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First time modder - where to start/what method?


TheSegaHolic
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Hi,

I’m looking for some advice on where to begin with modding my Xbox. I’ve had a read around the forum and seen loads of threads with issues like games loading slow off the new HDD, slow boot ups, error messages like DVD not found, etc and it’s making the idea of modding the console somewhat daunting, no matter how many videos I watch.

I’ve fully modded a Dreamcast but that’s very plug and play and has no software exploits, etc so this is a whole new level.

My question is, if this Xbox was put down in front of you today, what would be your mod method of choice?

I had looked at using the Rocky 5 softmod and then FTP’ing the extras disc across to use Chimp but the whole “4 second window” for the hot swap makes me nervous.

Is that the way to go or is there a better way? I just want to put a larger Hard Drive in there to store rips of the discs I own, taking the strain off the DVD drive.

Cheers. 

Edited by TheSegaHolic
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Me I only recommend the hard mod method.

Fit a mod chip then you can fit the larger HDD and use a installer disk to format and install a dash of your choice.

Also with a hard modded system you can then use Fatxplorer 3.0 beta to connect the HDD drive to your PC and transfer the games that way.

If the Xbox is a version 1.0 - 1.4 you can re-flash the on board bios chip by linking two points on the main board then using a game exploit rewrite the bios to do the same as a mod chip.

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

 

 

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13 hours ago, TheSegaHolic said:

I had looked at using the Rocky 5 softmod and then FTP’ing the extras disc across to use Chimp but the whole “4 second window” for the hot swap makes me nervous. 

If you have an IDE to usb connector, the 4-5 second window should no longer a factor. Connect everything as normal, except for your disc drive’s power cable(yellow). Then reboot the console and see if it throws up an error 12. If it does, you’re good to go on the “hot swap” however you actually won’t need to do any swapping. Try this and report back with what you get.

This will get you soft modded with little effort. From there you can upgrade to a HDD of your preference, also, with minimal effort. 

Edited by MadMartigan
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Cheers for the replies folks. I’m astounded at the variety of means to mod the Xbox, it’s just choosing which route to go down.

A friend who has a hard modded system (his mod chip is visible on the outside left side of the case) has offered to do the mod for me and he’s suggested building the hard drive for me on his PC then flashing the TSOP before using HeXen to unlock the drive and swap them over for the one he built.

Is that doable? I feel I’ve watched that many YouTube videos (Mario, MVG, etc) that my head is full of info that doesn’t match up or make any sense 😂.

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16 hours ago, TheSegaHolic said:

My question is, if this Xbox was put down in front of you today, what would be your mod method of choice?

V1.6 Xbox I'd install an OpenXenium modchp.  Although softmodding will work too.

v1.0-v1.4 install a softmod then TSOP mod the console so it boots a modified Xbox BIOS that does not require the hard drive to be locked.  Here again, installing a modchip like the OpenXenium will work but at an extra expense.  For the TSOP mod, use conductive paint or ink to bridge the flash enable points. DO NOT SOLDER especially if you don't know how to.  If you are already an expert at soldering by all means soldering works but why risk damaging traces on the motherboard.

Quote

I had looked at using the Rocky 5 softmod and then FTP’ing the extras disc across to use Chimp but the whole “4 second window” for the hot swap makes me nervous.

There is no 4 second window with the latest version of Chimp 261812.  Run it. You are prompted to swap the DVD's IDE connector to new hard drive then press (A) once finsihed. 

Quote

Is that the way to go or is there a better way? I just want to put a larger Hard Drive in there to store rips of the discs I own, taking the strain off the DVD drive.

Cheers. 

Install a modchip. Prepare a new hard drive on your PC using FATXplorer Beta 3.0. Follow this guide by @Hazeno to prep the new hard drive for your hard modded console:

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42 minutes ago, TheSegaHolic said:

Cheers for the replies folks. I’m astounded at the variety of means to mod the Xbox, it’s just choosing which route to go down.

A friend who has a hard modded system (his mod chip is visible on the outside left side of the case) has offered to do the mod for me and he’s suggested building the hard drive for me on his PC then flashing the TSOP before using HeXen to unlock the drive and swap them over for the one he built.

Is that doable? I feel I’ve watched that many YouTube videos (Mario, MVG, etc) that my head is full of info that doesn’t match up or make any sense 😂.

He can build you 10 new HDDs on his Xbox, but without them having an eeprom that matches your Xbox, they won’t boot. I’m guessing that if he offered to do it for you, then he has at least basic knowledge, if not a wealth of it, on how it all works. If your Xbox is a 1.6, then he won’t be able to perform a tsop on it.
 

Which mod to do really all depends on what you’re trying to get out of the Xbox and what version it is. For just gaming and running emulators, soft mod is what you want. 

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3 hours ago, MadMartigan said:

He can build you 10 new HDDs on his Xbox, but without them having an eeprom that matches your Xbox, they won’t boot. I’m guessing that if he offered to do it for you, then he has at least basic knowledge, if not a wealth of it, on how it all works. If your Xbox is a 1.6, then he won’t be able to perform a tsop on it.
 

Which mod to do really all depends on what you’re trying to get out of the Xbox and what version it is. For just gaming and running emulators, soft mod is what you want. 

Yeah, I really just want a larger hard drive in there to play Xbox games from to save wear and tear on the DVD drive, I’m not even interested in emulators.

The console serial number ends 33305, which going by some online sources puts my console as a 1.4 made in China, but the manufactured date on the console is 16/08/2003. The Kernel is 5101.

I’d just like the simplest way of getting a bigger hard drive in there to play original Xbox games from. I’ve got plenty of games of my own, I’d just like to not rely on the DVD drive long term to play them.

Thanks!

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For the cheapest method you’ll need one of these.

This will allow you perform a soft mod and upgrade to a larger HDD. You will however need to buy a PATA to SATA adapter and new 80wire 40pin IDE cables if you plan on using a SATA HDD. 

PATA to SATA adapter

80 wire IDE

 

Once you have everything you need, you can follow this guide. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/8/2021 at 2:32 AM, MadMartigan said:

If you have an IDE to usb connector, the 4-5 second window should no longer a factor. Connect everything as normal, except for your disc drive’s power cable(yellow). Then reboot the console and see if it throws up an error 12. If it does, you’re good to go on the “hot swap” however you actually won’t need to do any swapping. Try this and report back with what you get.

This will get you soft modded with little effort. From there you can upgrade to a HDD of your preference, also, with minimal effort. 

Hi there, thank you for you comment. I was trying to follow this method since I cannot use the game-save softmod because I am running a NTSC-J 1.00. Anyway anytime I unplug the DVD power I have a error 11 (not 12)... I tried changing power cables of the console with no effects... Do you have any suggestion?  I tried also the unlock method on the dashboard with no success :( thanks

Edited by Frizzo
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Error 12 should be Ok as well as the hard drive should be unlocked by the time that message is displayed.

The last NTSC-j Xbox I did I held a mod chip that had Xblast on it on the board to get it booted , Then I was able to change the region to Pal so it would work with my copy of splinter cell, Then using that I was able to re-flash the onboard bios.

The hard drive is still 100% stock Japanese and still locked to that Xbox. 

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

 

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1 hour ago, SS_Dave said:

Error 12 should be Ok as well as the hard drive should be unlocked by the time that message is displayed.

The last NTSC-j Xbox I did I held a mod chip that had Xblast on it on the board to get it booted , Then I was able to change the region to Pal so it would work with my copy of splinter cell, Then using that I was able to re-flash the onboard bios.

The hard drive is still 100% stock Japanese and still locked to that Xbox. 

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

 

Thanks, I am going crazy here. The error 11 was just the start, I tried other ways to unlock the drive but it still does not show up in Xplorer360.

I dont have the eeprom reader so I am trying with the hot-swap since I do not feel confident with a solder for a tsop (I order solder ink pen but it will take time) anyway I think that I must be close... I was able to connect it to the PC via ide-usb cable and to check with XboxHDM 2.3 Beta 4 that the hd is "ATA secutity is: enabled, pw Level Max, not locked, not frozen [sec5]." I would like to make a backup and I want to move the rocky5 files now. I moved the XBHDM build from the "installer variants" folder in Build 1.1.8. load the XBHDM for the drive.  When I load the xbrowser in XboxHDM and press f2 for menu it gives me a "Cannot open file /usr/local/share/mc/mc.menu". f4 (edit) blanks the page with "C" [Read only] line 1 of 1 --100%-- which factually makes the XBHDM crash (no way to go back)...

 

Any idea how to proceed ? (I am also noob so I think I am out of the messages I can post for today lol).

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On 11/15/2021 at 10:59 PM, Frizzo said:

Hi there, thank you for you comment. I was trying to follow this method since I cannot use the game-save softmod because I am running a NTSC-J 1.00. Anyway anytime I unplug the DVD power I have a error 11 (not 12)... I tried changing power cables of the console with no effects... Do you have any suggestion?  I tried also the unlock method on the dashboard with no success :( thanks

Disconnect the DVD drive's IDE connection, not the 12-wire power/control cable.

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On 11/16/2021 at 1:37 AM, SS_Dave said:

Error 12 should be Ok as well as the hard drive should be unlocked by the time that message is displayed.

The last NTSC-j Xbox I did I held a mod chip that had Xblast on it on the board to get it booted , Then I was able to change the region to Pal so it would work with my copy of splinter cell, Then using that I was able to re-flash the onboard bios.

The hard drive is still 100% stock Japanese and still locked to that Xbox. 

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

 

I’ve never had an NTSC-J to my knowledge. Do the NTSC game save files not work on those when soft modding? 

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2 hours ago, MadMartigan said:

I’ve never had an NTSC-J to my knowledge. Do the NTSC game save files not work on those when soft modding? 

I think you use the NTSC version of the save but you need the NTSC-j version of the game, There is one of the saves that's region free but I can't remember with one ( I think it's TH4).

But as I don't soft mod so I not 100% sure. The closest I get to soft modding is to use the game save to flash the onboard bios chip.

Like this https://youtu.be/rnsCy9y6Gi4

I would fit a pin header then bootup with a Xblast mod chip to change the region to either Pal or NTSC-u then you can use easier disk to find.

 

 

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

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21 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

I think you use the NTSC version of the save but you need the NTSC-j version of the game, There is one of the saves that's region free but I can't remember with one ( I think it's TH4).

But as I don't soft mod so I not 100% sure. The closest I get to soft modding is to use the game save to flash the onboard bios chip.

Like this https://youtu.be/rnsCy9y6Gi4

I would fit a pin header then bootup with a Xblast mod chip to change the region to either Pal or NTSC-u then you can use easier disk to find.

 

 

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

Well that’s a pretty cool way of doing it. 

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