HDShadow

Well its not that then but what the problem is .............................running out of ideas. My own solution would 'just' be to try another HDD and see if the problem repeats but I can understand if that is not possible. Same goes for the 80 wire IDE cable and the SATA > IDE adapter but I can't see how the other softmodded HDD can clone OK, the new HDD be locked and then provoke error 16 when installed. I'd unlock the new HDD and thoroughly wipe it on a PC, reformat and then try the Chimp 261812 cloning again.

Also have to ask if you remembered to switch the new HDD's SATA > IDE adapter from Slave to Master after the Chimp cloning? I recommend doing that rather than using Cable Select if your adapter has options for both. Another thing - what Xbox version is being used?

Me neither - if you're using HeXEn to install it try doing it manually instead by FTP directly. Better IMHO if you are running a dash with a file explorer which, from your first post you are ie. XBMC FTP an UnleashX folder (all it actually needs inside is the dashboard's default.xbe) to a temporary folder on F:\ or wherever. Then copy it to E:\Apps or wherever your other apps are located. Reboot and it should appear in your apps list, most likely as UnleashX Dashboard Launcher. If that does not boot properly there something odd going on. My guess is that you did not rename the dashboard XBE to "default.xbe" - I'd bet HeXEn installed its as a main dash which would mean that it was left using "evoxdash.xbe", correct for a main dash install but not as an app. Just rename that to XBE in the UnleashX folder to "default.xbe" (no quotation marks of course).

OK but you should still check using XBPartitioner v1.3. As said if there's no error flagged on F (or G) you know for certain its not an extended drive formatting problem. One possible cause of the problem is therefore excluded and, obviously, it must be something else.

Run XBPartitioner v1.3v and see if there if an error (ER) flag on the extended partition(s) just to confirm or not whether the cluster size used in the formatting is the problem. BTW the content doesn't all just disappear if it is that - there would probably be things that haven't immediately corrupted on F (and G if used) and you can copy it. The problem is you can have no idea which of the hundreds of thousand files have been corrupted unless you test everything you copy actually works 100%. That is practically impossible and so, in effect, you have to to consider everything gone. As said: the partitioning might not be the cause of the symptoms you've described but you need to check for that first.

Sounds like it might me a HDD partitioning issue. If you've exceed the content volume supported by the particular HDD cluster size it has been formatted with you're basically stuffed. So the obvious thing to do first is use XBPartitioner v1.3 if you have it installed in Appilcations. If it shows error (ER) against the extended partition or partitions (6 and 7: F & G) then that is the problem. If there is then you've lost everything on both F & G because when the cluster size supported volume is exceeded those partitions are corrupted. You can not be certain what has been deleted or over-written so all the content has to be considered gone. The partition(s) will need to be reformatted and that will, of course, delete all the content. Even is it is not this (fingers crossed it is not) it could be a developing HDD problem and the best solution would be to get everything backed up to PC and get a new HDD. But.........................the problem could be 'just' that you've overstepped the memory limit for particular files. I do not know if there are any known EvoX file limits but with Avalaunch it actually warns you and UnleashX has big problems when you reach some unspecified main menu icon total volume limit. In the latter case what you get is only a limited number of games, applications, emulators etc will appear in the main menu and the dash loading and navigation gets very slow. This sounds similar to what you've described. Until we know more and whether it is or is not a partitioning error problem this is all just guess work.

Yep very easy from the UnleashX dash, in fact more correctly the UnleashX file explorer. It has built in FTP client. You simply connect the two Xboxes with a cross-over cable, make sure both are set to Static IP typically 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.1, and start both. You can use either as the host if each Xbox is connected to a separate screen or by a different cable to the same one. If UnleashX is not your main dash launch it as an app instead. Whether the other Xbox needs to be running the UnleashX dash too under such circumstance I do not now - never tried testing that. Just go to the file explorer bring up the context menu (White button) and scroll down and you'll find a new option to connect to any attached Xbox. There's a simple FTP connection menu where you can store the details of the machine you're connecting too for future use. The rest of it is fairly self-explanatory and if you're used to UnleashX's outstanding file explorer the operation is almost the same as normal except the right hand half of the file explorer is the other Xbox. I'm sure you can do this all though your router with everything set to DCHP too like any other PC networked devices but that may or may cause router, FTP Client and firewall problems. So, IMHO, unless you're going to be doing this regularly its not worth the effort of blocking an only occasionally used LAN port - FTP direct between the two, nice and simple. Its not that fast (understatement) but it'll get the job done and rarely disconnects in my my experience. I use this quite often as I have a chipped primary Xbox (v1.6) and I like to mirror the key folders/files and other important backups on that to a v1.1 softmod I use mostly just for that purpose.

For the UnleashX dash just install it as an app. All you need to do is find a UnleashX dash download. Unpack it and put it in a folder if not already in one and change the name of the main XBE to "default.xbe". Install the folder in Apps and reboot and "UnleashX Dash Launcher" or something similar (BTW it can easily be changed) will appear in your Apps menu.

The EvoX dash is notorious for unreliable temperature reporting with any Xbox version. Typically, once warmed up, it will show low 60°C figures whatever you do. If you switch over to UnleashX the maximum temperature, usually the CPU, will have magically reduced by up to 10°C. But it is still inaccurate. Use the XBMC dash and you'll often find reported temperatures 8°C - 10°C less than UnleashX and you if you have the automatic aim temperature set to 50°C it'll often turn down the fan speed to whatever minimum you set even if that is lower than your UnleashX dash is set to use and reporting higher temperatures.

It was because at the time in the PAL regions ED/HD and Compenent connections in general were rare. The standard cable type was RGB SCART which gives the best Composite 576i/480i 50Hz/60Hz picture quality but does not come close to matching 480p. If you 'obtained' the NTSC default.xbe for the game there is a good chance it will work with the PAL files or, of course, go the whole hog and get a copy of the genuine NTSC version. It sounds as if you just had the video settings (UnleashX) swapped to NTSC before rather than changed the console region setting as you final did so the NTSC version you might have already 'obtained' will now work too, possibly.

It probably won't - this is a problem I had years ago with just that DVD2Xbox skin. I suggest clearing the E:\drive cache and any of the content in X, Y and Z but the main issue is that DVD2Xbox creates a save settings file in your game saves. Without checking I can't remember whether the problem file is in DVD2Xbox's E:\UDATA or E:\TDATA folder so just checked and the DVD2Xbox setting file is actually in E:\TDATA DVD2Xbox folder: 0facfac0 but delete both UDATA/TDATA 0facfac0 folders just to be certain. Shutdown and on restart you should find DVD2Xbox reverts to the default skin. The deleted DVD2Xbox 'game' save folders will be regenerated when you use DVD2Xbox again but with default settings. If you changed any other settings you will of course need to redo those.

With the chip off the original MS BIOS should launch but it will not boot if the HDD is unlocked. With hardmods this is what you would expect as it is recommended practice. However, normally you would see an Error 5 being reported not a black screen. That may mean it is locked but the original (unmodified) xboxdash.xbe which launches the MS dash is either missing or has been mucked around with. This would be typical of a previous softmod that has been not been cleaned up after the hardmod (the chip) had been installed. But you'd still expect to see an error code of some sort, typically Error 13 or 14. Impossible to be sure what is going on. The mention of HDDLoader and XCommander suggests the dash install was done a long time ago and that advice from KaosEngineer ^ to do a clean 'hardmod' dash install on the new HDD dash and choosing UnleashX or some flavour of XBMC instead of whatever dash was being used on the old HDD is the best way to go. The game/content on the old HDD can be transferred to it by other means later. Chances are that if you do as he suggested you'll be able to get the FTP working afterwards too and that would make transferring the content to the new HDD a lot easier.

Sounds like a Chimp clone problem due to the fact, as others here have suggested, it sounds from the description as if it was, somehow, run from a memory card. If it was installed then possibly something to do with that:- Chimp 261812 [b]must[/b] be installed ie. mandatory in either one of six E:\ drive only locations on the HDD/SSD being cloned. Read the readme that Rocky5 provides with Chimp:- E:\applications\chimp E:\applications\chimp loader E:\apps\chimp E:\apps\chimp loader E:\chimp E:\chimp loader The seventy Xbox and various skins mention must be on F:\ (and G:\ if used) so was that partition actually cloned? It should have taken many hours to do that. Did it? With an unlocked HDD, as it probably is on a chipped machine, I'd be looking at using FATXplorer on PC to resolve most and probably all of these problems and do it faster than any Xbox centred solution.

Backup your eeprom to PC and/or flash drive. Set up FTP as ^ suggested so you're set up to Install games, apps, homebrew, emulators etc using that direct from your PC. I would say the main thing to do is, assuming you're still using the original retail HDD, is to replace it with a larger one. The retail HDD is so small its almost useless when you want to start installing stuff to it. There is <5GB free space to play with and that is smaller than some Xbox games. The reason you will and should want to install games etc to the HDD is a very practical one: taking the strain from the DVD drive, the Xbox's Achilles heel.

Odd. Were you using XBPartitioner v1.3? I've heard of other problems being fixed by using a similar technique but I think that was with larger HDD/SSDs not 500GB ones. Still useful to know the fix.

Exactly what I was going to point out too. A 500GB SSD/HDD is actually 500,000,000,000 Bytes which in 'real' computing terms (using base 1024) is actually about 465GB. So XBPartitioner v1.3 applying 32KB clusters was/is correct. Any problem I'd suspect it is more likely with the SATA/IDE adapter or that in combination with the particular SSD.

^ Yes. Just install XBMC as an app and use that to run Rocky5's v1.6 480p loader script. If you are so minded once done you can delete the XBMC dash. The script installs the appropriate loader required in the actual game folder of any games it finds on your Xbox HDD from the master list it uses. So when finished you do not need XBMC any more. But IMHO you should keep it. An alternative dash as app can be very useful and XBMC does some things much better than UnleashX and that is from somebody who uses UnleashX as a main dash on all their Xboxes bar one.

The original Forza is a great game but flawed; I've been playing it for the first time a lot over the last year. The criticism I have of it is that on the hardest race challenges the AI cheats like no other race sim game I've played and general balance of the gameplay difficulty is off. You simply cannot win some races against the AI using an 'inferior' spec car. Even if you tweak whatever you're driving in the garage 90% of the time it is still impossible unless you have a matching vehicle. Often you don't get that car until you've completed another race series to Gold. I played Forza 2 on the XB360, one of the first games I played on the XB360, and as remember it the AI was not like this. They must have done some work on that. In Forza the rubber banding is obvious, the primary AI vehicle is always stupidly over powerful, drives on rails and the other AIs seem dedicated to taking you out at every opportunity. The damage to the AI vehicles (you see and hear them smashing into the crash barriers) never seems to affect their handling or speed but a couple of hits to your vehicle and it become undriveable.

If its unlocked you can use FATXplorer to access the content on PC - no hot-swapping required but obviously you'll need a suitable method of connecting the Xbox HDD to the PC and to install the program plus some other required stuff too. Just Google FATXplorer for OG Xbox and you'll easily find the download and plenty of information.

Probably is something like that. Error 5 is what you'd expect if the chip wasn't being enabled for some reason and you were using an unlocked HDD ie. it would be trying to boot the original MS (TSOP) BIOS which, of course, requires the HDD to be locked. Do you have a locked HDD or eeprom backup for that machine?

The path to the dash shown (E:\UDATA\........) seems to indicate that the UnleashX dash you are/were running is actually a softmod installer dash. The "Xecuter Rox My Box" on boot means your Xbox is hardmodded and as you say you can't see a chip it is most likely a TSOP. A TSOP where somebody has left parts of the original softmod behind - that, I think, probably explains all the problems. Can you post pics of the C:\ and E:\ drive content? The installer dash you're using has a file manager so it should be possible.

Some interesting advice and good suggestions. I'll have to get my research hat on and check them out. Of course if anyone else here has other recommendations/experience please still share, I want to make sure whatever I do buy is the best quality/best value for money so I'm not rushing into it.

I'm thinking about buying a proper temperature controlled, all bells and whistles solder station which will likely get used for Xbox stuff more than anything so I'm looking for recommendations available in the UK/EU. Budget up to about £150. I'd prefer lower but I'd go slightly higher if there was good reason. Reliability, longevity ie. well built/well designed and likely to last a long time are my main buying criteria. However if it includes a hot air gun in the package I'd definitely be swayed.

I've had this identical problem suddenly develop on my least used Xbox, I think I mentioned it in another thread here. After I'd cleaned the traces at the front edge of the MB it worked correctly for a few weeks before the problem reappeared. But this time it is slightly different, it will turn on when plugged in but the power button will turn it it off. The real difference is that it will remain off until I press either eject or the power button, in other words it starts working correctly. But next session the problem returns. What this suggests to me is that the suggested trace repair fixes are not the whole story. It behaves like a capacitor may be involved ie. it is charged up by that first power on and stops whatever the problem is with the subsequent reboot/restarts. I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable, to say the least, even begin to explain this let alone identify the component in question. Whether this is relevant to Oldhead72's problem I don't know. Maybe I have a still partially OK cap and his is completely knackered but which one because its not the clock cap or, I'm pretty sure, any of the ones adjacent to the CPU heat-sink.

Green/Orange flashing is indeed because you have no AV cable fitted.