Trying to figure out where my games and emulators went. (UnleashX Version 0.38)

[Baron]

I just removed an Open Xenium modchip I installed a few years ago since I could never get it to work, removed the HDD I was trying to use, and put back in my original HDD that has UnleashX softmod on it so I can just play some games again.

Problem is all my games and emulators just vanished. I don't think I am using the wrong HDD because I see my game save files that I remember. How could that stuff just vanish though? I feel like it might still be there but maybe I need to do something else? I boot into Unleash X fine and can navigate around so it seems like everything is working. This HDD was removed before I installed the modchip, the two have never been in contact with one another. Am I screwed? It's nothing I can't get back but it is work.

[Marty]

17 minutes ago, Baron said:

 

Problem is all my games and emulators just vanished.

How much stuff could you possibly have on a stock drive?

[Baron]

You know, I'm glad you pointed that out because that's what I am beginning to think. Maybe I actually do have the wrong drive. I remember having dozens of games, several emulators, lots of stuff. My original drive that I put back is a WD80EB-28CGH1. Which from what I can find is 8GB? Is that correct? If that's true there's no way it adds up and I definitely have the wrong drive.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Baron

[Marty]

It would probably be easier to sort out the Open Xenium....

[Bowlsnapper]

5 hours ago, Baron said:

You know, I'm glad you pointed that out because that's what I am beginning to think. Maybe I actually do have the wrong drive. I remember having dozens of games, several emulators, lots of stuff. My original drive that I put back is a WD80EB-28CGH1. Which from what I can find is 8GB? Is that correct? If that's true there's no way it adds up and I definitely have the wrong drive.

Well how many hard drives do you have laying around anyway? Certainly not many IDE drives correct? Unless you go through lots of consoles like some of us do. Why can't you just start throwing in hard drives and seeing which one looks right to you?

[Baron]

12 hours ago, Bowlsnapper said:

Well how many hard drives do you have laying around anyway? Certainly not many IDE drives correct? Unless you go through lots of consoles like some of us do. Why can't you just start throwing in hard drives and seeing which one looks right to you?

I only have this one IDE drive laying around, that's why I was confused. I figured it had to be the one but apparently not. I have no clue what happened to the other drive. I guess retrying the OpenXenium chip is my best option now.

[Bowlsnapper]

11 minutes ago, Baron said:

I only have this one IDE drive laying around, that's why I was confused. I figured it had to be the one but apparently not. I have no clue what happened to the other drive. I guess retrying the OpenXenium chip is my best option now.

I'm a little bit unclear about what you did with the hard drives in your OP. You said you removed the hard drive you were trying to use, and put in your original hard drive so that you could play some games... I guess that hard drive has a soft mod on it?

You should not settle for a soft mod. Definitely get your mod chip situation sorted out. There are emulator and ROM packs that you can use and that you can place in directories that you will never lose them in again. Try figuring out your open xenium. Confer with us so we can help you every step of the way. If it turns out that your chip is borked there are people here that sell chips, and you can also find them on eBay.

 Hard modding is always superior to soft modding.

[Baron]

5 minutes ago, Bowlsnapper said:

I'm a little bit unclear about what you did with the hard drives in your OP. You said you removed the hard drive you were trying to use, and put in your original hard drive so that you could play some games... I guess that hard drive has a soft mod on it?

You should not settle for a soft mod. Definitely get your mod chip situation sorted out. There are emulator and ROM packs that you can use and that you can place in directories that you will never lose them in again. Try figuring out your open xenium. Confer with us so we can help you every step of the way. If it turns out that your chip is borked there are people here that sell chips, and you can also find them on eBay.

 Hard modding is always superior to soft modding.

I really appreciate the encouragement. Today's goal is now OpenXenium.

As for the HDD situation:

The HDD that I was trying to use and removed, was a 1TB WD Black that I attempted to get working with OpenXenium but was never successful so the Xbox sat in my closet for about 2 years until now. I remembered that it was a failure, but also thought that if I just uninstalled the modchip and put my original HDD back in, I'd at least be able to play some games in the meantime because of the softmod. Well at some point my brain failed me and I was convinced that my orignal HDD was all I had, which based on its specs is impossible. There has to have been another HDD at some point to hold all the games I had, the original just does not have the capacity, but still had the softmod..for some reason. So I'm like hmm, alright, UnleashX, I see my game saves but no games? No emulators? I thought some magic glitch happened that either deleted them or maybe a partition on the drive that contained the games and emulators wasn't mounted. Idk, that's why I was asking on here for some ideas. So somewhere out there in my junk is probably the drive I need, that also has the softmod. Could be buried in my basement, moms attic, etc... but screw it, you're right, a modchip is better and I'd like to conquer that failure and finally make it right.

[Bowlsnapper]

8 minutes ago, Baron said:

I really appreciate the encouragement. Today's goal is now OpenXenium.

As for the HDD situation:

The HDD that I was trying to use and removed, was a 1TB WD Black that I attempted to get working with OpenXenium but was never successful so the Xbox sat in my closet for about 2 years until now. I remembered that it was a failure, but also thought that if I just uninstalled the modchip and put my original HDD back in, I'd at least be able to play some games in the meantime because of the softmod. Well at some point my brain failed me and I was convinced that my orignal HDD was all I had, which based on its specs is impossible. There has to have been another HDD at some point to hold all the games I had, the original just does not have the capacity, but still had the softmod..for some reason. So I'm like hmm, alright, UnleashX, I see my game saves but no games? No emulators? I thought some magic glitch happened that either deleted them or maybe a partition on the drive that contained the games and emulators wasn't mounted. Idk, that's why I was asking on here for some ideas. So somewhere out there in my junk is probably the drive I need, that also has the softmod. Could be buried in my basement, moms attic, etc... but screw it, you're right, a modchip is better and I'd like to conquer that failure and finally make it right.

If you have a one terabyte hard drive, It is very unlikely that it's soft modded, because at that point you have to use a SATA adapter and it doesn't have the MS dashboard on it, unless you set up the hard drive with an installer disc, which would require a mod chip to boot, so you would have no need for a soft mod .... See what I mean? Your original hard drive should be the only one with a soft mod. That makes perfect sense. I'm sure there was plenty of room for emulators, but if you're talking about entire Xbox games, You can really only fit one on the E partition. That's it. It's possible that you may have played some of the same games from disc with the old hard drive and maybe you're mixing them up because of that, I don't think you ever had Xbox games on your original drive. Are you sure that there were even emulators on this old drive? Not trying to be a dick I'm literally asking. Lol.

When you say that you couldn't get the open xenium to work with your new hard drive, that is extremely vague. What is it you couldn't get to work? Could you please be more elaborate?

[Baron]

No problem I have a tendency to be a little confusing when I try to turn my thoughts into text. The 1TB drive was bought fresh to use with the modchip, it never had a softmod it was literally just a blank drive out of the package that I tried to use with the modchip. Couldn't get it to work, gave up from frustration and just left the modchip installed in the xbox, and the HDD with a SATA adapter, in my closet for 2 years and didn't come back to it until now.

I believe the problem was that I couldn't get that 1TB drive setup with the installer disk. I still have the installer disks that I burned, one is labeled HeXEn and one is labeled OG Xbox Installation 2021. This is actually the same account and I tried getting help here before, so after browsing my old posts it seems like I was never able to format the 1TB drive properly. But it also looks like UnleashX was somehow still on my Xbox even with the new 1TB HDD installed? Lol hmm not sure, this will be fun today. Is it possible for a softmod to live somewhere besides the HDD?

I don't think I ever had games on the original HDD either, I believe at some point my original HDD was changed to a different higher capacity IDE drive, which was then softmodded, this would have been in like 2005 so my memory is fuzzy. I kept the original HDD just because it seemed like a good idea. The higher capacity IDE drive it was swapped with was taken out 2 years ago in 2021 and replaced with that new 1TB in preparation for the modchip install. Somewhere in that 2 year period the higher capacity IDE drive was misplaced and all that remained was the original HDD, which I thought was all I ever had. I definitely had full games on my HDD. Halo, Morrowind, all of the THPS games, Project Gotham, a big list. I played them from the HDD with no discs, so the original drive can't be the one. Have to get everything set up then I'm diving into this again.

[Bowlsnapper]

7 hours ago, Baron said:

No problem I have a tendency to be a little confusing when I try to turn my thoughts into text. The 1TB drive was bought fresh to use with the modchip, it never had a softmod it was literally just a blank drive out of the package that I tried to use with the modchip. Couldn't get it to work, gave up from frustration and just left the modchip installed in the xbox, and the HDD with a SATA adapter, in my closet for 2 years and didn't come back to it until now.

I believe the problem was that I couldn't get that 1TB drive setup with the installer disk. I still have the installer disks that I burned, one is labeled HeXEn and one is labeled OG Xbox Installation 2021. This is actually the same account and I tried getting help here before, so after browsing my old posts it seems like I was never able to format the 1TB drive properly. But it also looks like UnleashX was somehow still on my Xbox even with the new 1TB HDD installed? Lol hmm not sure, this will be fun today. Is it possible for a softmod to live somewhere besides the HDD?

I don't think I ever had games on the original HDD either, I believe at some point my original HDD was changed to a different higher capacity IDE drive, which was then softmodded, this would have been in like 2005 so my memory is fuzzy. I kept the original HDD just because it seemed like a good idea. The higher capacity IDE drive it was swapped with was taken out 2 years ago in 2021 and replaced with that new 1TB in preparation for the modchip install. Somewhere in that 2 year period the higher capacity IDE drive was misplaced and all that remained was the original HDD, which I thought was all I ever had. I definitely had full games on my HDD. Halo, Morrowind, all of the THPS games, Project Gotham, a big list. I played them from the HDD with no discs, so the original drive can't be the one. Have to get everything set up then I'm diving into this again.

Okay. That makes a bit more sense now. The OGXbox installer PBL version had an issue where it wouldn't boot if your hdd was unformatted, and would just be stuck at a red LED and black screen. Maybe you experienced that and used slayers to install your dashboard? Because the dash is there. Pull the old HDD out and put it back in, as well as the xenium. This is an issue that is likely easily resolved. Put the HDD back in and using the file browser in unleashx, tell us how the HDD is structured, which partitions are present what is on them. That may solve the mystery of what went wrong for you... If the dash is on there, I wonder what it was that you were dissatisfied with and gave up because of.

A softmod is on the HDD, nowhere else.

[Baron]

Sigh... well disaster struck. I was being very gentle like always and somehow the pad broke off the motherboard that you solder OpenXenium to... ugh..

Is there any way to repair that?

[Bowlsnapper]

21 minutes ago, Baron said:

Sigh... well disaster struck. I was being very gentle like always and somehow the pad broke off the motherboard that you solder OpenXenium to... ugh..

Is there any way to repair that?

... Which pad? D0? Be specific friend  what exactly is it that broke off? Pictures help as well!

[Baron]

Lol no I wish, id just buy another modchip. The pad on the xbox motherboard, the wire goes from D0 on OpenXenium to this now broken pad on the xbox motherboard.

 

[Bowlsnapper]

1 minute ago, Baron said:

Lol no I wish, id just buy another modchip. The pad on the xbox motherboard, the wire goes from D0 on OpenXenium to this now broken pad on the xbox motherboard.

 

Use this point:

On the top side, below the TSOP chip.

[Baron]

My board is not quite the same as that picture. You mean picture A, the D0 point right? Since mine looks a little different, would the point I highlighted in red be the correct point?

 

 

[Bowlsnapper]

7 minutes ago, Baron said:

My board is not quite the same as that picture. You mean picture A, the D0 point right? Since mine looks a little different, would the point I highlighted in red be the correct point?

 

 

Hmmm, You have to rebuild the trace because that pad completes the circuit to the top side of the board. Once you do that, you can solder to the d0 line easily... but it involves repairing the trace.

https://imgur.com/gallery/FhLia4C

[Baron]

I was afraid of that, nice to know its possible but that's more than I can get into today lol. Damn, what a shame. Is there a specific technique I should use when I try this? Scrape off a bit of the trace on either side so the thin copper wire can adhere? Anything to keep in mind so I don't break it further? Particular wire gauge? Looks like I did identify the proper point though.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Baron

[Bowlsnapper]

21 minutes ago, Baron said:

I was afraid of that, nice to know its possible but that's more than I can get into today lol. Damn, what a shame. Is there a specific technique I should use when I try this? Scrape off a bit of the trace on either side so the thin copper wire can adhere? Anything to keep in mind so I don't break it further? Particular wire gauge? Looks like I did identify the proper point though.

30 gauge wire seems to work fine for trace repair. Glad you identified the point correctly, but you could probably solder to the trace repair wire and it would be a LOT easier than soldering to the top via, but it will put stress on the trace repair wire so the top via may be a good idea at that point.

Hang in there. Tearing off the D0 sucks but it IS fixable

[Baron]

Thanks for all the help so far man I appreciate it. I am going to try and do this trace repair soon. My nostalgia is greater than my despair. Which is high right now lol. I just wanna play my damn games again. May take a few days but I'm going to update this thread. Its SO small of a soldering point, I need to redo my setup so my microscope is usable. However, I do see on each end of that trace, a circle. Couldn't I just jump a wire from one end to the other? Might make it easier. Also what are your thoughts on hot glue? After this is fixed, I was thinking of just encasing it in hot glue so it won't move at all.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Baron

[Marty]

You should probably try to find a local modder or someone that has experience in console repairs.

[Baron]

9 minutes ago, Marty said:

You should probably try to find a local modder or someone that has experience in console repairs.

Yea, perhaps I should. But I'm hardheaded and may learn a lesson from all this. I believe I can fix this.

[Bowlsnapper]

1 hour ago, Baron said:

Thanks for all the help so far man I appreciate it. I am going to try and do this trace repair soon. My nostalgia is greater than my despair. Which is high right now lol. I just wanna play my damn games again. May take a few days but I'm going to update this thread. Its SO small of a soldering point, I need to redo my setup so my microscope is usable. However, I do see on each end of that trace, a circle. Couldn't I just jump a wire from one end to the other? Might make it easier. Also what are your thoughts on hot glue? After this is fixed, I was thinking of just encasing it in hot glue so it won't move at all.

I try to avoid hot glue. Looks messy and you have to peel it off if you need to work on the area again. I would use kapton tape, but others may have different recommendations.

[Baron]

Just now, Bowlsnapper said:

I try to avoid hot glue. Looks messy and you have to peel it off if you need to work on the area again. I would use kapton tape, but others may have different recommendations.

Ah, good ol' Kapton, yes I have a roll. Good idea. What do you think about soldering a wire from circle pad to circle pad on the xbox motherboard? Looks easier than scraping off a bit, and wiring something to the thin part of the trace.

[Bowlsnapper]

On 12/22/2023 at 2:58 PM, Baron said:

Ah, good ol' Kapton, yes I have a roll. Good idea. What do you think about soldering a wire from circle pad to circle pad on the xbox motherboard? Looks easier than scraping off a bit, and wiring something to the thin part of the trace.

Hmmm, I'm not sure of what that trace is doing, honestly. I think that the underside D0 pad is in line of the pad that you would be running to in the photo. It's between both on the underside there. However, I'm not sure which direction current is flowing :left to right, or right to left. I would just do the trace repair and solder to the via on top. Get some soldering experience.