HELP!!! In desperate need of some help restoring my xbox

[GGOTNOMONEY]

Hey Guys,

I don't know if this is the right place for this but I am bummed. I recently got my hands on a very mint original xbox and found out about the modding world. I decided to give the softmod a try and ended up screwing things up pretty badly. The system is trashed, I haven't been able to do anything with it. It turns on and all I get is a "xbox customer service" message. Thankfully I came across a very nice and insanely smart individual by the name of Whufclee. I'm sure many of you have heard of him before, he has tried to help me to the best of his ability but with no avail. Unfortunately I am in the US, precisely New York and he's all the way out in the UK. I am looking for someone if anyone that is located just a tad closer to me . I don't know what else to do besides tossing it out the window. I'm really not looking to spend anymore money on it but would hate to have to give up on a project that has so much potential. I don't know if I've screwed it up beyond repair but I want to exhaust all options. If anyone thinks they can help me please feel free to contact me. I will be checking this thread periodically for any updates. Thanks in advance to anyone who even reads my post and a million and one thanks to Mr. Whufclee who has been extremely patient and thorough with me...keeping my fingers crossed.

[AZImmortal]

"Screwing things up pretty badly" can mean a lot of things, so you need to start by telling us exactly how you tried to softmod it and what you did from there. You can't expect your doctor to know what's wrong with you if you simply tell him that you don't feel good.

[psychotron]

If you have the eeprom backup you should be able to get things running again. Using the eeprom you should be able to unlock the Hard Drive and rebuild it using xboxhdm and re-lock it. You will need to locate an original set Hard Drive files or get a copy of Premoded Hard Drive files set to bring it up again.

This is all assuming you did no Hard Mods to the system and there are no real hardware failures in the system.

Google Xboxhdm and rebuilding Hard Drive.

If you do not have the eeprom backup file you will need to purchase or build a com cable and download the software to pull the file eeprom file off the xbox before any of this can be done.

I would assume another option would be to install a MOD chip. Not sure about this one. Just from what I have read on this forum.

As " AZImmorta" has said. It will be helpfull for others if you give more details what you did.

[whufclee]

Ok as I'm up early I'll just clarify the situation for everyone. He used Splinter Cell gamesave exploit with the hexen gamesave file and that all seemed to go well but then something went very wrong half way through and I think the dash has been deleted.

I believe it was coming up with error 13 when he first done it and now it's error 16 (clock can't be set). I've talked him through burning HeXEn to Verbatim DVD-R at the lowest speeds possible but that won't boot, however original games will boot. He doesn't have games any that have the xbox live dash (like Halo 2) but even if he did have one I'm not sure it would work - anyone know?

Unfortunately there is no eeprom backup and he's been trying to hotswap both with xboxhdm1.9 and xplorer360 but it would appear the drive is locked (he's also tried the trick with removing the dvd drive so you get an error 12).

I'm all out of ideas and suggested a modchip but I don't think he fancies trying soldering just yet so can anyone recommend a modchip like the spider that is solderless and preferably cheap? Or does anyone know if Halo2 would sort out the error 16 and install a new dash?

[AZImmortal]

I'm no hotswap expert (I've never done it myself) but I believe that if you can get a game playing, the hard drive should be unlocked at that point. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong though.

[blighty]

Does splinter cell still boot and is the gamesave exploit still on the hdd?

if Splinter cell still boots and the gamesave is still on hdd then does it allow you to boot the linux save?

Im guessing not because that is the obvious fix,

I learnt most of my xbox modding from these guys over at xbox-hq:

http://www.xbox-hq.com/html/xbox-tutorials-161.html - Hotwaspping guide

Let us know where you are at.

[Neuro vYrus]

Ok so , first thing first it doesn't boot ...

you must checkwhich version of the xbox you got , and what drive you have ... is it a thomson, samsung or phillips because i had like 5 boxes with different brand and the one that worked everytime was the tomsons .. ( yes ! the worst dvd lol !! ) and I had my share of dvd that half read yeah ... does it boot a legit xbox games ? if so there is hope...

if not, check the manufacture date at the bottom , past mid-2004 , you got the 1.6 and it will be very hard to recover it ..

if you got like the 1.5 and below , then it will be alot easier to recover but you GOTTA buy a modchip ...

i got good info here ... http://xbox-scene.com/modchips4_table.htm

and then if you really got a 1.5 and below, I suggest flashing the BIOS for another layer of protection i only got 1 chips and modded like 20 xbox just by flashing the bios ( soldering required... and maybe some linux too ... )

so please answer me theses questions and I'll help the best i can

1 - what brand of the dvd
2 - manufacture date
3 - does it boot a game ?

and use AUTO-INSTALLER DELUXE NEXT TIME !

[GGOTNOMONEY]

Thanks Whufclee for clearing all the confusion up. Blightly I believe the hard drive was wiped out therefore the exploits aren't there anymore and without a dashboard I can't look to find out. I believe I waited to long to try to recover it and now the games will not play at all. Neuro I am going to have to check for the drive and xbox model number when I get home. I honestly got so frustrated after troubleshooting with Whufclee that I have not even looked at the xbox in like 2 days. I'm still debating whether to junk it or keep looking for a way to fix it. I really appreciate the help from everyone in these forums. If it wasn't for you guys I would've given up a long time ago.

[AZImmortal]

You don't need the dashboard to confirm whether or not the game saves are there if you can cold boot with the game already in the drive when you turn it on and then check to see if the game lists the saves, but I'm guessing that as of now, cold booting still results in an error 16? I know that whufclee already mentioned trying to force an error 12, but just to confirm, you tried to boot the Xbox with the IDE cable disconnected from the DVD drive, correct? And if you did, then what error does it give you? If it's error 12, then the hard drive should be unlocked and you should be able to hotswap it.

If hotswapping doesn't work, then your other two options are to either install a modchip (at least temporarily to fix everything) or build an EEPROM reader. There are solderless modchips but they're not only hard to come by nowadays but they're probably more expensive than you'll want to pay. There are cheap solder modchips if you're ok with soldering. The EEPROM reader will require soldering to both put it together and to install it into the Xbox, and it could be cheap depending on how you source the parts, and installing it will be about the same level of difficulty as installing a modchip.

I actually have a solderless modchip that I'd be willing to let you borrow if you'll pay for shipping both ways (I'm in California) and leave a deposit with me via Paypal that I'll refund once I get the modchip back. The modchip is an Xecuter 2.3 Lite+ (or Lite Plus) and it's only good for Xbox versions 1.0-1.5, so if you have a 1.6/1.6b, then it won't work for you (at least not without soldering). Here's the basic installation guide if you're interested (the guide seems to leave out connecting the power splitter but I can talk you through it). If you want to do this, then leave a message here and also send me a PM and we'll work out the specifics, and I'll also test the modchip to make sure that everything works.

In any event, don't trash the Xbox because it's still fixable. At the very least, offer it for free on craigslist and I'm sure that someone will take it off your hands.

[GGOTNOMONEY]

AZImmortal, thanks for the reply man. I actually did try it without the cd drive being connected and I actually got an error 11, never got the error 12 code. As for borrowing your solderless modchip, it may be of interest to me as I don't have the slightest idea on soldering anything and am not really interested in attempting it. I appreciate the help and will be messaging you.

[blighty]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07MSbQPYhFc

Does this help?

btw the recovery disk is xboxhdm & you can get it here as the link in the utube vid is dead

http://www.theisozone.com/downloads/xbo ... 9-xboxhdm/

[ldotsfan]

The EEPROM reader will require soldering to both put it together and to install it into the Xbox, and it could be cheap depending on how you source the parts, and installing it will be about the same level of difficulty as installing a modchip.

There is a solderless version of eeprom reader: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=645714 but requires patience to get a good read.

I'm also working on this version: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=743776. The code is ready but I haven't got a chance to test it.

[professor_jonny]

I'm also working on this version: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=743776. The code is ready but I haven't got a chance to test it.

sweet i was just looking at building this or using a usb to sata adaptor but they never work properly:

http://www.harbaum.org/till/i2c_tiny_usb/index.shtml

[jogoxbmc]

End of last year, I built my own serial eeprom reader.
It was very simple/cheap to do (using the "Cordwood" construction technique) and yet very effective in backup-ing successfully the mandatory eeprom of a friend's XBOX that not booting anymore (with an error 1X).

photo hosting

I found all the usefull info there :
http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/Read ... dd_key.htm
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/357863
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3002308/lecture-eeprom-modif
http://gueux-forum.net/index.php?showtopic=74589

[AZImmortal]

That's a very nicely constructed reader. Would you mind drawing up a physical schematic for your Cordwood reader or linking to a high-res picture of your reader that can show all of your connections? I know that it's electrically the same as the PCB construction but I have zero skill in converting schematics to physical layout.

[bigkidoz]

I have used this guide to recover a fubarred softmod via hotswap -

http://consoledoc.com/xboxreturn2stock.html

[jogoxbmc]

Here are some high-res pictures of my serial eeprom reader without the 2 cases (a big double one+a std single one) :

[AZImmortal]

Great, thanks for the pictures. If I ever need to build one, this is what I'll refer to.

[psychotron]

Yea... I was wondering that the accuracy of the resistor really needed to be exactly 4k... I see you used 3.9K in your build. So now I can assume that would work instead of 4 - 1K resistors in series. Thanks for the reference pics

[SPPV]

Use Pimped or Autobuilder to mod the XBOX and follow the above video on hotswapping