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[Chicken Scratch Boy]

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[BBrasky42]

EDIT:
Got it working!  Thank you sooo much for posting this tutorial!!  I was about to just go and buy a new box, but you've saved me.  THANK YOU!

[G_David]

bump!

[ldots]

@ BBrasky42
Glad I could help

@ G_David
Well if you backup is a block by block dump lf the original xbox HD (is it a 8Gb file ), you should be able to extract the C-drive from it under linux. Lets call the backup xbox.raw
Then :

CODE

dd if=xbox.raw of=C.raw seek skip=4501 count=1000 bs=512k

should produce a 500mb file with you C-drive.
So if you can run a fatx enabled linux and you mount the HD with your xbox backup you could run this command and then mount this C.raw and see if it contains your systemfiles

CODE

mkdir Cdrive mount -t fatx C.raw Cdrive ls -l Cdrive

If you are sure this is a working C-drive you could even restore this back to your xbox HD. Assuming you xbox HD is on /dev/hda :

CODE

dd if=C.raw of=/dev/hda seek=4501  bs=512k

[ldots]

You can do it in xlinux yes! Except xlinux doesn't have ntfs support so if your xbox hd backup is on a ntfs partition it can't be done with xlinux.
I still have to test a few things on my HD builder script, but otherwise we could arrange for you to test my package - Soon !

[G_David]

. asap!

[ldots]

Sent you a PM.

[Angerwound]

[ldots]

) and the source compiled without errors but it seg. faults when it tries to access the IO ports. The linux kernel protects the ports after boot-up so I guess hdunlock/hdlock will not work after booting. So if I should include hdd locking and unlocking capabilities it would have to be done in the kernel itself. Could be done but I don't have the time for this...

Instead I came up with another solution. My distro uses the isolinux boot loader and I found that it includes a small app called memdisk that lets you boot other OS's than linux. So I packed a floppy image of FreeDOS in the iso and was able to boot this floppy image from the CD. Also I added unlockx and the hdlock,hdunlock,hddisabl utilities.

So, now this distro will let you boot both to a fatx enabled linux (with my HD builder script) and to a DOS prompt with hdd locking/unlocking tools.

On a side note. I made so that is can be distributed as an archive containing all nessecary files as well as two directories called C & E. You can now add the xbox system files (from slayers or you own backup) to the C-folder and optionally some gave saves to the E-folder. Then run an included make-iso script that will build a bootable cdrom iso. Then you have everything you need to build xbox HD's - as long as you have the HDD passwd (or your eeprom and liveinfo).


Will test a bit more, and then hopefully release it somehow.

Thanx to all testers for the feedback.

[Chicken Scratch Boy]

QUOTE (ldots @ Apr 17 2004, 05:13 AM)

It seg. faults when it tries to access the IO ports. The linux kernel protects the ports after boot-up so I guess hdunlock/hdlock will not work after booting.

maybe this can be disabled?
or
maybe the program can be launched on a reboot via an early sequence script set via a flag in the memory? or on a floppy?

[ldots]

QUOTE (Chicken Scratch Boy @ Apr 17 2004, 09:37 PM)

maybe this can be disabled? or maybe the program can be launched on a reboot via an early sequence script set via a flag in the memory? or on a floppy?

You could most likely get access to the ports (I know there are tools available) but I don't feel that brave at the moment  Imagine how many xbox HD's I could mess up if a buggy version was released. If I had a spare development computer I could work a bit more in this direction, but I think it would be more usefull to pursue the other option. Modifiying the kernel to do the locking/unlocking at boottime. I have some ideas - but not the time. I have some big projects at work I must finish.
Launching the program from floppy we haven't really gained much, since we can allready boot a DOS floppy with unlockx. I'm pretty satisfied with having this boot-option directly on the CD as explained above.

But someday I will look closer at the ATA command posibilities in the linux kernel. Newer kernel have an experimental PCI hotplug option. Maybe this can be used to detect/unlock an xbox drive.

[Chicken Scratch Boy]

congrats on the release, ldots!

[ldots]

You wouldn't happen to have the source code by SpeedBump on the HD key generation algorithm. I've got a zip-archive called hd_gen but it only includes a readme - no code

[Chicken Scratch Boy]

hmm i'll start digging on that hd-gen stuff...

on the same topic, do you think you can get the hdlock to read a text file with the key?


edit/update:
hmmm
after doing some searching i have not found any source besides the key calculating map in the xbox-linux docs, maybe you can contact speedbump or team assembaly(live info) if they can spare any source...

[Chicken Scratch Boy]

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