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HDShadow

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Everything posted by HDShadow

  1. HDShadow
    You were doing each ie. the adapter and the IDE cable swap, separately? That would explain the problem....................................I think. I'm pretty sure that every time I've used a SATA > IDE adapter fitted HDD for a Chimp swap it worked OK with the SATA > IDE adapter pre-attached to the HDD and plugging the IDE cable into that. I would have thought that, as you seem to be saying, plugging the adapter onto the IDE cable first them plugging that into the HDD, might be the cause of problems. The adapter when connected to the IDE cable is being powered up without an attached HDD. But if that method worked for you and what I would have thought was the more usual method did not then the proof is there and can not be argued with.
  2. HDShadow
    I sort of agree, not that the Startech is any better, but that ones like those you have can have issues ie. they seem not to have had the same quality control. When they're good they are just as reliable but there seem to be a higher percentage of bad ones out there and that's more likely the cause when you get problems like this and are doing everything else correctly.
  3. HDShadow
    Assuming you're doing or have done all the things suggested, in particular using an 80 wire IDE cable, you have not said what make/model the HDD is.
  4. HDShadow
    It may be just what is says: the device can not be locked. It is quite unusual to find a HDD that can not be locked but it happens. Other possibilities:- Did you set the the new HDD's jumper to Slave? If you're using a SATA > IDE adapter it must have that option, some don't. Some SATA > IDE adapters cause problems when they're hot-swapped Are you using an 80 wire IDE cable? Have you unplugged all attached USB flash drives/devices and removed memory cards from the controller? Is the controller an official MS Xbox one? Third party controllers are known to cause trouble. It is unlikely to be this but the recommendation is also to use an AV Composite connection when using Chimp.
  5. HDShadow
    Yes, worth point that out for others, but I was taking it as a given Naif understood that as he described the method in full in his previous post about the IGR issue. The DVD drive spinning up is unfortunately without a solution as it is a feature of the Thomson DVD drive which is what I suspect he is using. I have not noticed that with any other DVD drive but the Thomson is noisier than the others so it is more obtrusive. It is checking if there is a disc in the DVD drive and it seems to do that whenever you do almost anything including just closing the DVD drive tray, double checking there is no disc present. I too find it rather annoying.
  6. HDShadow
    Some Evox M8+ BIOS seem to have problems with the IGR. I have an Aladdin chip that came with a pre-installed EvoxM8+ BIOS and. if you checked it with the EVTool I mentioned earlier, it showed that IGR was enabled. Problem is it still didn't work, neither Back + Black or Start + Back did anything. Only when I reflashed it with a known good version, which I think SS_Dave provided or linked me too, did both IGR methods work including with XBMC.
  7. HDShadow
    Was that UnleashX installed as an app ie. in Applications perchance? I've just checked and the UnleashX dash provided in the HeXEn version (2020?) I have the main XBE is named "unleashx.xbe". Did you change that original HeXEn UnleashX dash you used XBE's name to "default.xbe"? If not and the dash you replaced it with came with that done already there is your explanation for the behaviour.
  8. HDShadow
    A DVD drive problem and the internet connection was just a coincidence.....OK. Good to hear you've fixed it. BTW the Thomson DVD has a bad rep, unfairly in my experience. It is the noisiest and most annoying in that it seems to check if there is a disc in the tray before doing almost anything. But reliability wise my Thomson is the oldest working DVD drive. It came in the first used Xbox (a v1.0) I bought around 2005 so it must have had years of use before then. It was my most used Xbox at one time yet is still working well having outlived two much younger Philips fitted ones. Whilst not as disc media friendly as some the Thomson is better or at least as good as most of the others and has never had eject/close issues unlike all my Samsung 605B and 605F models.
  9. HDShadow
    That's............................odd. I have no explanation for why connecting a network cable would resolve this problem. I've read about an internet connection causing boot problems but not the reverse. I'd be interested to know if anybody here has an explanation for that. I'd suggest you post some pics of your current C:\ and E drive content before doing anything. If the thing is booting properly then we need to work out and understand why it needs the network connection to boot. Everything could be set up correctly already and the problem is something else. I see SS_Dave has just replied; his suggestion that the particular HeXEn M8+ BIOS used might be connected to the problem sounds very plausible. But I'm not clear as to why connecting a network cable would 'fix' that. As I suggested earlier checking the Evox M8+ BIOS you installed using the EVTool on PC just to make sure what path(s) it is set up to use and anything else relevant that could confirm it is a BIOS issue. I'd be reluctant to advise this but it might be that the best course of action is to reflash the TSOP with a known good Evox M8+. That carries risks of course.
  10. HDShadow
    Try cold booting: putting the HeXEn or other installer disc in the tray, closing it then restarting the Xbox. Launched like that the disc should boot first ie. before the 'missing' dashboard, which is likely in the wrong location and causing the freezing problem. If it was booting before and the TSOP was OK the disc should still boot now as doing that is one of the primary features of a hardmod. With a chip the chip itself might come with dash install options but with a TSOP if you could not launch an installer disc you couldn't install a dash. Also remember that a HeXEn disc does take 20 - 30 secs to boot. If you still can't get it to boot - try cold booting an original Xbox game disc. If that does not work then there is something else going on ie. it is not just a wrong main dash location problem.
  11. HDShadow
    It is likely that E:\dash main dash location is the problem. With a TSOP it is a hardmod and the Evox M8+ BIOS is set up, usually, to look for C:\evoxdash.xbe and if it does not find it will try to launch C:\xboxdash.xbe, the original MS dash XBE. However it does depended on the source of the Evox M8+ BIOS as packages, like HeXEn, may customise the BIOS boot path(s)/order. To prevent these sorts of problems HeXEn, I thought, had a clean up option offered after TSOPing. The reason you need to do that is because it was a softmod before the TSOP. That means there is no C:\evoxdash.xbe and the C:\xboxdash.xbe is typically set up to launch either the now redundant Xbox Live or online dashboard updater. In both cases you'd get a blank screen, an error message or, I'd guess, what you're experiencing. However if disc media was booting OK before you should be able to cold boot HeXEn or other installer disc, install a dashboard in the correct location and clear out the unwanted files. But unless someone else here can tell you for sure I'd check the Evox M8+ BIOS file you used with the EVTool to be certain what main dash path/name should be used.
  12. HDShadow
    Without the pics of the 'controller daughterboard' or more info I cannot see what help anyone here can provide. However you say two controllers (official MS ones?) are not working which suggests its not the controllers with the fault. You may be asking about the controller port(s) of the actual Xbox. From your limited description you might be talking about the Xbox v1.0 which uses 'USB' daughterboards for the controller ports. Only the Xbox v1.0 had those so if your Xbox version is v1.1 - v1.6 then the "missing" daughterboards are not missing.
  13. HDShadow
    Looks like a skin corruption error from the log but how you fix that when using XBMC4Gamers I'm not 100% sure. With XBMC4Xbox, assuming you had the default skin available in your skin folder holding both thumb stick in (L3/R3 pressed in) when the Xbox is booting will get you to a screen asking if you want to reset XBMC. What it does is return the UserData folder to the default state and that will include the skin choice reverting to the default (usually Project Mayhem III/PM3). Obviously you don't want it to do that and I'd guess that XBMC4Gamers doesn't have a backup skin as it is 'just' a skin itself. So I doubt that is appropriate for XBMC4Gamers and hold off trying anything like that until you have advice from somebody who knows XBM4Gamers better than I do. EDIT Just read SS_Dave's reply - if you have FTP access that would seem like a good solution.
  14. HDShadow
    It just seems to me you could have two, maybe completely unrelated problems, and until one of them is fixed you're not going to know if they're related. The cost of replacing the cap is very small and as you will be doing it anyway surely it is better to do that now.
  15. HDShadow
    I'd hoped somebody would help you on this as I'm not certain of the cause but your speculation that having 256 E:\UDATA folders maybe involved does ring a bell. There's some limit I'm pretty sure about that but if it is this why it would have the problems described I can not even guess at.
  16. HDShadow
    ....................or you could just rename the game's default.xbe XBE title to something very much shorter so that any failing in the UnleashX file manager's character support become irrelevant. I had similar problems title length with Dead Or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball which I think is 37 characters but the reason I wanted to change it was one of skin menu display limits. I needed to reduce it 25 characters/spaces or less to fit in my preferred skin's menu 'display box'. So all I did was abbreviate it to DOA XBV and I've actually done a similar thing for the rest of the Xbox DOA games so all of them are grouped together in the menu. In your case I'd just use Star Wars - KOTOR 1 and Star Wars - KOTOR 2.
  17. HDShadow
    I have and use multiple different options including a 17 - 19 years old ED/HD WS CRT, an SD only WS CRT and a 20" 4:3 CRT. Literally just today I've replaced my ageing kitchen CRT TV (15" 4:3 Philips portable) wth a new 24" Panasonic WS LED . The Xbox attached is set up with XBMC and principally used as a music player. New does not necessarily mean better though, there is always something that the old set up does better than the new which I why I like to keep my Xbox and other games console display options varied. What is a problem for me with this new LED is that the TV's built in speakers are inferior in every way of the CRT it is replacing. As its effectively a communal situation I don't use the headphones I use for all other TV watching and gaming purposes. Headphones, even cheap ones, put in built TV speakers to shame. With all the CRTs I've owned and own the speakers are facing forwards on either side of the screen and even with only a 15" TV's separation you still get good stereo effects. The audio quality is a not often considered advantage of CRT use. I beginning to understand why sound bars are now a thing with modern TVs and I'm seriously thinking of getting one for this kitchen TV. An extra expense I had not budgeted for.
  18. HDShadow
    I've not had that problem with XBMC but I have experienced a strong green cast with certain tools (Chimp) when used on some TVs with RGB SCART cables. I eventually realised that was a known problem with the particular PAL EU/UK TV not supporting RGB SCART for NTSC use. The TV did not have Component connections so could not display in 480p. Using PAL60 resolved the green colour issue. You could try swapping back to PAL and seeing if the problem remains when you're using (PAL60) 480i/60Hz or (PAL50) 576i/50Hz. If it is not that my thought is either you have the Component cable RCA plugs (Green/Blue/Red) in the wrong sockets or the cable has been incorrectly modded. The only way you could check the latter is with a multi-meter and knowledge of the Component pin out configuration.
  19. HDShadow
    The No DVD drive check option does not affect the boot priority AFAIK. It just omits the check for a working DVD drive before boot. In this case the DVD drive is clearly functional but maybe not fully functional, so if a disc is inserted and spinning up the No DVD drive check surely becomes irrelevant. The Xbox DVD drive will try to boot from the disc first. At least that is what I would have thought. TBH this is only a theory. I've not checked this with any BIOS I've used where the No DVD check option is definitely enabled but with all my hardmodded Xboxes, (2 x chips, 2 x TSOPs), ones with 100% working DVD drives, all of them still priority cold boot from disc ie. audio CD, DVD, DVD-R or other compatible media. I've also found that If you insert any disc quickly even after starting the Xbox it will usually boot that first too.
  20. HDShadow
    Too much work to sift through all these replies so perhaps this has already been suggested......................there is no problem with the BIOS or even if it was a softmod. Most (all?) BIOS even the retail MS will priority launch from disc either during a cold or reset start up. It is a normal and useful feature. My thought is that in this case, if we are talking about genuine original CDs and DVDs or burned ones, although more likely with the latter if they're on incompatible disc media, then it is simply another Xbox DVD drive beginning to fail issue. Disc media launch is correctly prioritised but the disc cannot be read so you get a blank screen and then the main dash should boot instead. However, as SS_Dave I think is saying, if any of the UnleashX dash disc media settings are set to AutoLaunch then before the main dash screen boots it will try to launch the disc again and fail again. The Xbox will be in loop of trying to launch the disc and failing. If you can hear the disc spinning up and trying to read then this is very likely what is happening. The dash Autolaunch settings, probably, just need changed but, of course, it won't fix the DVD drive read problems, if that is what is wrong.
  21. HDShadow
    Curse The Eye Of Isis is known to be one of those games which have problems on a v1.6 when trying to play in 480p. The unusual thing is that no known 480p launcher works. Rocky5 warns about this, listing it as one of the games that can't be patched to play in 480p on a v1.6. On the Thief Deadly Shadows matter, it could be that FMV PAL/NTSC naming issue prtscn describes. Whilst the game itself doesn't start with an FMV it does display a MS Studio logo FMV at boot. I'll have to check that and see if the PAL version is a PAL specific one only.
  22. HDShadow
    Most PAL games work fine, support NTSC and ED/HD resolutions when using Component cables. But there are a few that are region locked but I wasn't aware Thief: Deadly Shadows was one of them. I've just checked my original PAL disc on a v1.4 Xbox with Philips DVD drive and can confirm that on a NTSC set Xbox (RGB SCART cable) it doesn't display with anything other than a completely blank screen. If you switch the console to PAL using the Enigmah region changer it launches and plays perfectly. I'm trying installing on the same Xbox from that disc using DVD2Xbox which should ACL (Action Control List) patch it for playing from the HDD. I don't expect that to work any differently ie. it won't display when using a NTSC set Xbox. The only PAL game I've installed which wouldn't display properly under NTSC but when installed and ACL patched under PAL, then the Xbox switched back to NTSC and did display correctly, was the Riddick EFBB game. But Riddick EFBB did not display with a blank screen before that, the start screen was just scrambled so I suspect Thief DS PAL is region locked at the very least and won't play under NTSC even when installed and ACL patched. .......................................Just finished installing it and as I expected it works perfectly under PAL but when you switch to NTSC it freezes on the loading screen. That's actually quite unusual; what normally happens if the PAL game is region locked is that it will play but with no picture, sound only under NTSC. Sometimes it may have a scrambled screen too or dirty disc error message. So this blank screen and refusal even to load the game when installed on the HDD is certainly not typical behaviour of a game that is simply region locked.
  23. HDShadow
    I'd suspect what the artwork installer is telling you is correct and you need to find a new source or re-download. However I'd check the XBE titles for those games because it would have to be a specific corruption of the "default.xbe" for it not at least to appear in the Games list correctly even if the game itself did not launch. With XBMC4Gamers, which is essentially a dedicated XBMC skin you should be able to use the WHITE controller button when highlighting the game on that Games' screen and you should see a Rename XBE menu option. It could even be that old problem of double packing the game ie. the game folder is inside another folder of the same name. That is usually as result of unpacking a ZIP or RAR file to another named folder rather than just unpacking the content: the game folder. Before unpacking any compressed file you should check how it is is packed first.
  24. HDShadow
    Effectively yes, they support PAL, NTSC and the ED/HD resolutions allowed/supported by the game when using the NTSC dashboard. There are region locked games but also genuine region free games eg. a nominally NTSC game will play on an unmodded PAL Xbox an example being Myst 4: Revelation which was only released in the US and so says it is NTSC but plays perfectly on a unmodded PAL Xbox. The powers that be didn't want people to know this, presumably in case the game was latterly a hit and they decided to sell it as a 'PAL' game which, inevitably, would be more expensive than the 'NTSC' labelled version. So even the publishers were reluctant to confirm directly if their games were region free or not. That is from personal experience because I contacted Ubisoft directly at the time and had an odd answer about whether they were going to release Myst 4 in the UK. The reply said they had no plans to do that so if I wanted to play it on my Xbox I'd have import it. I later realised that this had been tacit admission the 'NTSC' version was actually region free. I had not said or even implied I was using a modded Xbox. I was just enquiring if it was going to be released in the UK. The Xbox console itself is not region locked but MS hobbled the PAL version with a dashboard that only allowed a video display choice of PAL50 or PAL60. That is one of the main reasons for PAL Xbox owners to mod their console to be able swap it to NTSC and get the far superior 480p display option which most PAL game versions included but were inaccessible when using the PAL dashboard.
  25. HDShadow
    Question is - why do you want to do this? Converting a NTSC version game to PAL is practically pointless unless your TV is one of the very few which don't support NTSC display. Most have for decades. NTSC and PAL60 are both 480i//60Hz and in practical use are indistinguishable. I'd guess ninety percent of Xbox PAL games support NTSC which means, with Component, you have a ED 480p resolution option which is noticeably superior to any interlaced resolution.

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