HDShadow
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Posts posted by HDShadow
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Softmodding is just as good if all you want to do is put in a bigger HDD. Only real practical difference for most users is that with a softmod the HDD still has to be locked.
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I found a thread, actually here, where the poster mentions a similar PCSX Emulator problem and said the solution is to use both .bin and .cue files. Apparent it should work if they're in a zipped folder but it may not so unpacking them loose to the emulator's games folder (psxcds) was what worked.
Its a long time since I used the Xbox PCSXbox Emulator as I have many other ways of playing PS games still without resorting to emulation but I think that is what you find even with some of the default games that come with the emulator installation.
I've just checked my F:\Emultators\PCSXbox v23\psxcds and its a real mishmash: Bushido Blade and Twisted Metal both have .bin and cue, WRC only has a .bin, Crash Bandicoot uses an.img file created with CloneCD so also includes a .ccd and .sub file and Gex................no extension shown and its not a zipped or RARed archive either.
The fact is they all launch but when I played WRC it prompts you to use the .cue file, if available, which suggests it is preferred to launch some games.
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If you use AID you can set up different dashboards when using either the Power button or the Eject button but this is limited to your main dash/installer dash or main dash/MS Dash. I know you can modify it to launch anything but I'm not sure on the details.
But UnleashX has a built in alternative XBE launch system in System > Settings. These are controller or remote button shortcuts and you can assign any XBE to any of the main buttons. I have AID, HexIns, XBMC, the MS dash, two different UnleashX dashes all set up for this.
All you do is hold down the appropriate button on boot or reboot and the assigned XBE will launch.
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The Xbox NTSC version is ultra rare it would seem.
As you indicated lots of NTSC PS2 versions available on Ebay.and Amazon.com but nothing Xbox except the PAL "SCAR' one on Ebay UK.
Only thing of note is that apparently SCAR will play in 720p on the XB360 - not much help . I was hoping that might mean it was possibly on the list of 720p patched games which would also mean that it must be being played on a NTSC Xbox but it isn't.
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What that means is that the games you have the problem with, presumably downloaded from somewhere, are actually the PAL versions and they do not, unlike the vast majority of PAL games, support NTSC.
LMA Manager series for the original Xbox by Codemasters were PAL only releases apparently and I'm actually surprised they are not region free. When you're only releasing one version deliberately locking out a potential market of thousands of US and other NTSC gamers is bloody stupid.
However S.C.A.R (Squadra Corse) was released in US NTSC under the different titele: Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano. So if you can find that problem solved for that game.
I wouldn't be surprised if the PAL default.xbe could be modified to work in NTSC but if they are PAL only it is unlikely either supports 480p.
You should be able to run the games in PAL60 ie. 480i/60Hz though. When you region swap to PAL go into the dashboard settings and enable the PAL60 option.
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Should not take that long for a HeXEn disc to launch but 30 - 40 seconds is normal. Also expect the LED to turn red. That is normal too. Older HeXEn versions launched faster.
AID takes even longer whether from disc or installed and it is not the use or not of dummy file (any size) as used to be blamed for that delay.
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I almost wish that had been the problem because now we're back to square one.
You've posted this on other forums with more shots of the top of the MB, would be a good idea to post some of those or new ones here too.
The sort of problem described sounds like a PSU one as SS_Dave suggested. Something is heating up very quickly and the Xbox shuts down ASAP.
Maybe the caps you replaced had already leaked and damaged some traces - but finding the culprit could be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
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7 hours ago, HDShadow said:
In which case you could be correct that the BIOS, whatever it is, does support LBA48 and can't see partitions bigger that 137GB.
That, of course, should have read "......, does not support LBA48...............".
From the sound of it relooc has now fixed the problem with the missing space etc by re-flashing with an iND-BIOS of some sort. A bold move but if it worked then that is all that matters.
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You'll have to ask someone else about the BIOS if you want to skip the DVD check. I think the iND-BIOS allow you to do it but don't quote me on that.
XBpartitioner v1.3 is not showing any F:\ drive ie. no partition 6 at all under Extended Partitions? Even if UnleashX was set to disable F:\ XBPartitioner v1.3 will still display all available partitions.
The F:\ free space on the UnleashX start screen shows what exactly? 123GB? If it is showing 0 then it is probably not enabled. Its under the UnleashX > System > Settings > Storage options. If it is showing either free space or volume of any sort (depends on skin) then it is not that.
In which case you could be correct that the BIOS, whatever it is, does support LBA48 and can't see partitions bigger that 137GB.
It is not always helpful but do you have the Xbox app: BIOSChecker? If the BIOS is modified it will probably report it as unknown but you might get lucky.
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Use smaller and lower resolution pictures (96dpi is all that is likely needed) and they should not get anywhere near 2MB unless they're vast.
Just open whatever you have in paint.net or another graphics program you know how to use and resize down - save as optimised PNG or JPG.
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Doesn't have to be BIOS that is causing your problem with seeing/using the space on your F:\ drive.
What main dash? UnleashX, EvoX, XBMC?
What size HDD are we talking about? SATA or IDE?
Xbox MB version ie. v1.0 - v1.6b?
Have you used XBpartitioner v1.3 to view the partitions/ Any ER message against F:\ suggests it might not have been correctly formatted.
If using an UnleashX dash is F:\ enabled in the system settings? Could be as simple as that. Just shutdown and restart afterwards.
I don't know the Aladdin chip so can't advise on specific size but if the BIOS is wanted to be changed then any of the appropriate Evox M8+ series with 137+ support is all you need unless you're desperate to customise your boot.
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The conductive pain indeed looks really ugly and may be bridging several traces. The clock capacitor area looks very nasty too. Appears the cap was snipped or twisted off but it had leaked beforehand.
But neither explains why it was working before but not now. A power board failure still has to be the most likely culprit. Any of the caps could hold enough charge to give you a shock so that's no indication that the thing is working.
As KaosEngineer implied and both SS_Dave and myself said a multi-meter to test the output from the power board will confirm this very quickly one way or another.
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Why would anyone want to swap from UneashX to an EvoX main dash?
UnleashX to XBMC yes, understand that completely but EvoX has less features, less tools, less system info, no music player and crucially, no file manager. What it does have is the BIOS flasher but how often are you going to use that? Much better installing EvoX as an app IMHO.
I'm genuinely interested in the reasons craiguk wants to do this.
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I'm not clear on what is the best replacement clock capacitor being recommended here.
Literally, in the middle of replacing a v1.4 fitted with an PowerStor Aerogel clock cap which simply doesn't hold its charge any more - not even during the same session. No bulging or indications of failure and when I took it off I was expecting nasty things underneath but it is actually all clean.
I'm replacing it with a Nichicon from a v1.6 MB I bought for spares in 2013. Never used because the MB had no video output so likely under 5 years old with limited use so there should be plenty of life left in it. Certainly looks OK.
Assuming this all goes well and the clock cap starts working OK I'm considering replacing them in some of my other Xboxes.
Point is are any of the alternatives to the 1F 2.5v worth it? I see 1F v5.5v and even 1F 10v have been suggested; are they any cheaper or offer any significant adavantges? The 10v one was said to be slow to charge and may cause damage. So if I exclude that is the 1F v5.5 worth the £3.99/$5+ each when you can get 1F 2.5v (unfortunately usually PowerStor ones) for half that and when bought in 10 packs even less?
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Late to this: has this odd problem been explained/resolved?
I was wondering if it was a temporary file DVD2Xbox might have created containing part files or even just path locations of anything that failed to copy. You should read the message that appears when DVD2Xbox finishes the copying. If any files did not copy then that needs to be sorted at that point.
I've not had any problem like that in a decade and never with original game discs only burned ISOs with disc batch faults. So I really cannot remember what options you're given at that point.
I'm thinking that if you delete that file you're deleting the failed to copy files and it will delete the incomplete game at the same time too.
Before that the game(s) probably still booted so you were not aware of any problem because the missing files were not critical.
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12 hours ago, ScorpionX said:
Thats not what's happening to me but sounds similar . I too have an empty iso before I burn the disc . Then it won't let me create a disc because there is nothing in file , weird.
Wondering if you got yours to work or not ? I keep thinking I'm doing something wrong or am missing something. I would love to use Hexen 2019 if possible. If you find a dl site let me know also.
Much appreciated. Ryan
HeXEn 2019 is available here:-
I know the download/ISO works OK because I used it for a recent TSOP flash. I have original HeXEn, HeXins (installed version), HeXEn 2017, 2018 and decided it was a sensible idea to get the most recently updated version too for that job.
I've just now re-downloaded to re-check it, burned a new disc and it has literally just this minute booted perfectly for the first time. BTW be aware it will take 30 - 40 seconds to boot HeXEn and the front LED will go red through its use. This is normal.
Did you actually extract it first? It comes in as a compressed ZIP file with the ISO inside. You need to extract it first.
I'd recommend 7Zip for that - it integrates into the right mouse context menu unobtrusively. It extract to a TruHeXen2019 named folder with a box cover art TIFF and the actual 1.74GB ISO inside. Nothing more than that needs to be done.
Now use ImgBurn* > "Write image file to disc" at the default settings. Select the location of that ISO and burn it at slowest speed the media supports. DVD-R is the only guaranteed universally Xbox compatible media and that is usually x4. If your Xbox disc drive can not read it you can be fairly certain there is something wrong with the disc drive not the disc.
*ImgBurn is a great tool but be aware some mirror downloads from the official web site are to installers which may include a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program). Apparently there is an opt out but some anti-virus/anti-malware programs may flag it because of this.
In cases like this personally I'd go to Ninite - who 'guarantee' their downloads are PUP free and get it from there. I've just checked and they host both ImgBurn and 7Zip so you could kill two birds with one stone.
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All the information here suggests a power supply board failure which simply happened coincidentally after the 'softmod' update. Should be relatively easy to use a multi-meter on the power connector as per KaosEngineer's pinout diagram to test this.
These things happen - I have av1.6 chipped Xbox with no indications of a problem beforehand. Previous day working perfectly, unplugged from the mains after normal shutdown but next day dead as a Dodo. Replacement PSU board needed.
Also agree with KaosEngineer: v1.1 (almost has to be with the single row power connector) and that it is/was a TSOP (Evox M8+ series) not a softmod.
Being a v1.1 the info is it is a 1MB TSOP but the pics supplied are not good enough to confirm anything else 100%: it looks like it is a ST Electronics TSOP and if you zoom in on the pic enough you can see the area around the R7D3 connection points just to the left (in the pic) of the R7D2 ones is definitely blackened.
Without turning the MB over you cannot see if the R7R4 points are or were connected. But if R7D3 was or is still bridged then, with the other evidence, you can be 99% sure it is a TSOP.
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For pure gaming and day to day general use it is UnleashX (v572) for me. I have hundreds of skins I cycle through, changing each one daily and plenty of those I've significantly customised to add video previews, changed fonts, colours and redesigned other features to have them in more sensible positions on screen. Doing all that is a a practically endless project and one reason why I use UnleashX in preference to XBMC which is far more difficult to customise in the same way.
However I have a Xbox set up my kitchen specifically for music, videos and DVDs. No controller just the remote + dongle. For that it is XBMC all the way using the update version of the Xbox Classic skin which, after a few tweaks, one of which I managed to do myself, works perfectly with XBMC v3.5.3.
That's not my favourite version though. IMHO the developers of XBMC messed up the v3.0 series file manager's copying/move GUI making the progress bar and status dialogue box only appears at the start of any any copying/move process. It means that with multiple folders the thing flashes on and off for a few seconds each time rendering it utterly useless. With skins, like the Xbox Classic, which do not have any separate animated indication that XBMC is in the middle of a copying/move process, it is even worse.
What's barking mad is that when you're deleting files/folders you get a progress bar and status box on screen all the time. I must make it clear this is a XBMC v3.5.3 issue not a skin one. You can use an older version of XBMC with the same skin and the progress bar/status box are permanently displayed. When copying anything that's what I use with a just such an older version of XBMC installed as an app for that purpose.
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Installing another main dash or other dashboards as apps is very easy.
You should have XBMC v3.5.3 on your Xbox as an application - its media player and pretty much anything else it has related to multi-media use is a higher level of sophistication than UnleashX or any other dash.
But for user friendly simplicity but a number of genuinely useful features that XBMC does not have and general gaming UnleashX is highly recommended.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N4Oes8MeRA
Very good and useful video about how to remove the Xbox's disc tray bezel/faceplate but at between 30 - 45 secs the guys says: "........................... you're going to think you've broken it but you didn't" or words to that affect, repeated several times.
Well..............................................guess what: I tried this with the spare dead disk drive and thought I'd broken it.............................and I had. The shower of black plastic pieces was a good indication.
What broke were both the retaining channels each end which slide down over the edge of the tray front not the locking tabs as you might think.
I believe I understand what went wrong; when I pulled the tabs clear of the bottom edge of the tray I continued twisting the bezel just that little bit too much.
What you should do is when the tabs are just clear of the bottom of the tray stop pulling out/twisting up the bezel any more and change to pushing it straight upwards to slide it off the tray. Once the tabs are clear of the bottom edge of the tray and you start to push up they are actually lodged against the flat tray front surface behind the bezel and from that point all you're doing is sliding it up and off. No more twisting or pulling out is necessary.
The little crack you may here is, or should just be, the bezel pinging back into shape as it is under tension. If that is accompanied by a small shower of plastic then you've done it wrong.
In short: you do need a bit of firm physical persuasion initially but after that be gentle. Bezels do break.
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2 hours ago, shadow0191 said:
I've put I think 4 different DVD drives in it. That I know work, i got 11 xbox's kicking around, it will play any game but splinter cell. Even tried 4 different copies of the game. I'm using all the stuff that came with my xbox from when I was a kid even the Duke controller. I've tried loading rocky5 softmod files multiple times and even tried an older softmod
Sorry you may have mentioned this earlier but what about the region?
If your Xbox is PAL or NTSC that someone has switched to PAL but forgot to return to NTSC when they removed a previous softmod and you're using a NTSC SC disc or visa versa that could well explain all the problems described.
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It sounds to me as if you may not have formatted the F:\ drive correctly and it is currently using 16K clusters which is good for up to 256GiB. As your HDD is 500GB and F:\, if using all available space, about 480GiB that needs 32K cluster formatting.
So have you checked the extended partitions are correctly formatted using XBPartitioner v1.3? If you have an "ER" against partitions 6 (F) or 7(G) if used then that is likely the cause of the problem.
Do not under any circumstance try to transfer anything to that drive until you have confirmed it is correctly formatted because the reformatting necessary will effectively wipe it.
XBMC version is easily found: launch it and whilst on the start page (or almost any other) press R3 on the controller (right thumbstick down) to bring up the shutdown menu. One of the options there is (I) for INFO, click on that and the XBMC version will be shown at the bottom of the screen.
Some XBMC skins actually incorporate (I)INFO into the skin's own menus under System but wherever it is it shouldn't be too difficult to find.
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Rather Interesting YT video - thanks for that.
I can see how the information about it reading from the outside in became common currency and was not challenged. The Xbox skipping to the 'hidden' game content sector of the disc ie. the outer sector, was misunderstood.
I've always thought it was odd that a Xbox disc drive was meant to read a game's disc outside inwards but was perfectly happy reading DVDs and CDs 'normally' from inside outwards. That ^ explanation seems to make it clear what is actually happening.
But none of this really helps the OP unless he can get hold of a disc drive and firmware to get it to work with the Xbox.
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Sounds like a disc drive failure issue of some sort. If it is not even reading the SC game disc now that's an indication of a disc drive problem.
Is the problem repeated with other original games' discs?
I do not understand why you needed to hotswap the HDD either, that's risking damage to the HDD unnecessarily. Couldn't you delete the existing exploitable game saves on the Xbox itself?
Do you have any attached memory cards or flash drives? If so remove them. All you should be using is a SD cable to the TV and an official MS Xbox controller ie. Duke or Controller-S..
Board Life Status
Board startup date: April 23, 2017 12:45:48
Help With 'corrupted' Hdd
in Softmods
Posted · Edited by HDShadow
This is what comes of mucking around with a softmod when you do not know what you're doing. Instead of asking here first when you had FTP problems you continued and messed up a perfectly good softmod. Then you continued messing around erasing or reformatting the E:\drive by the sound of it and doing who knows what else until it broke. On top of this you didn't do the one thing you should do first once softmodded and that is to backup the eeprom to your PC.
You've been a very naughty boy.
Whatever you did XBPartitioner v1.3 did not install an UnleashX dashboard.
Unless you tried to re-partition C:\, and the real C:\ at that, not the Shadow C that should have protected Rocky5's softmods from accidents and mistakes I can not begin to guess the route taken to end up with an error 13. That's a dashboard compatibility error but can be triggered my almost anything that prevents the dashboard from launching.
The one rule is with error 13 and 14 is to keep the Xbox plugged into the mains, not powered on, just connected to the mains supply or it could easily go to error 16 which is much more difficult to sort out.
The Xbox is not bricked if it boots retail games still but if it won't boot burned discs then the softmod is gone and unless Rocky5 XBSMT left in some backdoor to get to a recovery dash that limits your possibilities*. The HDD is, as it should be, still locked and that adds to the problems.
What dashboard do you have if any? The MS retail one? You say the exploit/installer game saves are no longer there - how do you know that if you do not have a dashboard? Have you tried booting the exploitable game disc again?
* from Rocky5's GitHub XBSMT ReadMe: Built in back door if you break your dashboard. ( Hold Start+Y on startup ).
Cross your fingers and hope whatever you've done it hasn't stuffed this up as well.