banning.  I wonder if live also logs your HalDiskSerialNumber (halo disk serial number) also preventing you to sign onto live with a new xbox.  i'll figure you out bungie/M$.  it's not over you sneaky bitches.  
   

[mrjkwik]

i was banned last night.  so where many others.  i didnt pick up halo 2 till today.  the mystery continues.  this sucks.

[Veryn]

got stock system and use my mod all the time, i got halo and i was playin all day, just logged on to make sure im ok.

[onesikgypo]

looks like the apcolypse of xbox live with a modded xbox, ok ive been lookin around, and it looks like these are the main reasons

- Halo 2 are looking for changed EPROMS etc, so if you havent been banned yet thay means ur still ok right?

- Checking HardDrive for French Save - alirhgt so its lookin for french saves, well ne1 who is dumb enough to still have this on their xbox after readin this should b banned (lol maybe a bit harsh) but thats all i can say about that, if you havent touched the leaked french version u should b OK right?

- Checking harddrives for software - ok some ppl are keeping their dashboard etc in the E:\ so if we move these files to the F:\ it will be harder for M$ to find them.

-Checking Harddrives - Ok this 4th one is the fact that they are searching the harddrives to see if their stock or not, so really if you havent got the stock harddrive, ur probably screwed. Now this is a bit i dont understand if you formated your stock harddrive to get the 'f' drive, does that mean its not stock nemore...

cant think of much more but thats my 2 cents worth

[Skwalin]

Here's an Idea, what if the bit in the Halo 2.xbe checks to see if you have a mod chip/illegal bios and if you do, it saves the information in the save file, so when you try to play on live with mod chip turned off, it still has the info, and bans you.
To sum up, have the people who have been banned ever played Halo2 with your modchip on, or has it only been with your chip off?

[onesikgypo]

skwalin i can tell u (95% sure) that the people who are getting banned are getting banned witht heir modchip turns off, but ur post has given me an idea, if indeed halo 2 is doing that, if someone finds the file and knows how to edit it, it may help us.

Like if its makin another file in the c:\ saying that the user has a modded xbox or different EPROM or wuteva, then if someone finds this file and edits it to say this xbox doesnt have a mod in it it might save us.

THIS IS ONLY A THEORY ON WHAT SKWALIN HAS SAID

[ximian]

Just found myself banned right now.
And I was using a 2 month free trial that I setup yesterday (and played yesterday).

PAL v1.6
Executer 3 (BIOS v1957) LPC Rebuild
120GB HDD (formatted using Slayer's 2.6 Final).

[MogKnight]

That is what I am planning to do actually.  Though there are a lot of things that make me NOT want to do it.... but then again, 8 dollars for an Eeprom, that's just one day's lunch money.

[onesikgypo]

yeh if someone did wut gandalf said it would really narrow it down on what theyre tryin 2 do

[bearauto]

Okay, went back to playing my LIVE game (not Halo 2, as I already mentioned, I don't have that game yet) and I'm NOT banned.

[CalifLove]

Heres my Situation:

I have 2 Xbox's. Both with X 2.1 Chips w/ Switches installed.

Xbox #1 has a 160gb HDD with a buncha extra crap on it (EMUS, XBMC, MP3's etc). It also has copies of games I have purchased (and not purchased to be honest)

This Xbox has worked fine on Live with Madden 05 (The only Live game I have). I have NEVER even turned the XBox on w/ The Chip turned on and the Ethernet cable plugged in.

Xbox #2 has stock HDD and has never been on-line ever - Never connected to the Internet. It only has copies of games that I have purchased.

So. I believe in theory here that if I delete all the NON MS files and directories from Xbox #2 HDD there should be absolutly no way for MS to know to Ban this box correct?

As for Xbox 1. So far I guess my best bet is to hope that box is not ALREADY on the "To Be Banned" list (if there is such a thing). And be sure to get rid of any files/directories that tip off that the Xbox has been modded. Which brings me to another question. IF in fact they are seeking out non "stock" files to flag modded boxes would there be such a way to "Hide" said files from the scan. Such as flagging a given file or directory hidden or what not. I am not sure what all the Xbox File system supports but that may be an idea??


In the morning I will break out the old Xbox (Xbox #2) and get it all stock again and try to login to live through HAlo2 and see what happens... Until then Wish me luck! :-)