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Author Topic: Hotswap Faq  (Read 644 times)

elec_tech

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Hotswap Faq
« Reply #30 on: June 19, 2004, 10:25:00 AM »
QUOTE (krayzie @ Jun 19 2004, 06:39 PM)
You can pull out the ide cable from the messed up xbox first. if you did it at the right moment and it is unlocked it will stay unlocked if the ide cable is pulled out. Then you have time to power up the modded xbox (without ide cable connected to the hd) and when you hear the dvd drive spinning quickly plug in the ide cable from the first xbox. If everything is well you can than hear the drive being accesed and you boot to evox fromwhere you have full ftp capability.

Awesome.  I thought the window for leaving an IDE cable unplugged was much shorter than that.  I'm going to give that a shot and see what I can do.  Thank you very much for your replies.
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krayzie

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Hotswap Faq
« Reply #31 on: June 19, 2004, 10:32:00 AM »
Okay I now see a little mistake I made
QUOTE
quickly plug in the ide cable from the first xbox
This ofcourse had to be that you had to plug in the ide cable from the modded one to the first hd. I'm sure you did understand it but it might be confusing for the n00bs that are reading along.
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elec_tech

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Hotswap Faq
« Reply #32 on: June 21, 2004, 02:32:00 PM »
QUOTE (krayzie @ Jun 19 2004, 06:56 PM)
Okay I now see a little mistake I made  This ofcourse had to be that you had to plug in the ide cable from the modded one to the first hd. I'm sure you did understand it but it might be confusing for the n00bs that are reading along.

Hehe, I'm not a noob when it comes to electronics (I'm a 3rd year technologist student) but am fairly new to xboxes in general, I tsop flashed and set up my own HD no problem with the tutorials on this site, but didn't realize the potential of hot swapping, and didn't fully understand the how's and when's of locking/unlocking.  Thanks to this thread and your help, I was able to unlock my corrupt, stock drive, and access it via ftp using my modded box, but I couldn't transfer any files (to back it up or overwrite).  The odd thing was, folders transferred no problem, but actual files wouldn't.  Out of frustration, I decided to format it using an evox cd.  After two hours of 'formatting C drive' without any results, I figured the drive must be shot.  Here's where it gets interesting, this may be covered somewhere else on this site, but I've never come across it.  I booted up my modded xbox with the stock HD I had originally modded it with (right to the dash).  I then booted my corrupt, unmodded box, and waited for the hd to unlock.  I then swapped in my HD from my modded box, and the stock (corrupt) xbox loaded right up to the system clock, and then the M$ dash.  Figuring the HD is junk I just loaded in the auf/mech flash kit and flashed the bios and now have a (2nd) modded, fully functional xbox.  I'm very curious to see if this hotswap will work with the other xboxes I have that have corrupt HD's.
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Raebis

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Hotswap Faq
« Reply #33 on: June 21, 2004, 11:19:00 PM »
after hotswapping my xbox hdd several dozen times for many reasons i am fairly confident that i'm not going to fry my hdd without having a common ground, but i definatly could see how the difference in grounds could damage a hard drive. tying the grounds is probably something i will do from now on.

if i have problems with my hdd locking when it gets to the error screen i just pop in halo or another retail game. Even though my xbox gets errors, the game always boots and unlocks my hdd and i can just swap it at the game menu

i always swap in windows, i just have the device manager waiting open for me to click "find new hardware" -- if it takes more than a few seconds to find the xbox hdd, i assume it is still locked and i try again.

My CD burner is broken and hdd_driver, fatxplorer hddexplorer and all those other tools do not work for me. They used to, once upon a time, but now i either get a program fault or an invalid size error with hdddriver.

NE way i had just done a custom ude installation with nkpatcher and i had forgot to rename the dashboard xbe to what nkpatcher would launch... I started reading about the xbox file system and how its laid out, namely directory entries. I was succesful in changing the xbe filename and filename size using winhex sector editor so my xbox would once again boot.

thats my story and i'm stickin to it
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ArcticWolf

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Hotswap Faq
« Reply #34 on: July 10, 2004, 12:39:00 PM »
Q 11: Can I hot swap while the Xbox is on and the PC is off?
If the Xbox HD is disconnected for a long time, the Xbox may eventually turn off, and this depends on the version of the Xbox.  To avoid power interruption to the HD, the HD should receive power from the PC.
Boot the PC to the BIOS setup or boot with a blank floppy disk which will cause the PC to hang with an error.  Now connect the power from the PC to the Xbox HD, and then turn on the Xbox.  Once Xbox boots up, disconnect the Xbox IDE cable and connect the PC IDE cable to the HD.  Now, the HD is connect to the PC by the PC IDE cable and the PC power.  The Xboy may be turned off at this point.

Q 12: Can I hot swap after BIOS detects the HD?
Irrelevant; makes no difference whether you're using xLiunx or Win2k.
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ArcticWolf

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« Reply #35 on: July 10, 2004, 12:54:00 PM »
Hey Grospolina, great FAQ.
I didn't see your addition about hot swapping between two Xboxes.

The two Xboxes must have identical HD's!
The most important concern is the issue of power interruption.  If the IDE cable is disconnected from the Xbox to the HD, the Xbox may eventually turn off, and this depends on the version of the Xbox, so it's better to have some external power source near by.  A computer provides a reliable power source.
Turn on the PC, and connect the PC power cord to the unmodded Xbox HD.  Now turn on the unmodded Xbox to unlock the HD, and once the HD is unlocked, disconnect the IDE cable.  Now, you have a HD that's unlocked with a reliable power supply from the PC.
Boot Slayer's 2.5 CD on the modded Xbox.  Disconnect the IDE cable from its own HD, and connect the IDE cable to the HD of the unmodded Xbox.  Now, do what ever you want; FTP file transfer, format, etc.  However, do *not* try to lock or unlock the HD.  After it's all done, just power everything off and put everything back together.
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ivc

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Hotswap Faq
« Reply #36 on: July 29, 2004, 12:05:00 PM »
something needs to be clearified, as the following answer is conflicting with the second quote, copied from http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=203561.

QUOTE
5. When does the Xbox HD become locked again?
The hard drive is automatically locked when power to the hard drive is lost, or if the Xbox is rebooted. This includes some error screens, since the Xbox actually quick reboots before showing the error.


QUOTE
TIP: Hotswapping with this linux distro is easy. I recommend the following. Place your xbox so that the PC's primary master ide cable will reach the xbox HD. Pull the DVD IDE cable and boot the xbox. It will stop with error 12. At this point the xbox HD is unlocked and will stay this way. Put you xboxhdm bootable CD in the PC and boot. At the boot-prompt it will stop for 5 mins. The bios has done its hardware detection without the xbox HD attached yet - linux still hasn't. So at this boot prompt you pull the ide-cable on the xbox HD, and plug in the primary master ide cable of the PC. Then hit enter to boot to linux. After booting, execute 'xbrowser' to see if the drive was found.


i have personally tested the method in the last quote several times, and it works pretty well. seems like the statement that the xbox is doing a reboot before showing the error message isn't quite correct, atleast it doesn't affect error code 12.

-ivc
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krayzie

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« Reply #37 on: July 29, 2004, 12:30:00 PM »
if you read carefully you will see a "some" in front of the error screens in the first quote. I dunno if it reboots or not but the pullout the dvd ide cable trick does work for most but not all xboxes. (dunno if it's kernel related). Anyway there are more error screens than the error 12 and the error 12 is the only known error screen where the drive might be unlocked with.
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ivc

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« Reply #38 on: July 29, 2004, 02:08:00 PM »
yea, Grospolina or some admin should add it to the specific question to make it more consistent:)

-ivc
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goggins

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Hotswap Faq
« Reply #39 on: August 07, 2004, 11:40:00 AM »
The best way I have found to hotswap is to just disconnect the IDE cable going to the dvd drive. It will error on the dvd drive but leave the harddrive unlocked. This way is explained in ldots tutorial on using xboxhdm. It always works for me!

Also, I believe that I have found an important discovery. I've been hotswapping while windows is running and it works on some computers, and not on others. The thing that I found is that the computers that have Nforce chipsets need to make sure that they don't have the Nvidia Sw IDE driver installed, b/c then hotswapping doesn't work. Uninstall the driver and you should be able to hotswap just fine in windows. I've tested this on two computers with the Nvidia chipsets and found this too be true.

I also recommend xboxhdm instead of any windows file manager like FatXplorer. It just works so much better!

Anyway, good luck!
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sirblackguy

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Hotswap Faq
« Reply #40 on: August 16, 2004, 02:48:00 AM »
sad.gif
ok I have tryed to hotswap about 50 times and still dont get anyware.
I have tryed the tips in this forum and still nothing
I turn on and boot up my pc running winxp and then turn on my xbox
and let it boot to the dashboard then I pull the ribbon cable out of the xbox
and plug in the one from my pc.
then I go to device manager and  scan for hardware changes, it dose not take
long (2 to 3 sec.) but still nothing. my bios finds it ok but not windows.
what am I doing wrong.
some help please.

also I am using a nvidia riva tnt video card if the a prob. let me know.
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Barnaby

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« Reply #41 on: August 17, 2004, 09:57:00 AM »
w0000t i got it on my like 4th try, rebuilding with slayers now hopefully it'll work. XD
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sirblackguy

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« Reply #42 on: August 17, 2004, 02:55:00 PM »
did you fallow the tips on the forum.
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Jack Cheese

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« Reply #43 on: August 17, 2004, 03:40:00 PM »
sirblackguy..this off the faq on the first page of this thread.
QUOTE

8. What is the basic method of hotswapping?

Here's the method I use to hotswap. I've found this to work the best for me.

1. Open the Xbox and set it close to the PC. Plug it in.
2. Open the PC and make sure an IDE cable is free and can reach the Xbox HD.
3. Turn on the PC.
4. Before the PC BIOS looks for hard drives, hit the Pause/Break key. It should pause.
5. If you are planning to use xboxhdm, insert the CD to your PC CD-ROM drive. (Make sure you haven't unplugged the IDE cable to your CD-ROM drive!)
6. Turn on the Xbox.
7a. When the MS logo appears under the big X, remove the Xbox IDE cable and quickly plug in the PC IDE cable.
7b. If the MS logo doesn't appear, then swap just before the error screen shows up instead.
8. Hit space bar to continue booting the PC. If it takes a long time to boot (several minutes), then the HD has not been unlocked.


This is what I did verbatim, and I never even read this faq before I did my swap. Use the search and read my man..AND use xboxhdm, no headaches.
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DaddyJ

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Hotswap Faq
« Reply #44 on: August 17, 2004, 04:09:00 PM »
If you boot your xbox with the dvd-ide unplugged (just the power) it should boot into a (service is required screen) error 12, at this point the harddrive is unlocked until it loses power.
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