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Author Topic: Build A Working Xbox Hd From Scratch  (Read 1733 times)

Chicken Scratch Boy

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Build A Working Xbox Hd From Scratch
« Reply #15 on: April 05, 2004, 05:37:00 PM »

QUOTE (celinedrules @ Apr 5 2004, 06:12 PM)
Does this work w/ any xbox eeprom? If so, would I be able to format a hd w/ an unknown password?

nope, sorry

@idots:
why not have the script promt for slayer's disc, then have it copy all nessesary files over? and perhaps iyou can have it load an eeprom and lock the drive too, provding a complete install method with 2 cds and a floppy disk, fully automated and everything

edit:
i found a few links that may be usful to you:

HDD password info

EEPROM info

More (better) EEPROM info

judging by the first link, it seems that the ata security spec commands are built in to most linux kernals, allowing you to do this quite easily, it also appears that the eeprom data extraction would be easy, but that hdd calculating is way over my head.
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ldots

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« Reply #16 on: April 06, 2004, 01:24:00 AM »

QUOTE (celinedrules @ Apr 6 2004, 02:12 AM)
Does this work w/ any xbox eeprom? If so, would I be able to format a hd w/ an unknown password?

You cannot build a HD from scratch without your eeprom or hd passwd. You cannot "format" a hd with an unknown passwd either. The passwd is a function of your hd serial number and your eeprom.

When building a HD from scratch my script works in two steps. 1'st step is the writing of the partition layout. Then you must reboot for the linux kernel to recognize this partition-layout. 2'nd is formatting and optionally rebuild of C and E-drives.
Because you reboot the HD you are using must be in an unlocked state. It is relocked upon rebooting! At this point the drive is empty so you cannot reconnect it to the xbox and hotswap.

A second option of the script is to just rebuild the C-drive to a virgin state. Since the partition layout is allready there this is a one-step procedure so this could be achieved with hotswapping.
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ldots

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« Reply #17 on: April 06, 2004, 01:35:00 AM »

QUOTE (Chicken Scratch Boy @ Apr 6 2004, 02:37 AM)
@idots:
why not have the script promt for slayer's disc, then have it copy all nessesary files over?

biggrin.gif  I had the same thought and added this functionality yesterday! Or actually I decided to make it so that it requires one to make a CD with a C and E folder in the root containing the nessecary files. The user could take these from Slayers, but I figured many would also have the files themselves. If E contains a UDATA folder (with, say some hacked game save), they will be copied over also.
I decided on this rather than putting the Slayer files on there, because now it can be distributed. To my knowledge there is nothing illigal on there. It's only about 10Mb.
If people know how to make a bootable CD themselves they can put their system files on the linux cd (in C and E folders) themselves for an all in one recovery CD.

QUOTE (Chicken Scratch Boy @ Apr 6 2004, 02:37 AM)

and perhaps iyou can have it load an eeprom and lock the drive too, provding a complete install method with 2 cds and a floppy disk, fully automated and everything

Thought of that as well. Did some searching yesterday for HD passwd info so thanks a lot for the links. I will have a look. I thought that the HD unlocking made by the linux guys was in the Cromwell kernel though, not in the linux kernel patches. I will have a look around. Would be so cool if this functionality could be added.

P.S Firefox rules  tongue.gif
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ldots

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« Reply #18 on: April 06, 2004, 02:28:00 AM »

sad.gif

So what you could try was :
mount your C-partition as usual on /xbox
change permissions recursively to allow removal :
chmod -R 755 /xbox/*
now try to remove your broken font-dir :
rm -rf /xbox/fonts
again verify that you have some original *.xtf in the root of your C-drive (/xbox) and try booting the xbox...
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Chicken Scratch Boy

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« Reply #19 on: April 06, 2004, 05:31:00 AM »

idots, what i meant to say is that most linux kernals/distros have it builtin, by that i mean they can do the ata spec calls including the security ones...

if you ever need and help with this, call me up, i read a shit load on unlocking and locking a while back.
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ldots

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« Reply #20 on: April 06, 2004, 01:55:00 PM »

tongue.gif

Maybe someone with a spare drive should test this out. Any volunteers?
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Chicken Scratch Boy

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« Reply #21 on: April 06, 2004, 02:29:00 PM »

biggrin.gif

calculating keys is not nessesary, but hey, why not... as long as you can figure it out, esspecially for those without an xp machine who cannot use liveinfo
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ldots

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« Reply #22 on: April 06, 2004, 03:20:00 PM »

QUOTE (Chicken Scratch Boy @ Apr 6 2004, 11:29 PM)
hmm the reason that having the done, is so that it is rather fool proof, with no entering keys, you cant enter the keys wrong  biggrin.gif

calculating keys is not nessesary, but hey, why not... as long as you can figure it out, esspecially for those without an xp machine who cannot use liveinfo

Don't get me wrong - I think it would be very cool indeed. But it would take some time - something I dont have much of at the moment.

If you want to play around the linux kernel and can come up with a patch that adds the wanted features you are more than welcome to contact me  biggrin.gif
If you feel like experimenting with that it would be nice (at least for this project) if you went with the vanilla 2.4.25 kernel. That's the kernel the xbox-linux fatx patches are currently baselined at.

One would have to find a way to load the eeprom from floppy or optionally cd early in the boot process. I guess the unlocking would have to take place before the drive detection starts - i.e the eeprom will have to be loaded before you have the "usual" linux drive access.

Hmmm - just remember that using isolinux as the bootloader (like I do) you have the option to execute some shell code from a linuxrc file early in the boot process. Maybe that's an option. I'm rambling .... it needs some thought. biggrin.gif
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Chicken Scratch Boy

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« Reply #23 on: April 06, 2004, 03:36:00 PM »

hmm, i've been searching for about half an hour and cant come up with any way to do do ata-spec commands in linux... you wouldnt need to do an early boot operation, because you'd be LOCKing it not UNLOCKing it...
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ldots

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« Reply #24 on: April 06, 2004, 03:44:00 PM »

QUOTE
you wouldnt need to do an early boot operation, because you'd be LOCKing it not UNLOCKing it...

Oh I was also considering the unlocking. For the 'building from scratch' option only locking would be needed yes. But for the 'rebuild C-partition' option it would be cool if people could hook up a locked drive.
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Chicken Scratch Boy

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« Reply #25 on: April 06, 2004, 03:52:00 PM »

meh,
thats a posibility as well as maybe a ftp xfer? i'm sure there are a few free cli ftp clients out there...

i'm sure somewhere we can find out how to access these ata-spec commands...

on that note, in case you havet found it, here is the ata-spec project draft page i think what is needed is the ata 6 spec... latest revision?
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ldots

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« Reply #26 on: April 06, 2004, 03:57:00 PM »

QUOTE (Chicken Scratch Boy @ Apr 7 2004, 12:52 AM)
meh,
thats a posibility as well as maybe a ftp xfer? i'm sure there are a few free cli ftp clients out there...

Oh my! That's an excellent idea! Ftp'ing system-files and game save directly over after the blank drive has been formatted.

I allready have a ftp client on there biggrin.gif , and I compiled the kernel with some common nic drivers. I allready succesfully ftp'ed stuff using this minimal linux from my laptop... Even has text-based webbrowser on there aswell. Amazing what you can pack in 9Mb tongue.gif
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Chicken Scratch Boy

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« Reply #27 on: April 06, 2004, 04:06:00 PM »

ah found it, look in  d1410r2a, pages 230 - 234... hmm all the commands seem to have 3 characters... now how to pass them to the ata controller?
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Chicken Scratch Boy

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« Reply #28 on: April 07, 2004, 06:38:00 AM »

bump
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ldots

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« Reply #29 on: April 07, 2004, 07:26:00 AM »

biggrin.gif  Sorry! Got caught up in something else. Well there we have the specs. Also pretty much confirms what I read somewhere else about Master and user passwd, aswell as the limited amount of failed unlock attempts.

But as you say. How the we pass these commands?

Anyway - In the meantime I got hold of some source codes for the hdunlock program. I will try if I can compile the tools for linux. At the moment I'm strugling with installing the Gnu Pascal compiler  sad.gif  Gentoo doesn't agree with me right now....
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