So I fixed the problem, with not too much of a hassle. I was freaking out before because it's my first mod, and not my XBox, but it wasn't really that bad. I hotswapped the hard drive right before it reset, and then used xboxhdm to repair it. Option 2 works really well, rebuilding the C partition from scratch; well, from whatever you put on the CD in the /linux/C folder. I put the original fonts and dashboard, so that I could make sure things worked, then set the clock, soldered pins, put my exploit on, and flashed the bios. I realize I couldve put the exploit on all at once when I was rebuilding the partition, something like UDE that doesnt check the system clock and therefore would avoid the clock loop, but I wanted to do it in steps to make debugging any problems I ran into easier. So now I'm running 3944 and 4981.06 on the first and second halfs of the TSOP respectively. My hdd is locked (and retail), and I left the pins jumpered for future flashing. Is there any downside to keeping the pins jumpered or will I still be able to get on XBL assuming I boot to the right dash?