e5frog

Should I stuff the X2 bios on the other bank or can I just as well have the same M8plus_16 on both, just to be safe from corruption - for one or the other reason.

I managed to figure it that it seems to be enough to lock the drive to be able to boot the onboard bios without complaints. I'm not sure what you mean about "no way to run apps/games/emulators installed on the standard partitions 2 and 1 - the C and E drives, respectively" - I can't use C and E when the modchip is active? I put a 3TB WD Green in there, F and G is about 1TB each. Tried transferring a game, seems to do OK.

Repaired a v.1.6 modchip installation that used DUOX2 - likely flashed with the wrong data and the other bank didn't work for the 1.6 either (did on a 1.0 - which was the way it was fixed). Is it possible to add a larger hardrive to store the games I have (from discs to the HDD) - and still be able to use the original (starting without chip) function - if needed. I have the impression you can't just swap HDD:s and be done with it.

Flashed M8 for 1.6 - funny thing... XMBC is already installed on the hard drive. So back to working. I should flash something to bank 0 as well - so it has two chances to boot up on the 1.6 in case something happens. What works? What's recommended?

... it said Linux as I had the "OGXbox installer 2021 v1.5.4" in the ODD. Hexen DVD-R worked as well - on both the Thomson and Hitachi-LG drive. Seems it's just a matter of installing various stuff now that I don't know what it is. Emustation - sounds fun. Second biggest question now is - do I stay with the v1.0 Xbox or do I move all of it over to the v1.6? Me reading random stuff online these couple of days have given the impression an early machine is a better option? Biggest question is - howto: more harddrive space?

News. Succeeded flashing the other bank. Extracted crcwell.bin from a Hexen iso with "Xbox iso Reader 1.13 by ector" - uploaded with Firefox. At least I was able to flash something. Will try some more... Flashing with this XBlast OS seems dangerous though as modchip is unfamiliar so I'll try with Gentoox again. EDIT: evox.m8plus.bin - doesn't boot after flash x2.4981.06.bin - doesn't boot after flash EvoxM7.bin - doesn't boot after flash Maybe flash chip is damaged and the "crcwell.bin managed to stay out of that area - as it has 100kB or so empty? Decided to try and NET flash from the crcwell.bin installation (Blast OS (ROM) v0.56... Chose the plain evox.m8plus.bin from the Hexen2021 iso. Web interface informed me that bank 0 is 512kB, bank 1: 256kB and bank 2: 256kB... I just selected bin, named it (such a feature apparently) and upload... kept it on the same bank. Took less than 10s before flashing began on the TV, yellow bar, green bar and purple bar, delete/write/verify perhaps. Rebooted and I got the EvoX logo in the upper left corner and under the Xbox logo it says Linux. Cool - what next, the goal was to put my games on a hard drive and load them from there instead of shuffling discs. I guess there should be a guide somewhere here...

Thanks again SS_Dave. Hooking up went well, web interface was fine, uploading data wasn't impressive regarding in speed despite using cable all the way from computer to Xbox. After flashing the bios for the 1.6 I got red/green flash - so I thought I'd try flashing it with one that actually works on the 1.0 to test it easier. Tried M8plus.bin - same result - also tried doubling the data (anyway) to no avail, tried EvoxM7.bin - then observed carefully as it flashed in amber followed by a screen announcing flashing was happening, first a yellow bar, then green and the console shut down - just to restart again with the behavior it has had all the time on that bank, three start tries and green/red flashing. So, either the data is wrong, uploaded wrong, flashed wrong (you'd imagine there's a checksum in the file), chip is busted, switch flakey, Gentoox incompatible with the chip or defective... Maybe the former owner has retried it 100.000 times (which is minium actually) and worn it out. It's tempting trying to flash the Gentoox bank with some other bios but if the programming algorithm is incompatible with the AM29F080 or there's some other hardware problem it would just trash the only modded startup available. It would be interesting if I could boot from CD-R with some more competent flashing program, just to be sure it's meant to flash the DuoX2. Don't have any other brand of DVD-R atm, the RITEKF1 media I've got has rarely failed before but maybe they have reached the end of their "still burnable" lifetime. ... or the Gentoox expects some other type of bootable disk than "HeXen2020"/2021 or "OGXbox installer 2021 v1.5.4 disk". Desoldering and read/program the chip feels more and more like a viable option. Any tips at this point?

The duox2 is on a pin header. Decided to open up the 2002-model, never opened. It's a v.1.0, fan on the heat sink, Thomson drive, WD HDD, Conexant video chip, Kernal 4034. Adding pinheader and the two needed wires was not a problem, after removing 18 years of dust... Also desoldered the clock capacitor - no visible leak or damage. Booted without ODD nor HDD, started right up from one of the banks - a Linux-penguin pops up and then a menu appears where it's possible to do various stuff. Starting from the other bank doesn't work. So... I assume I should switch banks at that time and flash the other bank using Flash Menu, then stuff it back in the 1.6? ... or should it have been able to boot Gentoox on the 1.6 as well? Is the mod defective? It wants a flash file called image.bin - and I hope it flashes the duox2 and not the motherboard flash - since there's no backup option. HDD Flash tries to read C:/BIOS/ TCP/IP is an option as well. It wants a "boot disk" if trying to boot from DVD/CD - none of the ones I burnt worked, neither with the original Thomson nor Hitachi drive from the 2005 unit. At this stage I'm tempted to burn the EvoxM8+_16 (doubled to 512KiB) on a CD-R, named image.bin - and then try and flash with the "CD Flash" option. Seems the flash on that bank isn't working anyway. Reinstall in the 1.6 - and if it doesn't boot with the duox2 - recheck the mod.

Tanks, yes, it boots normally if starting with the eject button. Having the binaries to flash using an eprom programmer is more appealing than to buy a new chip just to fix the first one. Not sure what binaries to use. Found this one, it has EvoX M8+_16, believe that goes in one half of the chip (the AM29F080 is 1MiB though) https://legacy.downloads.diomtec.com/homebrew/xbins/Console Based Applications/bios/ What's the "1.0-1.4 bios"? I'll check the "OGXbox installer 2021 v1.5.4 disk". Moving the chip to the other machine seems like an option, not sure which would be the quickest.

Found two X-boxes in the trash, one booted fine (2002 model), the other not (2005). The one that did not start had a USB-port sticking out on a cable on the right side - so mod of some kind Cecking... it has a homemade fan hack (edges cut off a larger fan to fit it and taking power from harddrive connector), USB connector in parallel with control port 4 and a DUO X2 chip hooked to a defective three step ON-ON-ON switch button on the back. It doesn't say GS on the main chip (it's a three IC version with 29F080 flash) - like the one I found here. Found installation instructions for the DuoX2, understood that this is a v1.6 board, chip seemed to be installed OK, fixed the switch - which seems to require just a plain single pole ON-ON version with three wires - the other three pads on the original switch aren't hooked up to function as far as I can see - unless it's some very special original switch. Seems very likely it just shifts the top address-pin on or off - but I didn't check. Had the chip out, Xbox started normally, could start a game (thrown with it), harddrive had saved games, also found out that it should start normally when starting it with the eject button - yes, it did. If having the switch in one position I get three restarts that ends with flashing ring yellow/red. Ejecting still works, DuoX2 flashes steadily red once per second or so. In the other position DuoX2 flashes and eject LEDs are constant green for about 15s then turns to red flashing. If pressing eject the disc stops (if any) but the disc stays in (not ejecting). It seems it's trying to read the disc but nothing interesting happens. Tried downloading and burning "TruHeXen 2021.iso" to DVD-R with imgBurn. Before I waste the entire stock of DVD-R burning them in different ways, is there a trick to start it or should it boot on any Xbox? Scrolling through the iso in a hexeditor seems to give the impression it's legit. I lifted a png from the .iso - says Heimdall's Xbox Engineering Disc 2021 with a metal frame and a screw in each corner. Also fetched TrueHeXen2020.iso - same in 7zip, also has nothing to show if mounted in Windows. I'm thinking flash chip is messed up and perhaps it can be flashed to a working state...? I can desolder it and program it/check it with an eprom-programmer - if I have something to put in there. I can make a reinstall of the chip as well - if that's a plausible problem - looked OK though, don't know what problems might be hidden though. Any ideas? Thanks.