deadhamster35

I can definitely appreciate that a chip would be the best option, so that I could just install any cloned HDD, and as much as I would love to install a chip, I really don't have the ability to do so and don't know of anyone else or a nearby service that would be able to do so either. This is also one of the green Halo Edition Xboxes, so I'd really like to save it without having to buy another xbox and swap the case out. I was advised to try HotSwapping into the working Xbox and using Chimp from there, didn't have too much success. Here's my response from the Reddit topic; "So my process was to start the console with the broken HDD up, with the HDD hooked up to an outside Power Supply. This booted into error 13 like normal, so I disconnected the HDD and powered down the Xbox. From here, I removed the Jumper to set the HDD to Slave mode, and then started up the Working Xbox. Navigated to Chimp, switched the DVD Drive to the Broken HDD, Chimp loaded up and said that the connected drive was Unlocked and could not be locked, so certain options were disabled. This included the entire section for the Slave Drive options which lists the byte copy programs. Any other advice? Did I miss a step or do something wrong?"

To anyone else who may be able to advise further; I completely butchered the partitions. I was trying to install a >4GB file, and all the partitions were ~2GB. I dropped the C partition down to 600mb or so? Took 2GB off if I remember correctly. Tried putting it all into the E drive I believe, as that appeared to be the main drive that software applications and games would be installed to. MAy have done something to the X Y Z partitions or whatever the other drive letters were. I'm also wondering if using Chimp with the working softmodded xbox could be made possible with Hotswapping as well? When trying to copy the HDD normally it said that it was locked and needed to be unlocked first. Perhaps I could unlock it by starting up the console, disconnect it and plug it into the working Softmodded console when it prompts to switch to the slave drive, and then reattach it to the original xbox before powering down? It sounds like when powering down the Xbox locks the HDD and when powering up it unlocks it, or rather that a drive locks itself on losing power? Thank you so much for the help HDShadow, hopefully someone else can guide me a bit further so I can save the Xbox, I've never soldered before so I don't know that reading the EEPROM or attaching a hardmod would be safe for me to attempt. Edit: Other topic mentioned: https://www.reddit.com/r/originalxbox/comments/feitsy/help_with_corrupted_hdd/

So the Start+Y at startup lead to the same Error 13. I definitely had attempted to repartition the C:/ drive, the actual real C:/ drive. I also saw something about the Error 16 from the clock losing power, I've kept it plugged in since seeing that. There's no Dashboard, it crashes at startup if there's not a retail disc inside to load. But I can get into the Save Games for Splinter Cell for example, and the exploits are not there. When creating a new save file, the game is saved to the HDD and can be loaded on subsequent playthroughs, so I believe if I can get the softmod exploit back onto the HDD I might be able force it to reboot again? I've seen a video and also had someone mention "HotSwapping" as a potential fix; Unlock the HDD by starting it in my own Xbox to unlock it and then pulling it out to put into an IDE cable for a PC and using XboxHDM. I've seen recently there's an update for XboxHDM to allow USB-based IDE devices and that it has tools to either repair a C:/ drive or to Create an Xbox HDD from scratch. Is this something I should try? Will the drive lock itself when it powers down?

Okay, so I really messed up. I recently got back two 1.6 Xboxes that I haven't had for ages, immediately set out to soft mod them. Looked up and used the Rocky5 kit, worked perfectly, got the first one up fine. But then when I went to FTP some files to it and noticed the Partitions were setup in a way that my file wouldn't fit. Found a partitioning tool called Xbpartitioner 1.3b or something like that, and without doing any research I transferred it to the Xbox to resize the HDD partition. This erased the Rocky5 dashboard and put up an UnleashedX dashboard. I hadn't access to DVDs, so wanted to install the Rocky5 Extra Disc to the Xbox and run it from there. Found some type of program that claimed to mount and run the Extras Disc, performed the upgrade, Xbox came back to an error message. (Error Message 13). Some Googling says that this appears to happen when the dashboard can't be loaded. I softmodded the other Xbox successfully using the same Rocky5 setup and it's working fine. I was hoping to clone the working Xbox drive over to bricked one, but Chimp is listing the drive as locked and I can't access the EEPROM key. I believe the Rocky5 mod backs up to the HDD in the E:\ Directory, but I also believe the partition may have erased it? I went out, got some DVDs and burned the Extras Disc. It doesn't run in the Bricked Xbox, but loads up fine in the new one. The bricked HDD no longer contains the Exploited Savegames I used to initiate the softmod. I can load Retail games, but booting the dashboard leads to the error message (Error 13). Also saw suggestions to insert an Xbox Live game like Halo 2. This did not work either, the game simply reloaded instead of returning to the Dashboard. So basically what can I do here? Should I be looking to get an IDE to USB converter, so that I can copy the Exploited Savegames onto the HDD and re-load the Softmod? Should I be trying to get the EEPROM backup of the E:\ Drive, assuming it wasn't formatted? Is there something else I can do? I've done lots of searching and haven't found anyone else as stupid as me.