Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Discussion about Modding the XBOX, including hardware and software hacks.
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SilverNZ
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Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by SilverNZ »

Hi All,

I am having issues upgrading my HDD to a 500gb drive (I have also tryed 2 80gbs which are different brands). My Xbox is hard modded with an Aladdin chip (BIOS - Evox M8 v16), i have connected a SATA to IDE adapter and a 80 wire cable.

Im using slayers 2.7 disc to upgrade, i first select 'New install/Full rebuild - Upgradded HDD' - Once this process is finished my xbox boots up with an error 16 message displaying. I have FTP'd to my xbox through slayers and i can see its not installing the dashboard to my c: but has formatted the drive properly.(As i can see in the e: and f:) I have tried both retail and upgradded HDD but both have the same outcome. I have also tried installing apps to the e: and also installing xbmc as my dashboard but still doesn't work. Here is a pic of my c: (Do you think i should manually ftp a dashboard? If so what should the contents look like?)

https://imgur.com/a/lYXYp

My xbox is a v1.4 - v1.5 with a Philips dvd drive. I have also tried Hexen 2017 and AID installer but both disc ain't reading (Burned to DVD-R)

If anyone could help i would very much appreciate that! Do you think it could be my BIOS? (I did get this xbox modded back in 2004-2005)

Thanks!
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Nextelhalo
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by Nextelhalo »

Sounds like the M8 BIOS wants to find your dashboard in another location. Try to FTP into the xbox and put your dashes in F/Apps and see if that boots up, heck I think Slayers 2.98 will give you that option unlike 2.7 so that could be quicker too.

One thing too, I doubt you have an Evox M8 1.6 bios because that would not boot on a 1.4-1.5 xbox. Good news is that's a pretty good bios and should do fine for you.

I'm running Evox M8 on a 1.4 with a 750GB SATA and when I setup the hard drive with Slayers 2.98 it put XBMC into F/Apps and it booted right up after I took out the disc.
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SilverNZ
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by SilverNZ »

I think your right about my BIOS, when i insert the slayers disc it says BIOS - Evox M8 1.6, but when i installed my old dashboard and check the settings it says BIOS unknown.

It looks like it boots the dashboard from the C: - I transferred my old dashboard from the stock HDD and put it on my upgraded HDD. (Which is a very old version of evoX). I want to put XBMC as my dashboard, how would i do that using FTP or do i need to use the disc? And i tried using XBpartitioner but seem to get an error..

Should i flash or update the BIOS to something else from the slayer disc? If so which BIOS, as there are a lot.

Thanks for the help.
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by Elurin »

I believe certain Philips drives do not read DVD-R, so you need to burn to a DVD+R, with write speed of x4. DVD+R are the most common disks to get these days.

I would flash with IND-5004 instead of M8 and do a rebuild with Hexen 2017(can be found on Iso zone). You can edit the IND bios cfg file on your C drive to directly boot XBMC on F.

Or you could use Hexen to do a dashboard switch.
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by Nextelhalo »

I would start by using the disc to flash your chip with another BIOS first. Boot up Slayers 2.7 (or Slayers 2.98) or Hexen, and flash the chip with M8 F&G v1.0-1.5. After the xbox turns off turn it back on and use the Slayers disk or Hexen to setup your hard drive.
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by shloader »

I doubt you have a BIOS issue, or at least I don't think you have an issue with the version of bios you're running. You're probably struggling against possible custom dash paths. If you were running a 1.6 version of the EvoX M8, I don't think you'd even get video as that bios is meant to work with the Xcalibur video chip found on the 1.6 box. With that said I'm pretty sure you're running the standard version of EvoX M8, which itself is fine.

You're better off with a more modern disc like the Hexen 2017 disc, and as far as I know there isn't any original Xbox drive that can't read DVD-R. Few can read DVD+r with the bitset flag set to DVD-ROM. Fewer still can read a DVD+R DL set to -ROM as well. I've seen all versions of all DVD drives last year as I purchased a lot of 81 of them (Xboxes, not just the drives). In good working order the Philips is a good drive to have, but they can begin to show their age like any. My favorite is the Hitachi-LG, usually can read anything and I haven't had a totally failed one yet.

My concern would be the quality of the media. I stick with Verbatim DVD-R and have had the fewest issues.

If you do manage to get a Hexen disc to boot, swap out your bios with a version of EvoX M8 from the disc so you know the dash paths are standard. You can also track down a copy of evtool and tailor a copy of the EvoX M8 to how you want so you know what your actual settings are. All kinds of options out there, depending on how much research you want to do.
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by Coldly-Indifferent »

Good info. ^

I've done my own tests on disc media as I have, I think, at least two examples of every other officially fitted disc drive (Samsung 605B and 605F, Thomson, Hitachi) except the Philips which I only have one. There's some information out there which says there were actually two Philips drive types used during the Xbox's lifetime. If so, obviously, I couldn't test both.

What the tests proved to me that what the experts on forums like this had been say for years, that DVD-R is the only 'universal' compatible type, was absolutely correct. There was no repeatable problem with any disc drive using the three different makes of DVD-R I used.

However, the Philip drive I have was the most disc media incompatible. It didn't like CD-R, DVD+R and any re-writable DVD type but would occasionally work with Verbatim CD-RW burned at its only supported speed: x10.

CD-R's lowest supported speed is x16 so it lends credence to the advice always to use the slowest supported speed for the media type/hardware involved. With most DVD-R I've used that is x4 and I always use ImgBurn as I know that at its default settings "Write image file to disc" it works.

Any failures with DVD-R I put down to batch variations, storage issues or poor manufacturing. It should be remembered the actual disc manufacturer can vary batch to batch even with the same branding too.
SilverNZ
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by SilverNZ »

Thanks for all the help guys!

I have sorted out my Dashboard, when creating a new HDD build it was creating a dashboard on the f:, So i created one using xbe shortcut maker and put it on the c: and boots fine.

Another issue is, i have a 500GB HDD and i want to format it using XBPartitioner 1.3 but i get the LBA48 not supported error.

I have tried to flash my BIOS using the slayer disc, but whenever i choose a BIOS and click ok it comes up with the 'File Size Error', Any ideas? (I tried Hexen but that doesn't seem to load for me)

Cheers.
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by Coldly-Indifferent »

Did you wait long enough for HeXEn to load?

Typically it will take 20 -25 secs after the loading screen.

An AID disc can take twice as long.
SilverNZ
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by SilverNZ »

Yeah just doesn't read it.. Maybe i'll burn another. I FTP'd Hexen but it gets an error 13..

Any other way to Partition my drive other than XBPartitioner?
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by Coldly-Indifferent »

If you're installing HeXEn you actually need the proper installed version with the re-written config.xml.

From disc everything is using a path to files on the D:\ drive whereas the HeXEn's installed version (HexIns) was re-written to use E:\HexIns.

So if you were trying to use the disc version installed by FTP or even had mistakenly put HexIns in E:\Apps rather than on the root of the E:\ drive that may be why it gave you the error message.

I do not know why it was done that way because it means it can only be launched using a file manager from there. It would be much better in Apps but short of re-editing the config.xml you have to install it as intended.

I used the Xbox shortcut maker to create a shortcut to be able to launch it from the Apps menu.

The later update HeXEen 2017 rewrote the config.xml. It is still intended to work primarily from disc but there are (very) basic instructions about how to rewrite the config.xml to allow it to be installed instead. Would you trust yourself to do that with such a powerful tool set? Not me, I'd still go looking for the purpose designed installed version original: HexIns instead.

Rather than copied or FTPed in to place AID is, primarily, meant to run from disc too so it must be installed from its own disc main menus option, purposed designed for very much the same config.xml path reasons.
affan101
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by affan101 »

hello. I've encountered a similar problem. I've bricked my xbox and it boots up the black screen that says to call customer service. however there isn't any code number in the upper left corner. I'm thinking about opening the xbox to take the hdd out and connect it to my computer, where I can reformat it and add xbmc and the ms dash. you mentioned that there is a slayers disc that does the job. can you please explain to me how that works? Also is there any other way to unbrick the xbox?
SilverNZ
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by SilverNZ »

affan101 wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 10:40 pm hello. I've encountered a similar problem. I've bricked my xbox and it boots up the black screen that says to call customer service. however there isn't any code number in the upper left corner. I'm thinking about opening the xbox to take the hdd out and connect it to my computer, where I can reformat it and add xbmc and the ms dash. you mentioned that there is a slayers disc that does the job. can you please explain to me how that works? Also is there any other way to unbrick the xbox?
Is the Xbox hard modded? If it is, download and burn slayers or hexen 2018 to a disk and reformat your drive using that. I had no luck connecting my Xbox HDD to my PC, as it couldn't read the drive to format it.
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Re: Upgrading HDD/Installing Dashboard (Help please)

Post by Coldly-Indifferent »

Yes, you need to be sure whether the Xbox is hard (chipped/TSOPed) or softmodded before doing anything.

If it was softmodded then connection to a PC is going to be difficult as the HDD will be locked. You need your Xbox's eeprom and in the absence of other options you'll probably have to hotswap from your Xbox. Even then with a program like Xplorer360, needed to read FATX formatted storage devices, getting a PC to see the contents via a USB connection does not always work.

If you have the eeprom you should be able to use the USB version of XBHDM (Xbox Hard Drive Maker) to build a new HDD and lock it. I've not done this myself so I do not know all the ins and outs of the process but there is plenty of information online about how to do this if you search for it.

IMHO it makes more sense using a new HDD for this rather than trying to unlock the existing one. That can be done later using Chimp261812 when you have a working HDD.

However if the Xbox is chipped/TSOPed then none of that hassle should be necessary because any rescue or installer disc should cold boot and allow you to install a dashboard correctly. I'd use either AID or HeXEn in preference to Slayers but that's just because I've never used Slayers and the other two were being updated long after Slayers' final version.

As I said earlier in this thread the Xbox disc drives are picky with their media support: for guaranteed compatibility always use DVD-R and, preferably, ImgBurn.
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