Recovering from hard drive failure

[azzid]

I found my old xbox the other day, plugged it in to see if it was still working. It was not.

The hard drive had failed and the dvd sled was stuck, so I changed the hard drive and gave the dvd sled some manual exercise.

Now the machine seems physically fit again, but when I try to boot it I get error 16 (unable to set the clock) which prevents the machine from booting a dvd.

It feels like I've looked through most of the internet to uncover some other way to kit the hard drive with xbmc, but other than cloning a working disk there seem to be little help to be gained.

Is there another way to get the hard drive bootable?

EDIT: Perhaps a dd-image for a 120GB drive (or smaller)?

[spicemuseum]

What sort of mod does your box have? I'm guessing modchip, otherwise swapping out your HD wouldn't have been so simple. If so, why not switch to M8 BIOS and bypass the clock check...

[whufclee]

I also have an xbox which is giving error 16 and I'm hopeful that I'll get time to look at it tomorrow so will post my results when I have them, hopefully I'll work out a fix.

[AZImmortal]

I think that the only two fixes are to either flash to a bios that automatically sets the clock or to put a working ms dash onto the hard drive (or a properly softmodded set of files that will let you set the clock).

[azzid]

What sort of mod does your box have? I'm guessing modchip, otherwise swapping out your HD wouldn't have been so simple. If so, why not switch to M8 BIOS and bypass the clock check...

I didn't chip the machine myself, so I've never figured out what chip/bios it is actually running. It's a hardware mod though.
Every other time I start the machine there is a 'EVO X' logo in the corner during POST. Also, when I get that logo, the machine won't go to 'error 16' but to a blank screen instead.

Since I can't boot a dvd, how would I go about updating the bios?

I think that the only two fixes are to either flash to a bios that automatically sets the clock or to put a working ms dash onto the hard drive (or a properly softmodded set of files that will let you set the clock).

And getting a working ms dash onto it I guess is impossible since that requires a key or something that only resides on the trashed drive?

[AZImmortal]

If your Xbox is hardmodded (TSOP flash or modchip), then you won't need to lock the hard drive (which is what the key is for). You can just use something like XboxHDM to prepare your hard drive for you on your computer and install the necessary files onto your hard drive, and then install the hard drive into your Xbox. I've never used XboxHDM so I can't help you there, but it shouldn't be too hard to use.

[spicemuseum]

What sort of mod does your box have? I'm guessing modchip, otherwise swapping out your HD wouldn't have been so simple. If so, why not switch to M8 BIOS and bypass the clock check...

I didn't chip the machine myself, so I've never figured out what chip/bios it is actually running. It's a hardware mod though.

That's good then.
Every other time I start the machine there is a 'EVO X' logo in the corner during POST. Also, when I get that logo, the machine won't go to 'error 16' but to a blank screen instead.[/quote]Sounds like an M8 BIOS (good) not finding a dash to boot to (not so good). Does the modchip have a second flash bank? Have you got FTP access?
Curious why you're suggesting that it only sometimes goes to error 16, what are you doing to cause it to do different things (or is it random)?

[azzid]

What sort of mod does your box have? I'm guessing modchip, otherwise swapping out your HD wouldn't have been so simple. If so, why not switch to M8 BIOS and bypass the clock check...

I didn't chip the machine myself, so I've never figured out what chip/bios it is actually running. It's a hardware mod though.

That's good then.

Every other time I start the machine there is a 'EVO X' logo in the corner during POST. Also, when I get that logo, the machine won't go to 'error 16' but to a blank screen instead.

Sounds like an M8 BIOS (good) not finding a dash to boot to (not so good). Does the modchip have a second flash bank? Have you got FTP access?
Curious why you're suggesting that it only sometimes goes to error 16, what are you doing to cause it to do different things (or is it random)?

The hard drive I put in the machine is empty or contains trash (not keeping that good track of my old IDE drives anymore) so if the machine can launch an ftp-server it must be straight from the mod-chip, and that sounds a bit to high tech to be true, are there chips capable of such things?
Other than that though, no, I have no ftp access.

The 'error 16' vs 'blank screen' thing is seemingly random but goes hand in hand with 'logo'/'no logo'. Might have something to do with how I power the machine on, but I've been unable to figure out a pattern. I've been trying with different discs in the sled, the sled out and so on, also tried starting with the power button and the eject button respectively, so maybe some magic combination I'm unaware of (the dude who modded the machine never gave me any instructions) turns the chip on/off or something.

Even after me "fixing" the sled it sticks sometimes, so there has been some degree of button mashing involved in starting the xbox and that is probably why I don't see the pattern...

If your Xbox is hardmodded (TSOP flash or modchip), then you won't need to lock the hard drive (which is what the key is for). You can just use something like XboxHDM to prepare your hard drive for you on your computer and install the necessary files onto your hard drive, and then install the hard drive into your Xbox. I've never used XboxHDM so I can't help you there, but it shouldn't be too hard to use.

Heading off to bed now, but if I get the time I'll give xboxhdm a go. I'm no stranger to linux, but the xbox-specific stuff is still a bit beyond me, so if you know a good tutorial for using xboxhdm I'm all ears. =)

[AZImmortal]

I've looked over this guide and it looks pretty complete.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=244043

For the C drive files, you can get them from Heimdall's Xbox Engineering Disc (Google is your friend) under the directory /StockFiles/. You can also get them from the Slayer's Evox Auto Installer disc but I forgot what directory the stock files are in.

Btw, there are a few modchips with built-in FTP servers from the last generation of modchips. These chips also have the ability to properly format your hard drive, and then using the built-in FTP server you can populate the hard drive. As you can imagine, it's very handy for situations like yours (no need to use the computer directly to prepare the hard drive).

[azzid]

I've looked over this guide and it looks pretty complete.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=244043

For the C drive files, you can get them from Heimdall's Xbox Engineering Disc (Google is your friend) under the directory /StockFiles/. You can also get them from the Slayer's Evox Auto Installer disc but I forgot what directory the stock files are in.

Nice! Thanks! I'll give that a go.

Btw, there are a few modchips with built-in FTP servers from the last generation of modchips. These chips also have the ability to properly format your hard drive, and then using the built-in FTP server you can populate the hard drive. As you can imagine, it's very handy for situations like yours (no need to use the computer directly to prepare the hard drive).

My modchip is like 10 years old, so I think fancy features like those are a bit much to hope for.

[azzid]

Successfully launched the stock dashboard just now!

A combination of IDE<->USB-converter, VirtualBox (raw disk ftw!), xboxhdm and extract-xiso_v2.5_linux and I didn't even have to reboot my desktop machine! =D

Still unable to read the DVDs I've burned, but that might just be that the reader is old/broken and that my discs are crap. Should probably try to get hold of a cd-rw and try that instead. Or just build a fancier hard disk image using xboxhdm.

Any tips on how I should put xbmc onto the hd to get it working?

And most importantly of all: THANK YOU GUYS! Awesome help all the way!

[azzid]

Got Evox and XBMC running now, so the rest should be manageable through ftp.

Thanks again guys!