Topic: Xbox Hd Rescue/(re)builder Cd. All-in-one Package (Read 2096 times)

ldots · « **on:** April 18, 2004, 02:52:00 PM »

Build, rebuild, clone xbox harddrives.

Useful tool both for softmodders and modchip users (who can ignore locking issues).

Initial version : xboxhdm_v1.0.zip
Current version : xboxhdm_v1.9.zip

As always - use the info and tools described here at your risk. Don't come whining if something goes wrong...
You should especially be careful when using the HDD locking tools. Write down and backup any passwords you use.

(Most tools in this package I'm not personaly responsible for, and can therefore not give any guaranties on their usage. Big thanks to all authors of code I have borrowed and modified. Special thanks to the xbox-linux project. I bow in admiration of what you guys have accomplished).

Let me start by...
Giving some advice to people new to softmodding. Softmodding is not without risk and some people do get into trouble. Most of these troubles can be prevented by always ensuring a way to revert the hacks people apply. Basically as soon as you gain access to you xbox you should backup your xbox HD key and eeprom. Most people initially gain access using a game-save hack packed with evox. This app has a backup option that will dump the eeprom to a file as well as the hdd key in a text file. Others gain access by hotswapping and installing a hack this way. In that case let evox or ConfigMagic be the very first app you run and get the backup files. Evox will store the backup files in the location the evox app was installed in (if used from a game save it will be somewhere in E:\UDATA). To my knowledge ConfigMagic stores the backup in the root of the E-drive. Having these files you can always access your xbox HD from the PC, and now in case of a broken drive you can build an xbox HD from scratch. So you can pretty much get out of all HD-related toubles. I feel more safe hacking my xbox knowing this

What this package does.

This package will let you create a bootable CD that can access and manipulate/rescue, clone and even rebuild working xbox HD's from scratch. I see this usefull for people who want to :

Upgrade their xbox with a larger HD (either by cloning or building from scratch)
rescue or rebuild a corrupt xbox HD.
Calculate the HD passwd for locked and unlocked HD's
Locks and unlocks HDD's with the password automatically calculated from the eeprom.
Can also set a Master Password (XBOXSCENE) when locking to allow an unlock later even without the eeprom or the user password.
Install the official softmod package including the audio and font hack, Evox and PBL 1.4.1.
You also have the option to make a patched copy of you MS dashboard to be run from
Evox when using the font hack. Do not use this package is you do not have a kernel
below 5530 and dashboard version 4920.
This is meant to provide users without memcards or any of the exploitable games (MA,SC,007) with an easy to use softmod package.
have a stable package to access and delete, move, change files on the xbox HD.

An included program will also let you rebuild the C-drive alone, which could be very usefull if this has become corrupted, if you are in a clock loop and dont know how to manually restore the C-drive or if you need to downgrade the dashboard.
This is all done by letting you boot to a small live-linux with fatx support, like xlinux, but with so many more tools and options. Better hardware compatibility due to a updated kernel/syslinux and NTFS support are things to mention. Also from this CD you can boot to DOS and use HD lock/unlock tools.
The techical details of how this package works are described HERE

Making your bootable CD

This package comes as a zip-archive : xboxhdm_vx.x.zip (get it from the usual places). When unpacked you find some files and a folder called linux. Inside linux you find a C and a E folder. In here you can put pretty much what you want to go on your xbox. If you have a working hacked setup (audio or font exploit) you can pack that onto the CD, if you want to use this as a rescue disc it would be more usefull to just put the original xbox system-files (The files from the C-drive - get them from your own backup or from Slayers Evox) in the C-folder and optionally you can put the TDATA and UDATA folders with some game saves (could be some hacked saves) in the E-folder.
A minimal rescue CD would have something like the following in the C-folder of the linux directory :

Blank · « **Reply #1 on:** April 18, 2004, 03:05:00 PM »

Nice...

Teaser69 · « **Reply #2 on:** April 18, 2004, 04:32:00 PM »

EDIT:
QUOTE: 'Giving some advice to people new to softmodding. Softmodding is not without risk'

I never need to do this - it can be done without any risk

If you get the right packages - like audio exploit ones
There's no need to mess about like this
Since nothing can go wrong... well only with kernal 5713 and above and you should not attempt to exploit that anyway

EDIT

It is good for people who are upgrading hard drive though
Just watch out for those games that check the Hard drive you have installed and if it's non retail they don't load

Well they don't let you go onto 'Live' anyway

BluhDeBluh · « **Reply #3 on:** April 18, 2004, 04:31:00 PM »

ldots · « **Reply #4 on:** April 18, 2004, 11:39:00 PM »

Teaser69 · « **Reply #5 on:** April 19, 2004, 12:19:00 AM »

ldots · « **Reply #6 on:** April 19, 2004, 12:57:00 AM »

mkjones · « **Reply #7 on:** April 19, 2004, 02:38:00 AM »

I used this tool to upgrade my HD on my softmodded xbox its a great tool

Grospolina · « **Reply #8 on:** April 19, 2004, 08:08:00 AM »

Great work! I think I'll use this if I ever encounter another softmod-gone-wrong. It should be safe to hotswap and rebuild the C: partition with xboxhd, right? Last time, I had to make one xlinux CD and another CD-RW with the dashboard on it (I couldn't connect my PC hard drive, CD-ROM and the Xbox HD all at the same time), so this would be great.

Having the HD locking utilities on a bootable CD seems like a good idea, but it bothers me that the password logs will be deleted. Those logs have saved many people in the past, and most of these people didn't even know that they saved the logs automatically. I know you put warnings, but you know how often people heed warnings.

I think a utility on the CD to create a bootable floppy would be a better idea. You can use WinImage or a similar program to do this.

Sarvatt · « **Reply #9 on:** April 19, 2004, 09:04:00 AM »

I just used this package to upgrade a harddrive and it worked like a charm! Took about 10 minutes to do everything, as opposed to the 6 hours I spent last night doing it through Xebian 1.0.1 which had problems reading the extra partitions no matter what I did. Thanks a ton ldots!

ldots · « **Reply #10 on:** April 19, 2004, 09:15:00 AM »

Thanx everybody for the feedback.

Glad to hear it worked for you Sarvatt.

@Grospolina
You can definitely rebuild the C-drive by hotswapping. I didn't mention this in the tut, but I put in a 5 min break at the isolinux boot-screen (where you have the linux/DOS booting options). This is after your BIOS has detected the hardware but before linux does, so this should make it easy to hotswap. You dont have to pause the bios hardware detection with the pause-key like some tuts tell you too.
The fast that a CD based DOS does not store the hdlock/unlock logs after reboot, troubles me a bit aswell. I will have to come up with something. Could make a "Insert floppy to create DOS/unlockx disk and push enter" option to the script. Another option is to prompt the user to insert a floppy for storing logs after unlockx has run.
What do you think???

BTW : You can find the package at the usual places now

This post has been edited by ldots: Apr 19 2004, 04:20 PM

Grospolina · « **Reply #11 on:** April 19, 2004, 09:59:00 AM »

Sounds good (about the hotswapping).

I think you should make the logging as fool-proof as possible. So yes, I think it should prompt you to insert a floppy and create a bootable disk. The disk should have both UnLockX and hdlock/hdunlock/hddisabl, because sometimes only one of them works.

It could be a problem for someone who doesn't have a floppy drive though.

If you prompted someone to insert a floppy for saving logs, I think some people would just skip it.

BTW, I guess you wouldn't be able to use WinImage because it's a Windows program.

However, maybe someone (like me?) could release a bootable FreeDOS floppy image to the usual places. I didn't know about FreeDOS before you mentioned it, so thanks.

ldots · « **Reply #12 on:** April 19, 2004, 10:32:00 AM »

ldots · « **Reply #13 on:** April 20, 2004, 09:10:00 AM »

OK - new version available. Feels a bit stupid to already have a v1.1 but I had to agree with Grospolina that users should be made aware of the risks of using locking/unlocking tools from CDROM. I updated the tutorial to say that the preferred way of running the locking/unlocking tools is from floppy. An included make-DOS-floppy.bat script will generate a floppy with all tools needed.

Also if users choose to run the locking tools from CD - after exit from the tools the used passwd will be printed to screen and the user is advised to write down this passwd, and insert a floppy and run the 'savelog' command to store all logs on the floppy. It's not completely fool-proof but...

Also I added a nice feature to the package. Executing the command 'xbrowser' will mount the CDROM with the users C- and E-drive files as well as the C- and E-partitions on the xbox HD. Then a semi-graphical file-manager (Midnight-commander) will pop up to let the user move, copy, rename, delete files and folders.

I think most user will be able to use this tool, so now I find that this package is a worthy replacement of (less stable

) tools like HDDriver and fatxplorer even for user without linux-experience.

(Re)-read the tutorial for more info.

Kolk1604 · « **Reply #14 on:** April 20, 2004, 12:15:00 PM »

Idots: Could this possibly be a fix for the file system not accepting certain characters?

Author Topic: Xbox Hd Rescue/(re)builder Cd. All-in-one Package (Read 2096 times)