Original Hard Modded Xbox Died , Can i Swap HDD Out

[trev1976]

Hi

I have an original hard modded xbox with a 120gb HDD in it , its all set up rather nice with emulators and such but recently the motherboard has blown a fuse , Question is if i bought a cheap 2nd hand xbox and installed a modchip could i just swap the drives over and use my old drive ?

This would save me alot of hassle if its possible

Many Thanks

[Gedeon]

It's not my cup of tea, but can you please post a high res picture of the motherboard? You know, just to determine which one you have. Might be other workarounds that you can use. The pros will reply to this thread eventually

[asbo]

if i bought a cheap 2nd hand xbox and installed a modchip could i just swap the drives over and use my old drive ?

yes if it isn't locked. If it is locked then things will be a bit more tricky.

Repairing your current motherboard might well be easier. What exactly happens when you try and turn it on? How do you know its "blown a fuse" as you put it? I didn't think the motherboard had any fuses but I might be wrong.

[trev1976]

Hi.. ive got a bad feeling the drive is locked.

Ive seen the blown fuse . Its burnt out and I think the solder pad is missing now too after I messed around with it

If the drive is locked can it be unlocked ?

[xman]

I'm thinking your power supply is where the problem is. You could one , repair the existing power supply or two, replace the power supply with a know good one. Also, once you get it running again, seeing as you are using a modchip, please make sure the hard drive is unlocked. Only a fool uses a modchipped machine these days with it's HDD locked since Xbox Live was killed off.

[asbo]

Ive seen the blown fuse . Its burnt out and I think the solder pad is missing now too after I messed around with it

Can you take a picture of it for us?
If not can describe where it is on the motherboard? Is there any text near it?
Again I'm not sure there are any fuses on the motherboard, so maybe its some other component. Either way, even with the solder pads destroyed, the component can probably be replaced.
Where abouts in the world are you? There's probably someone on here who can have a go at repairing it.

If the drive is locked can it be unlocked ?

Almost certainly.
Assuming it is locked, since its a non original hard drive it would have had to have been formatted and locked with modding tools, so it may have the master password set as XBOXSCENE or TEAMASSEMBLY. If so there are a few tools available on the PC (and I think you can hotswap and use config magic on the xbox) which could unlock it. You would need an older PC with an IDE port (or another working xbox).

If it hasn't had a master password set then you would need the xboxs EEPROM file to unlock it. Assuming you haven't got that backed up anywhere, you would need an EEPROM reader to read it directly from the motherboard. I've never done this but I assume you can use one to read from a dead motherboard. You'd then need the same as above to unlock the hard drive.

I suggest getting a new hard modded xbox and not worrying about whether your hard drive is locked or not until then, as there's a reasonable chance its not locked

[trev1976]

Hi , heres a pic of the motherboard fuse blown FB7A1 , i think i must of shorted it by accident one day while i was running the xbox with the lid off .. I did try the HDD in another hard modded xbox at the time and it came up with an error but i cant remember what code it was



Im in the UK , would hooking it up to my PC via a IDE caddy work ?

[nidge]

Hi , heres a pic of the motherboard fuse blown FB7A1 , i think i must of shorted it by accident one day while i was running the xbox with the lid off .. I did try the HDD in another hard modded xbox at the time and it came up with an error but i cant remember what code it was



Im in the UK , would hooking it up to my PC via a IDE caddy work ?

Something's certainly blown there!

You could connect the HD to a PC but the PC wouldn't be able to read the Xbox data on it, locked or unlocked.
I have a few spare parts, I could maybe sell you a replacement TSOPed motherboard?
PM me

In the UK as well BTW (Norfolk)

[asbo]

Oooh nasty!
That does seem to be a fuse(my mistake), I'd not heard of them blowing before.

would hooking it up to my PC via a IDE caddy work ?

If its unlocked then Xplorer360 will be able to read it. Trying that would be a good test to see if it is locked.
You can't unlock a hard drive that way though, it needs to be connected directly with an IDE port.

In the UK as well BTW (Norfolk)

Its where all us cool people are

I suggest you get a new motherboard and bog standard 8gb hard drive so you have a working xbox again. If you fire up config magic on the xbox and hotswap the 8Gb one for your 120GB one, you can use config magic to try unlocking it with a master password.
I think configmagic can also unlock a harddrive with an EEPROM.bin file(rather than reading it directly from the motherboard), if that's so then you could buy an EEPROM reader, read from your dead motherboard and save the file to a working xbox, hotswap as above but then get configmagic to unlock using the file rather than a master password.
This would save you digging up an older PC with an IDE port for XBOXHDM.

[professor_jonny]

you could try xblast os on another xbox to unlock it if it has a back door password?

you could also read the eeprom off the motherboard and transplant it on to a new one if you can't get things to boot ? it is unlikely the eeprom is dead on the board you have.

[trev1976]

Yeah it sucks it burnt out.. my mate at work might sell me his xbox for a tenner so ill see what happens there first cheers.

It does sound very complex to unlock the drive but its a shame to lose the HDD as alot of time was put into it