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[newname]

Hi, Thanks for all the threads so far, been a great help.

I modded my box using http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=496263  with NDure3.0 and xboxhdm v1.9. Xbox is v1.4.

All was going well until PC died during the mod. No kidding. Backup to E: was completed, and was installing using option 1 on the CD.
The xbox still works. It starts at the UnleashX dash. It is alive on the network and I can ftp to it. BUT, the main thing that seems wrong is that it says C: is empty - I'm not expecting that. By empty I mean no files visible in the file explorer. Under system tools it says C: has 66.72MB free out of 66.73MB.

What I'd really like to do is unlock the drive, restore C: from E: and then reapply the mod and watch it complete.

Is that the way to go? How do I unlock from where here? Otherwise, any suggestions on sorting out where the box is at and getting back to a known point?

This post has been edited by newname: Jan 9 2009, 11:34 AM

[obcd]

It is not the way to go.

Your xbox is booting into Unleashx which means the softmod succeeded.

The Ndure softmod uses a shadowc drive. The real C drive with the softmod is hidden for the user to prevent you from changing things there.

If you are sure that the C is completely empty, simply format it from within your unleashx dashboard.

After the format, ftp the files of the unmodded 5960 dash to it. You can extract a Slayers rescue iso if you don't have those files.

Also check out how to backup your xbox eeprom, and transfer the corresponding eeprom.bin file to your pc.

After you ftp'ed the files to your shadow c, you should be able to go to the M$dash form within your Unleashx.

If you add the eeprom.bin to the xboxhdm proper folder before you create the iso, you can unlock the harddisk without hotswapping on your pc. It is much safer to do it that way.

The Latest Kingroach Ndure package is 3.1.

regards.

[newname]

Hi obcd,

Thanks for your fast reply, and that the mod has worked. That's great! I've since learnt that C: should be empty from another thread.

The unmodded 5690 dash would be E:\Backup\xboxdash.xbe, do I need to copy other files as well? Then I wouldn't actually need Slayers. Is Slayers worth getting? Do I actually need/want the original dash back in C: in any case?

Will backup my eeprom, seems I need ConfigMagic for that. Kinda cautious at the moment! But I like the words "safer that way".

I found out Ndure 3.1 is current once things went to custard. Since I've already used Ndure 3.0, should I rebuild the liveCD using 3.1, or won't it matter?

Thanks again. I don't like to post claiming I did something unique, very grateful for your answer.

Cheers

[obcd]

Yes, you will need the whole folder structure and files that where originally on the C partition before you started the softmod.

You don't need configmagic to backup your eeprom. Ndure 3.0 uses a version of the evox dashboard to backup the eeprom. Xman954 wrote a tool for that purpose that was included with ndure 3.1. You can google for it as well. Just make sure you don't have a virtual eeprom enabled. You can disable it by adding a simple file to your E partition. (eeprom_OFF.bin. The contents doesn't matter)

Don't rebuild the livecd to get 3.1. You will need to start over everything again, and you will have problems because you are not starting with a fresh 5960 unmodded dash.

The original dash in your shadowc is usefull when you wan't to switch your video settings. If the clock settings get lost, the xbox will boot into the M$dash clock setting screen. I am unsure if that will work without the M$dash on your shadowc partition.

Slayers is usefull. If you mess up your dashboard somehow, but still have a working softmod, you can boot slayers and use it's ftp capacity to fix things. It was designed for chip modded xboxes, so you shouldn't experiment with the other features of it.

regards.

[vb_encryption_vb]

sense its a softmod id skip slayers and get frosty's rescue disc as its been designed with softmodding in mind.

[newname]

Thanks heaps for the pointers.

I'd been through the UnleashX dash, hadn't found any interesting functionality. When I ran it explicitly then I found the interesting bits. Hehe.

Just checking that the eeprom.bin file should be 256 bytes long? I get the same result with or without E:\eeprom_OFF.bin (identical in a binary file compare).

So M$dash is useful for clock setting - good enough reason to copy it over for me!


I haven't researched this next bit yet, but with the box modded, can I install a flavour of linux? I know there's a few different sites that look after that stuff. I've been concentrating on getting the box modded. Just thought I'd ask..

Thanks again!

[obcd]

It is very well possible that the contents of the reel eeprom and those of the eeprom.bin file used for the virtual eeprom are the same. If ndure can't locate an eeprom.bin file in the e:\nkp11 folder (or the root of E with the older ndure versions.) it won't use the virtual eeprom feature.

I think you have linux versions you can launch as an xbe.
You also have versions that expect a cromwell bios to run.

The xbox will always be a bit limited for linux as it only has 64MB of ram. It also works best with a vga output.

Try Xbmc on your xbox if you haven't done that yet.

regards.

[newname]

Thanks, when I got two eeprom files identically the same I presumed that the virtual thing wasn't running. Just checking the file length I thought 256 bytes was a bit low.

Things are going well. Box running nicely and boots the xebian 1.1.4 liveCD. Haven't yet installed xebian to the hdd. I have run into two more (related to each other) softmod related catches.

When I try to copy the M$dash to C: (which is really shadowc) I get error 1392. I get the same error if I try to create anything (text file, directory). Now if shadowc is an image that makes sense. So do I copy the image off the box, manipulate the image and then put it back? The workaround relating to shadowc in http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=496263 implies I should be able to copy to C: but doesn't seem to apply to me (no error during installation). Searched the forum for error 1392 but got an error. Had a bit of a look around.

Next, and discussed in the next question in that topic, is the idea of running E:\ndts\default.xbe to open up c and e drives and then ftping the contents. When I do this using filezilla client, copying the whole drive works perfectly for E: but I seem to choke on (surprise surprise) shadowc.img on C:
If I use filezilla or a command line ftp to try to get just the shadowc file, that also fails, aborted at about 43MB out of 66MB.

Any clues on how do I can achieve these two things - copy dash to shadowc and copy entire C: including shadowc using ftp?

Thanks in advance

[kingroach]

xboxhdm sometimes corrupts shadowc file while transferring to xbox. You should be able to delete the shadowc file from C:/shadowc folder. After that , copy a fresh shadowc.img to xbxo's C:/shadowc folder.  ( ndure installer will create the shadowc file, it should be in ndure/c/shadowc/ folder of installer's output directory)

[newname]

Success. Turns out this relates to the host PC crashing during the build.

I had a 66MB shadowc.img, when it should be 340MB or about. I checked the install script on the liveCD and worked out that everything up til the copy of that img had been done and nothing past that point.

So I manually finished off the script. Started ndts to get the real C: and used ftp to overwrite the bad shadowc.img with the good one. While I was there I copied filler1.img and the \resc directory. Then reboot to the normal dash and used file explorer to copy E:\backup\* to C:\ (ie into shadowc.img).

And things started working right from about then (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Next trick, clone the hdd which I should be able to do now, then install xebian. Going slowly, but happy with progress.

Thanks all for your help

[newname]

Cloning was easy! Tho first up I cloned onto a hdd that couldn't be locked... Once I found the listing of lockable drives, then found I couldn't lock using my current PC, eventually used that old MB (replaced the power supply) and all was well.
Now have xebian on F: and can launch it as an app. Only thing left to sort out is how to boot directly to linux on power up but still be able to get to the dashboard. Thinking that's an open tray trick, looking into it.

Just wanted to thank those who've done massive amounts of work to make the process so simple and hassle free - if you follow the instructions (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Cheers!