TSOP now going backwards

[ride1226]

I sucessfully softmodded my xbox by making a USB adapter and going the splinter cell route. Used Hexin for HDD and installed XBMC, had 3.5.1 beta running and installed a few emulators. I was really enjoying it but running out of HDD space quick. Looked into TSOP modding so that I could use Chimp and clone my drive with a 200gb IDE drive I have so did the TSOP soldering points, flashed x2 4981.06 and restarted. I figured it would go right back to my XBMC but it didnt, it booted back to EvoX. So, I went through the motions trying to get XBMC to boot as default, tried numerous things from using Hexen which told me it couldnt, changing default.xbe to avalaunch.exe, even flashed indi bios and tried it using that BIOS to no avail. So, I go back into Hexen and go to reinstall Krayzie's softmod and remove my SID softmod to attempt to use the Krayzie dashboard selection option. At the end of flashing the Krayzie softmod and rebooting I get a black screen. Nothing boots. Left it for upwards of 15 minutes and just black. So, I throw in splinter cell and use the linux installed to reinstall the soft mod. Figured at this point it would go back to EvoX and I would be at square 1 again. Nope. Instead it now just boots to the stock MS dashboard, which I cant FTP anything into our out of. Tried to go back to the linux installer and now it just loops back to the boot of the game when I try to run it. I am totally lost at this point. I was doing so well until the TSOP flash to upgrade my HDD and now about 8 hours of racking my brain and Im about to lose it.

Any ideas? Thank you all.

[Heimdall]

You have made a real mess of this.....

However, you should still have x2 4981.06 or iND.BIOS on there, so all is not lost.

Can you boot with HeXEn?

[ride1226]

Well, I know. I have botched this up beyond all belief. From the time I did the TSOP mod until now its only gotten worse.

I cant really figure out how to get back to my Hexen files. They are on my HDD as I have no DVD-R only +R. But since I cant get into a dash that allows me to open files I am not sure how to get Hexen up and running again.

[Heimdall]

Rescue files on the hard drive you are trying to rescue are absolutely no use to you.....

You need to get a DVD-R and burn HeXEn to it. No boot disc, no possible recovery - unless you want to open up the Xbox and hotswap.

[ride1226]

I figured that was the route I backed myself into. Man, almost did this entire mod process without spending a dime.

I am OK with hotswapping, however all of my computers are too new for that and none have IDE hookups. Otherwise I could just build a HDD on the computer and just put it in the XBOX correct?

I really appreciate your help.

[Heimdall]

I deliberately kept a couple of motherboards with IDE, just for Xbox hard drive building... although I haven't used one in a while.

[ride1226]

Yea, I usually have stacks of those around, however I just bought a place and moved and slimmed down a lot of things, and used my last Gigabyte MoBo with IDE to build my parentals a HTPC. I will have to see if I can pick either an old PC from someone or a few DvD-R.

Is either method an easier way to go? I think having a Hexen disc around wouldn't be a bad idea, however if I can just totally prepare my HDD in an old pc then just plug it in and go that would be super easy.

[Heimdall]

With a TSOP box then HeXEn is significantly easier - pop the disc in, boot, press a couple of buttons, done.

[ride1226]

OK. Can that be done with my 200gb HDD in there or do I need to use the stock HDD first and then chimp clone?

Also, once I boot the Hexen disk what is my course of action?

[Heimdall]

Works with the 200GB drive, no need for the original drive at all.

[ride1226]

Fantastic! Going to reassemble it with the 200gb HDD in there then! Thank you very much. I very much appreciate your help. Time to track down a DVD-R.

[AZImmortal]

Depending on the DVD drive you have in your Xbox and your DVD burner, you might be able to use DVD+Rs. If your burner has an option to set the booktype when burning DVD+R, then set it to DVD-ROM. If you don't know what that means, then just try burning anyway and see if it works.

Also, never try to install a soft mod when your Xbox is hard modded.

[ride1226]

Ok. Got my hands on a DVD-R and burnt a Hexen disc. When I put it in it asked me to hold the triggers and press start to format my new HDD. I didnt realize you cant install a soft mod on a hardmodded xbox, and I just installed Krayzies NDURE 1.1 and made it go to a black screen again.

Disc still boots up fine, but how do i go about this correctly? Thanks!

[Heimdall]

I don't have a HeXEn disc in front of me at the moment so I can't remember the menu number or the exact title, but the option you want is to build a new hard drive on a flashed / chipped Xbox

Edit: Found it - Option 3.5.3 - New Disk, NTSC Xbox, or 3.5.4 - New Disk, PAL Xbox, depending on where in the world you are.

[ride1226]

Awesome! From there I just reboot and will be in a custom dash? Then go about installing xbmc as normal?

[Heimdall]

Correct. Alternatively, you could use HeXEn option 4.1. Install XBMC to E, then manually replace E:\Apps\XBMC\ with the latest version, then boot normally (with no DVD) and use the HeXEn menu options to switch to XBMC as your dash.

[ride1226]

Awesome! Thanks. I will do exactly that tomorrow and post back. The issue I was originally having is when I asked hexen to switch to xbmc on e as default it would tell me no xbmc found error or no krayzie softmod found. I'll give this a fresh wipe and try tomorrow morning and post back. Fingers crossed for no more pain tomorrow and an easy setup. Thanks again!

[Heimdall]

HeXEn will do that if there is no Krayzie softmod installed, or if you haven't installed XBMC using HeXEn. (For completeness, that wasn't me being a control freak, I don't care how people install XBMC, BUT for dash switching to work HeXEn needs to know which mod you used (so it puts the shortcut in the right place), and also needs to copy the shortcut from a known location, and I put the shortcut on the drive as part of the XBMC installation process.)

When you say "give this a fresh wipe", I hope you don't mean that literally. Just install XBMC using HeXEn, use FTP to replace it with the latest XBMC, then dash switching will work.

[ride1226]

Is there anything wrong with reformatting it to start fresh? Yesterday I had done the initial reformat and then like an idiot tried to install a soft mod causing it to boot to a black screen again.

[Heimdall]

Nothing at all wrong with reformatting, and if you've tried to install another softmod then it's essential. What I meant was it's not necessary just to switch the dash to XBMC, but that was before I knew you'd tried to install a softmod!