harddrive locked with smoked pcb

[jdub1981]

Hey guys, new member here with a fairly hard problem. First though a little about me. Ive been modding xbox1's since 2003. My very first xbox1 was modded by a friend of mine I had him put and Xecuter 3 CE in along with a Seagate 160Gb drive. For years this was my only machine but then one day ethernet port stopped working and that was the end of that xbox. When the 360 came out I stopped using my xbox1's all together. A few years went by and I once again started back with xbox1. I bought a copy of splinter cell 1 and a action replay and modded maybe 50+ units for my friends and I. Eventually I somehow stumbled upon Hexen and learned about TSOP flashing and successfully performed it on my last xbox. I still had my very first xbox hard drive and was attempting to try to get the contents off it by doing the swap method and somehow I smoked the pcb. Even though it was smoked I kept the drive and very soon I will purchase a new replacement pcb.

My question relates to the pcb swap. When you lock a drive does that make a change on the PCB? If so, the new PCB will allow the drive to read as unlocked is this correct? Is this doable? The hard drive is very important as it was used as a backup drive for many hundreds of pictures of my son when he was a baby. It also obviously held other stuff that I would like to get back but the pictures are the most important. If I have to purchase yet another xbox in order to ftp and get the file back I will but is there another way? My current pc is sata only but I do have an ide to usb cable that I can use. Is there and existing program that makes fatx readable in Win 7? Thanks in advance for anyone help on this.

[jdub1981]

my bad, I didn't see there was a spot for modding question lower in the forum. Can someone move this topic there?

[professor_jonny]

the lock code is generally stored on the hpa area on the disk generally some drive you can read it from a ttl logic interface but i would not matter to much about this till you get it working.
the key could be a backup one like xbox scene if you are lucky.

pcb swaps these days don't work in general but an older drive may do ensure the new card is the same model number and revision.

most drives these days have an on disk firmware and there is other issuies as the boot loader configblock on the eeprom is drive specific some you will be ok if you also swap the eeprom onto the new card and it will read the firmware from the disk surface.

but hoping the eeprom from the dead pcb is ok to do a swap may help .


I'd ask on the hdd guru form for more help before you attempt any thing.
have you tested the mast head amp and it is still ok?

if it is important send it away dont stuff with it you could make things worse expect a big bill too.

[jdub1981]

I have no idea what a mast head amp is. The only thing I have done recently is attempt to power it on my pc. No sound, no spinn. My pc does not recognize it either. The latter maybe because of the fatx partition though. I have an found an exact match from a pcb vendor for $39.99US. Im uploading a picture of the pcb. I have circled the portion that smoked. I saw it when it happened. It glowed bright red for like 4-5 seconds before I managed to remove power.

I ve disassembled many hard drives in my lifetime and am aware of the need for a cleanroom. My main concern here is what sort of info is stored on the pcb and will that affect the ability to lock or unlock a drive. If I put the drive in a TSOP flashed xbox can I somehow unlock the drive?

[professor_jonny]

there is no picture attached but it sounds like the tvs diodes have blown and you may just be able to bridge them out.
if you can post a picture i may be able to help.

the mast head amp is a ampflier chip inside the hdd on the reading arm.

[jdub1981]

Sorry bout that. As you can see from the pic the chip labeled with the word "smooth" is the culprit. What is its significance? Ive seen quite a few other smoked pcbs and they cleared had a blown diode bit this osnt the case here.

This is the 3rd time to try and upload this photo.

[xman]

This HDD was from a modchipped machine?....An X3 chip?. Are you absolutely sure the HDD was locked?. HDDs don't need to be locked with modchipped machines. You may be lucky and your HDD wasn't locked and you can just put it straight into another modchipped machine and continue. They needed to be locked to play "Live" but for anything else HDD locking wasn't necessary and for this reason I recommend never lock a HDD in a modchipped machine so if the machine dies, the HDD doesn't.

[bigkidoz]

Steve, if the hdd pcb is fried he cant access the drive locked or unlocked.

[xman]

Arr sorry, my bad. I thought it was the Xbox MB fried.

[professor_jonny]

the smooth ship is the main driver chip for the actuator arm chances are you have fried the mast head amp too if you are unlucky

[jdub1981]

I vaguely recall that when my friend did the original mod way back in the day he said he used his xecuter 2 chip or config magic to prepare the hard drive. My original xbox was being modded with a xecuter 3 ce chip. He said it was easier to do it this way because once the chip was in he could then simply drop my hdd in place and be done with it. If it was locked with either of these methods will that make things any easier for me?

[professor_jonny]

I vaguely recall that when my friend did the original mod way back in the day he said he used his xecuter 2 chip or config magic to prepare the hard drive. My original xbox was being modded with a xecuter 3 ce chip. He said it was easier to do it this way because once the chip was in he could then simply drop my hdd in place and be done with it. If it was locked with either of these methods will that make things any easier for me?

config magic sets up a default hdd lock code so you should be ok.

there is no need to lock it with a hard mod so it might not be locked.