Need a little guidance with "Error 5" on Modchipped Xbox

[Wally12]

Hi guys! I bought an Xbox on eBay and it has a modchip, which is something completely new to me. I believe it is an Xecuter 2.6. The Xbox was manufactured 8/21/2002. It has a 160gb Maxtor IDE HDD installed. Here are images of the hardware up close: http://imgur.com/a/cZ1oO

When I turn on the Xbox with the chip off, I was presented with "Error 5", which I read HERE means the following. But when I switched the chip on and turned on the Xbox, I get no signal on my TV.

5 - kernel - HDD not locked (The retail xbox bioses require the hd to be locked)

When you upgrade your hard disk drive for one that is larger, you most of the times use a new hard drive that you bought in the shop. Now, when you put this hdd in your xbox and you try to boot up with your chip off. It gives you error 5. Why you ask? Well i will try to explain it simple.

The original (also called "Retail") hard drive is locked by MS. Why did they lock the harddrive?

Well if it wasn't it wouldve been more than easy (in the start of xbox hacking)
for hackers to change content on it. Thats why MS locks it. It is just a security measure.

This locking proces uses information thats on the motherboard. The "Lock" on a xbox hard drive contains information that is based on the harddrive itself and the motherboard it came with.

One thing that makes this clear: You can not change a retail harddrive with another one from an other not modded xbox. With every xbox there is only ONE i repeat ONE compatible harddisk drive. That is, if they are locked.

If you don't mod your xbox (tsop or modchips) you can not change harddrives. Not even from another xbox. However when your xbox IS modified you can change your harddisk for almost every other harddisk (thats UNLOCKED). This means that even when your xbox is modified, you can not just put another (retail) XBOX harddisk in your xbox. However some smart people made programs that can lock or unlock your xbox harddisk on the fly.

So when does the error occur? The only time this error should occur is when you boot up your xbox in original mode AND you have a harddisk in your xbox that is not yet locked. So now you ask what do i have to do to make your xbox work again?

Well the answer is pretty easy. Boot up your xbox with the chip on. Preferably with a slayer evo-x cd. Now you choose "Eeprom management." Than you choose: "Lock hdd." It takes one second. After its ready it should say something like "Done"
When it is "Done" just turn off your xbox. Disable your chip and try to boot in original mode. Now there should be no more error 5.


Error Code 05
Problem: Hard disk drive (HDD) not locked.
Cause/Solution: If you have not replaced your Xbox's BIOS via a modchip/TSOP flash, then your HDD needs to be locked using a special password that is generated based on your Xbox's EEPROM, which is unique per each individual Xbox. Microsoft designed it this way to prevent people from being able to plug the drive into a computer and have access to its contents and thus hacking it. Virtually all non-retail BIOSes (including modchip/TSOP) will not require the hard drive to be locked in order to start. If you're seeing this error on a non-retail BIOS, then chances are your modchip/TSOP flash process had issues and for some reason you are now using a stock BIOS which is now requiring a password-locked hard drive again. If you're seeing this error and your Xbox has been softmodded (through gamesave/font/audio expoits), then you just need to lock your drive again. Hopefully you have your EEPROM backed up at this point because if not, things get a lot more complicated. If you unlocked your HDD on the Xbox itself (using ConfigMagic for example), chances are the app you used made a backup of your EEPROM for you and it's now sitting on your E:\ drive called "eeprom.bin" or something similar. You can plug the HDD into a computer at this point and use an Xbox hard drive explorer program like "Xplorer360" (Windows only) to view its files to copy your EEPROM backup. There are multiple ways to lock a HDD, one of which is by using XboxHDM by author ldotsfan. XboxHDM runs on a PC and one of its features is the ability to lock hard drives if you have an EEPROM backup. Choose option "3" from XboxHDM and follow the on-screen instructions to lock the HDD.

I need a little guidance to get this thing working again. I have no experience with a mod chip and so I don't want to somehow make the Xbox become a brick b/c my guess is it's fixable, assuming the mod chip works. I really want to know how I can tell if the modchip is working? Also, I took it off the board to take pictures, and I am not sure how it needs to line up with the pins again, as there are less pins than connection holes, or if that matters.

Also, I have 2 softmodded Xbox's if those need to be used in any way (Chimp, etc). And, as a side note, my computer for w/e reason won't burn disks. I have tried multiple CD's and CD-RW's and two different Disc Drives using IMGBurn and the program goes through the process yet the disc is not spinning up and when it finishes the disc is empty.

[Rocky5]

Well the solderless adaptor is installed correctly, so it's a matter of installing the chip on the pins correctly and picking the right bank that has a bios on it.

You install the chip onto the pins so the pin holder ( black thing ) fits over the hole LPC.
So the two bottom pins will go into the two bottom hole on the pin holder ( black thing )


You could alway untighten the screw a little and make sure the pogo pins are in the right place then tighten the screw again. ( give a little blow under it to make sure there is no dust )


The problem you may face is a bad flash, or the chip is just dead does the blue LED light up on the chip?

[Wally12]

Well the solderless adaptor is installed correctly, so it's a matter of installing the chip on the pins correctly and picking the right bank that has a bios on it.

You install the chip onto the pins so the pin holder ( black thing ) fits over the hole LPC.
So the two bottom pins will go into the two bottom hole on the pin holder ( black thing )


You could alway untighten the screw a little and make sure the pogo pins are in the right place then tighten the screw again. ( give a little blow under it to make sure there is no dust )


The problem you may face is a bad flash, or the chip is just dead does the blue LED light up on the chip?

So, great news in that the switch's green light did come on and so did the chip's blue light. I completely removed the solderless chip connector and blew on the board for dust like you suggested. When I reattached it, I then couldn't get any power to the chip. After several attempts, I got power and to my surprise I am now looking at the menu from the Chip (which is Unleash X). I really appreciate that suggestion! But the question is now how can I lock my HDD to be able to use the Xbox if the chip is off? I still get thrown "Error 5" when the chip is off. I'm familiar with Chimp for softmod HDD cloning and locking, but like I said am completely new to having a modchipped Xbox.

Also, it's set on Bank 1 and Flash Protect is turned off. This is how I received it. I Know the banks have something to do with BIOS, but that's as far as my knowledge goes for that. And should I turn on Flash Protection to prevent anything from getting messed up?

EDIT: So now I've screwed it up while trying to tidy things up and get it how I want it . I was using the Slayer 2.7 disk from the HDD and went to install XBMC as the main dashboard. Well, it told me to install the most up to date one, and me thinking that I didn't have to since I had already put XBMC 3.5.3 in my Apps folder, skipped it and continued on. Now I'm stuck looking at a frozen boot screen with the Xbox Logo and Xecuter 2 underneath it.

[Rocky5]

More than likely the bios boots evoxdash.xbe and xboxdash.xbe from C so just stick your dash in there.

[Wally12]

More than likely the bios boots evoxdash.xbe and xboxdash.xbe from C so just stick your dash in there.

I'm not sure which question you were answering, but unfortunately like I said in the last post's edit, I can't do anything to the hard drive as I just get stuck on the boot screen.

Here is what I mean: The first part of the video is what happens when I turn on the Xbox with the modchip turned on, and the second part is with the modchip off and the "Error 5" appearing.

https://youtu.be/YT01b5H3ToU (Youtube link tags don't seem to work.)

I don't know how to fix this. I don't think I am going to be able to burn a recovery disc of some kind. I have tried so many times with multiple different discs to burn the Slayers 2.7.iso file to one, and it goes through the motions but every disc ends up blank. I really don't know where to go from here. Makes me mad at myself for ignoring that step .

[Rocky5]

It could be crashing at that point as the bios can't find what it's looking for, though you should get an error screen but that's bios specific.

You will need a disc to boot past this as discs are booted before anything from the HDD unless you had a clock loop error 16.


If a disc isn't booting ( there is no reason it shouldn't ) makes sure all IDE and other cables are connected correctly.

[Wally12]

It could be crashing at that point as the bios can't find what it's looking for, though you should get an error screen but that's bios specific.

You will need a disc to boot past this as discs are booted before anything from the HDD unless you had a clock loop error 16.


If a disc isn't booting ( there is no reason it shouldn't ) makes sure all IDE and other cables are connected correctly.

I managed to get some DVD-R's that work. I guess all of my old discs just wore out and I didn't realize that was possible. So, I learned something there. Anyway, I went ahead and used the rebuild option on the Slayers 2.7 disc that I burned to have a clean mod installation.

What I want to know, is there a newer form of mod update that I can run on this Xbox that'll have a more current version of XBMC? I really just want this Xbox to run the stock MS Dashboard and the XBMC Dashboard.

I guess the next thing I will need to try and learn about is BIOS.