Noob Needs Help Hdd Upgrade!

[DaveB]

Um, too late! I tried again with the file on dvd instead of cd. Worked right away, took about a minte to complete, turned off. Great, right? Nope, cos now when I turn the xbox on, it just boots up the v2.3.1 menu and I can't figure out how to get the damn thing to boot up normally! Has the update erased the bios? Fml!!!!

[TEK Nemesis]

5 minutes ago, DaveB said:

now when I turn the xbox on, it just boots up the v2.3.1 menu

Did you remove the DVD from the drive and reboot?

[TEK Nemesis]

8 minutes ago, DaveB said:

Fml!!!!

Again, don't look at the negative.  You have two successful stories now.  One, that you were able to flash the BIOS and two, that you have successfully upgraded the Xenium OS.

[DaveB]

Yea. Still just get 'welcome to xos 2.3.1', then menu screen. Can't find a user manual for it on google.

 Not a great success, I can't do a damn thing with it like this!

Edited March 31, 2019 by DaveB

[TEK Nemesis]

2 minutes ago, DaveB said:

Can't find a user manual for it on google.

search for "Xenium OS 2 user manual".  First hit.

[DaveB]

Just noticed, the chip led isn' t blue anymore, it turns off when the menu loads. I'll try the 2.0 user guide, see if that helps (I hope!)

[DaveB]

Ah crap, seems I have to set up the chip from scratch. I don't have great confidence in that going well for me. S@!t!

[TEK Nemesis]

I'd do this, in this order:

1.  Flash with LBA48 BIOS to enable F, maybe with something cool like "x2.5035.137.(Force480p).bin".  (I like forcing 480p.)  It looks like your chip can handle all the main BIOS file sizes so just stay away from the ones that say they are only for the XBox v.1.6.  (Others to try are "M8plus.(Force480p)prepatched.bin", "iND-BiOS.5004.67.bin", "x2.5035.137iND-BiOS.5004.67.bin".

2. Once flash is done, use your Hexen 2018 disk to reformat your HDD from square one.

3.  Run XBpartitioner.

[DaveB]

I followed the manual and flashed 'evoxm8+'. Now I can get the xbox up and running, but still get 'LBA48 missing' error. Where do I get the right bios files that you mentioned? Are they on the Hexen' disc?

[TEK Nemesis]

I thought the evoxm8+ would have come with LBA48 support.  There should definitely be something on the Hexen 2018 disc though.

 

EDIT: Yes, you will need to look for an M8+ that has been patched for LBA48.

Edited March 31, 2019 by TEK Nemesis
Added info

[TEK Nemesis]

evox.m8plus.137.bin would be an example of an M8+ that has been modified to support larger HDD.

Edited March 31, 2019 by TEK Nemesis

[DaveB]

Ok, I used the 'evoxm8.137'.bin, then re-formatted from scratch with Hexen! Halelujah, it finally worked! (pity I forgot to back up my game saves on the memory card, but I'm just relieved the nitemare is finally over and I can quit bugging all you guys!) Thanx to all of you for all the brilliant advice!

 

[TEK Nemesis]

Glad it works now!  So, XBpartitioner 1.3 worked well?

[DaveB]

Yep, worked as it should, no probs! Decent space on F partition now. And it only took 2 days,  and dozens of stupid questions to you guys, to get there! Jeez, it only took me one video and 30 mins work to softmod my daughter's v1.6 crystal xbox. I had assumed that my chipped xbox would be even quicker and easier cos I was just swapping in a new hdd instead of cloning etc. How wrong that assumption turned out to be!

[TEK Nemesis]

Now it will be easier for future upgrades to that XBox because you've got the "latest" version of the Xenium OS and you have a BIOS on the modchip to support many terabytes of drive space.

[KaosEngineer]

17 hours ago, DaveB said:

Ah, the last question is a moot point - there is no switch on the damn chip. Guess I'm screwed!

Picture removed from post.

I beg to differ.  The switch is on the other side of the printed circuit board where all the components are mounted. Next to the pin header. (Update: the first picture I posted was not the Xenium modchip but SmartXX v2)

 

The recovery.bin file is not a normal BIOS you flash to the modchip as other hacked BIOS's.  It's the OS for the chip and has a special location it gets flashed to.  When it boots, the Xenium OS looks for the E:\recovery.bin file and if present updates the Xenium's OS with it. (This might not be quite right, you select the recovery option in the XeniumOS to load it or flip the switch on the underside, component side, of the modchip from normal operating mode, as shown in the picture - the switch in the position silkscreened on the printed circuit board, to recovery mode.) After the update, remove the file so it doesn't update it each time you boot.

If you use the reset default settings version, it also wipes any of the current user settings saved on the chip - BIOS's already flashed, etc.

 

[KaosEngineer]

11 hours ago, DaveB said:

Yea. Still just get 'welcome to xos 2.3.1', then menu screen. Can't find a user manual for it on google.

 Not a great success, I can't do a damn thing with it like this!

I attached the Xenium OS v2.0 User Manual in a post earlier in this thread: - https://www.ogxbox.com/forums/index.php?/topic/1260-noob-needs-help-hdd-upgrade/&do=findComment&comment=8293

Now, you add additional BIOS's to the Launch menu.  Then, set one as the default BIOS to boot when the console is powered on. Otherwise, the XeniumOS will start and you have to select which modified BIOS to use. The console will then restart loading the BIOS you selected.

[DaveB]

Thanx for the info, luckily I didn't need to use the switch, and finally got everything sorted out reading the 2.0 manual you posted earlier in the thread. It took me a long while to get there and I made a comically large number of mistakes along the way, but I've gained a lot of useful knowledge thanks to all you guys that patiently answered my barrage of questions helped me put right my many mishaps! Again, a massive thanx to you all! I wouldn't in a million years have done it if I hadn't literally stumbled upon this great site!

[DaveB]

Actually got one more question, sorry! Right back at the start before I got the hdd sorted out, I had ftp'd a few games to the F partition of my xbox. They showed up on the evolution x menu under 'games', so I could easily launch any of them. Obviously the re-formatting etc erased them. I've ftp'd a bunch of games back on to F partition again, but the 'games' menu says 'empty' and I have to use 'file explorer' to navigate to them and launch them from there. How do I fix that, please?

I've tried 'refresh list'. Didn't work.

 

Edited April 1, 2019 by DaveB

[Ging3rguy]

Are you using XBMC as your dash? If so you will have to tell it where to look for the games.

[DaveB]

I'm using the unleash x dash as before (the one similar to the MS dash, but blue). The games appeared automatically in the list when I had first used Hexen to add the new hdd, before I fixed all the probs at the start of this thread.

Edited April 1, 2019 by DaveB

[Ging3rguy]

In the dash menu do you have a games heading? If not you will need to edit the config file so the dash knows where to find the games.

[DaveB]

Ah, never mind, I made another dumb error cos I wasn't thinking - I ftp'd the games straight to F partition, I forgot to create a 'games' folder. It obviously looks for that folder and it wasn't there to find! I've fixed that now, the games are showing on the menu wheel now. Thanx again.

[DaveB]

Just for the record - I dunno if this is a peculiarity of Xenium chips with v1.0 OS, Xenium chips in general, or mine in particular, but I should point out that all my efforts to upgrade the Xenium OS to v2.3.1. from the hdd refused to work, nothing would happen except the 'safe mode loading....halt!' message. It was only when I noticed that the dvd drive was spinning each time I tried "recovery mode' that I I tried again with the files burned on a cd. Only then did it try to update, although after about 20 mins it brought up the 'loading...halt!' message again, so it had, again, failed.  So I tried it with the files burned instead on a dvd disc, it worked straight away and was successfully done in a minute or two!  So to finally get to my point, if anyone else reading this needs to update their Xenium OS in the future, save yourself a lot of wasted time and effort by doing it from dvd instead of the hard drive!

(Also, use 'Hexen', not 'SlaYers' disc).

 

Edited April 2, 2019 by DaveB