RMM

From everything you described, I would think the Xbox is stock. Since you have opened up the Xbox you should be able to see if a mod chip were installed. If not a modchip, the TSOP would have some points soldered that you could check. If neither of those are there, you have a stock Xbox. It would be fairly easy to check.

The error 16 is most often a bios issue where your bios needs to be updated to get around the clock loop but sometimes it can be a messed up dashboard. I thought updating your dashboard might be a good quick 1st try to resolve the issue but I wouldnt spend too much time on it. The X2 bioses do have the clock loop fixed at least on the later versions so Im guessing you may have an earlier version that doesnt have the clock loop fix.

If you have the x2config.ini file you can save it to your computer, open it up with notepad and see what dashboards your bios is trying to load. This way you know what dashboards you would need on your Xbox, where they need to be and in what order your bios would look to boot them. For example x2config.ini may list something like: dash1Name = c:avalaunch.xbe dash2Name = c:evoxdash.xbe dash3Name = c:unleashx.xbe dash4Name = c:xbmc.xbe dash5Name = c:xboxdash.xbe If you would like to change the .ini file to a different dashboard you could do it and FTP it back to your Xbox with the edits you made.

One more thing, when you FTP in to your Xbox, does your Xbox's C partition have any .ini files?

As long as its not a v1.6 Xbox you can remove the capacitor and leave it out. If its a v1.6 Xbox and you remove the capacitor, your Xbox wont work until you put the new capacitor in. As far as FTPing the dashboard over, it shouldnt take that long. The evoxdash.xbe is only 2984kb so it should transfer quick. I would try using WinSCP to FTP files to your Xbox and see if that helps because sometimes people have issues with Filezilla if that is what you are using. I would also try to download evoxdash.xbe from another source and see if it makes any difference. Hazeno has a guide on upgrading your hard drive and on this page he has a link to C and E partition files. You can find a good evoxdash.xbe included with the C partition files https://www.hazeno.com/og-xbox-hdd-2tb-and-under

No xboxdash.xbe is your Microsoft dashboard so dont do that. Just keep the name evoxdash.xbe and FTP it over. Your bios should look to boot evoxdash.xbe

You should be able to FTP it to C: As KaosEngineer pointed out, a bios will have different places where it looks to boot the dashboard. The vast majority will look for C:\evoxdash.xbe as one of the dashboards so FTP evoxdash.xbe to C:

My suggestion would be not to delete any dashboard for now. Instead install whatever dashboard you would like to try such as UnleashX. Use dashloader customizer to boot UnleashX on startup and see how you like it. If you decide UnleashX is the dash you want and you wouldnt use XBMC4Gamers, then go ahead and delete XBMC4Gamers at that point.

With both hard mods and softmods you can change the boot dashboard a couple of different ways depending on what kind of mod you have. A hard mod like Cerbios for example has an .ini file that has a boot order for 3 different dashboards. It looks for the first dashboard on the list to boot and if it is not there Cerbios will look to boot the 2nd dashboard on the list and if it is not there it will look to boot the 3rd on the list. You can edit this list of dashboard to whatever you want and you can set the boot order to whatever you want so it boots the dashboard of your choosing when you turn on the Xbox. If you decide you dont like that dash on boot, you could always edit the .ini file to something else. Likewise, an Xbox using Rocky5's softmod has a boot order built in as well. Rocky5 included a tool Dashloader Customizer that can change the boot dashboard to something you prefer. If you want UnleashX to boot you can do that. You can boot different dashboards by holding buttons on your Xbox controller if you want. If you decide you dont like it, you can change it. No need to delete any dashboards you already have. If fact its probably a good idea to have a couple of different dashboards on your hard drive in case you mess up the files in one of them. You would have a second or third dashboard to fall back to. https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:Dashloader Edit: Just as an FYI, here is the boot order for a Rocky5 softmodded Xbox: C:\XBMC-Emustation\default.xbe E:\XBMC-Emustation\default.xbe F:\XBMC-Emustation\default.xbe C:\XBMC4Gamers\default.xbe E:\XBMC4Gamers\default.xbe F:\XBMC4Gamers\default.xbe C:\XBMC4Xbox\default.xbe E:\XBMC4Xbox\default.xbe F:\XBMC4Xbox\default.xbe C:\XBMC\default.xbe E:\XBMC\default.xbe F:\XBMC\default.xbe C:\dashboard\default.xbe E:\dashboard\default.xbe F:\dashboard\default.xbe C:\dash\default.xbe E:\dash\default.xbe F:\dash\default.xbe E:\default.xbe E:\dashboard.xbe C:\evoxdash.xbe E:\evoxdash.xbe C:\XBMC.xbe E:\XBMC.xbe

If the Xbox is not modded you can setup the hard drive with FATXplorer and include the softmod as part of the rebuild. That way when you stick the hard drive back in the umodded Xbox, the Rocky 5 softmod would already be on the hard drive ready to run. To do this you would take Rocky5's XBHDM Build.zip and use that C: partition when setting up the hard drive with FATXplorer. From the softmodded Xbox you could then flash your TSOP. To me this seems easier than setting up the hard drive then using the game exploit to flash the TSOP because if you need to rebuild the hard drive, why not just go ahead and softmod it so you dont need to worry about that part. Anyway the choice is yours, just throwing out a suggestion. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GO8e61Urz0Ck8110A5C5X0qxnGpLjTI8

The Xbox wants to set the clock but cant because it is failing to load a dashboard. Usually this issue is because the dashboards on the hard drive are not set up right or the bios is pointing to the wrong place for the dashboard. If you are using Cerbios, it looks first to load evoxdash.xbe on C next it looks for avalaunch.xbe on C then it looks for nexgen.xbe on C. If none of those are there, it defaults back to trying to load the original xboxdash.xbe Im guessing what happened when you rebuilt the hard drive is you didnt include the dashboard. If the Xbox is not modded then it would be failing to load xboxdash.xbe

No thats OK. The bios in the v1.0 and v1.1 Xboxs is 1024kb so that's correct. Everyone has a different way of doing it and has a preference. Xbox v1.0 and v1.1 have a TSOP size of 1024kb, Xbox v1.2 - v1.4 have a size of 256kb. There are mod chips with bank sizes of 256kb, 512kb and 1024kb. I just feel it is easier to have the one size of 256kb and letting Evox or Xblast resize it for you. That way you dont need to think, how large is the TSOP in this Xbox, how large is the other one, how large is this modchip bank and have a bunch of difference size bios files to worry about The only issue you may run in to is the UDMA mode being 4 but Cerbios has a safe mode that will lower it to UDMA 2 on restart if it detects an issue. Additionally you can start safe mode yourself by powering on with the eject button if you run in to issues.

Use UDMA2 256kb and flash with either XBlast OS v0.56. or EvolutionX. If you use Xblast or EvolutionX to flash your TSOP it will resize a smaller TSOP for you additional info: Do not use any other program to flash a smaller bios because it may not resize them and you can run into problems. Again use either Xblast or EvolutionX, nothing else.

You can flash Cerbios v2.3.1 beta. Links can be found in the first post in this thread:

If the compatibility list Dempsey_86 linked on the first page is correct, it looks like there are 6 games that wont work as CCI and several more that require scrubbing to work or perform well. Maybe this has been fixed?

Did you try my earlier suggestion on using FATXplorer? FATXplorer can unlock IDE hard drives but as soon as you unlock the hard drive you will want FATXplorer to remove the password. If you try to write to after you unlock it you can get errors and it wont work. The way to get around this is unlock the hard drive, remove the password then disconnect the hard drive from the computer. When you plug the hard drive back in to the computer the password should be gone and then you should be able to mount it and write to it at that point.

I think this is the best solution

No but you did mention in step 2 you read the Xbox's eeprom with PiPROM, edited eeprom.bin then wrote it back to the Xbox so even if you did have the original hard drive, it wouldnt have matched the edited eeprom the Xbox would now have. It just brings us back to the question of whats wrong? Is it the edited eeprom information that's on the hard drive, the edited eeprom information that is now on the Xbox's eeprom? Is it both? I do think a TSOP flash is a good option but I also understand from reading your post it wouldnt be as simple a process given the problems you outlined. My advice would be you should try starting from fresh. Read the Xbox's eeprom with your PiPROM. Rebuild the hard drive with FATXplorer while putting the necessary Xbox files on C partition. After the hard drive is rebuilt, lock it with FATXplorer using the eeprom.bin that you read with your PiPROM. If you want to rebuild the hard drive in FATXplorer with softmod included, you can use the C partition from Rocky5's softmod XBHDM build.zip found here:https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GO8e61Urz0Ck8110A5C5X0qxnGpLjTI8 If you want a clean C partition you can download the files from here https://www.mediafire.com/file/95s2c0tf8873dyb/Clean_C_and_E_Files_for_Xbox.7z/file The clean C partition files come from KaosEngineer in this thread

Looks similar to what ModzvilleUSA is doing with the Aladdin:

Its not my project but since the name is Xenium Ice I'm guessing the color scheme would be blue with white accents

TSOP is a very good solution and much more useful than a softmod. To answer your 1st question yes a modchip or TSOP can boot a locked hard drive. However, the problem is you need a working hard drive in the xbox with an unlock key that matches the one in the eeprom for it to boot the locked hard drive. You cant stick just any locked hard drive in an Xbox with a modchip/TSOP and think its going to work.

But isnt the problem the OP cant install a hard drive in the Xbox because the OP's eeprom.bin doesnt seem to be working? In order to do a TSOP flash you need a working hard drive in that Xbox to be able to use the gamesave exploit. Of course you can do a TSOP flash with a modchip installed but if you were going to install a modchip why not just use the modchip.

Those IDE to USB adapters are known to be a big issue when trying to unlock IDE hard drives. I think all of them have issues with a few being able to work. In FATXplorer if you can get your USB adapter to unlock the hard drive successfully the first thing you will want to do is have FATXplorer remove the password then disconnect the hard drive adapter from the computer. Dont unlock the hard drive and try to write to it. Unlock it, remove the password then disconnect if from your computer. Plug the hard drive back in as it should now have the password removed and be unlocked then try to mount it and write to it. This methods works on other brands of IDE to USB adapters so maybe it will work with yours.

Maybe the software isnt doing something right. You could try rebuilding the hard drive with FATXplorer 3 beta and see if that works as a comparison.

Oops nevermind I just noticed you said v1.6. I should pay closer attention