How to swap HDD's between a soft mod and a hard mod console?

[alcatraz68]

I have a hard modded console with a 1TB HDD that I would like to swap into a softmodded console that has a 500gb and vice versa. I know that something has to be done with the HDD keys but I dont know the exact details and don't want to mess anything up. Both systems have config magic currently installed.

The reason I want to do a simple swap is because I have recently backed up all my games to the 1TB and really don't want to have to go through the hassle of cloning with chimp and then backing them all up again, so if someone is able to give me a quick step by step on what I need to do with both console it would be really appreciated?

[KaosEngineer]

NULL or set to all 1's the HDDKey on both consoles.  (Not limited to those values for the HDDKey but the easier to remember)

Then lock the hard drive with the new HDDKey value.  Changing the HDDKey can cause some game saves to become corrupt since they were originally cryptographically signed using the original key.  To use the saves for games that did sign their saves you will need to resign them using the new HDDKey's value.  

NOTE: Remember to make a backup of the eeprom.bin file and save it off of the Xbox in a safe place before messing with the configuration EEPROM's content.

The NKPatcher Settings application that comes with Rocky5's Xbox Softmodding Tool has a menu option to perform all the steps for you necessary to NULL actually set to all 1's the HDDKey and relock the hard drive.

Once the HDDKey values are the same on the consoles, the hard drives can easily be swapped.  

CAVEAT: A softmodded system does not have a replacement dashboard on the hard drive in the location that a hard modded console looks for one.  Make sure to install one on the real C drive of the softmodded hard drive, not the shadowC drive that you can easily FTP to while the softmod is active.

 

[alcatraz68]

5 hours ago, KaosEngineer said:

NULL or set to all 1's the HDDKey on both consoles.  (Not limited to those values for the HDDKey but the easier to remember)

Then lock the hard drive with the new HDDKey value.  Changing the HDDKey can cause some game saves to become corrupt since they were originally cryptographically signed using the original key.  To use the saves for games that did sign their saves you will need to resign them using the new HDDKey's value.  

NOTE: Remember to make a backup of the eeprom.bin file and save it off of the Xbox in a safe place before messing with the configuration EEPROM's content.

The NKPatcher Settings application that comes with Rocky5's Xbox Softmodding Tool has a menu option to perform all the steps for you necessary to NULL actually set to all 1's the HDDKey and relock the hard drive.

Once the HDDKey values are the same on the consoles, the hard drives can easily be swapped.  

CAVEAT: A softmodded system does not have a replacement dashboard on the hard drive in the location that a hard modded console looks for one.  Make sure to install one on the real C drive of the softmodded hard drive, not the shadowC drive that you can easily FTP to while the softmod is active.

 

That's brilliant thanks, I understand all of that apart from the part about the shadow C drive. Am I right in saying that if I boot up the Rocky5 extras disc and install a dashboard to C from there it will install it to the real C drive? Or do I need to do more to install a new dash?

[KaosEngineer]

2 hours ago, alcatraz68 said:

That's brilliant thanks, I understand all of that apart from the part about the shadow C drive. Am I right in saying that if I boot up the Rocky5 extras disc and install a dashboard to C from there it will install it to the real C drive? Or do I need to do more to install a new dash?

No, the Extras Disc installs additional dashboards to the shadow C or E drives.  To access the real C drive, run the NKPatcher Settings application then FTP into the console.  You will see a folder named "Do not touch anything in here".  You are now accessing the real C drive used to boot the console before the softmod activates the shadow C drive.  

For the softmod, where is your default replacement dashboard running from (e.g., E:\XBMC4Gamers\default.xbe)?

[alcatraz68]

7 hours ago, KaosEngineer said:

No, the Extras Disc installs additional dashboards to the shadow C or E drives.  To access the real C drive, run the NKPatcher Settings application then FTP into the console.  You will see a folder named "Do not touch anything in here".  You are now accessing the real C drive used to boot the console before the softmod activates the shadow C drive.  

For the softmod, where is your default replacement dashboard running from (e.g., E:\XBMC4Gamers\default.xbe)?

It's OK I've managed to complete the swap successfully.

Once both HDD keys were nulled I swapped over the drives, the previously soft modded console with the new 1TB drive booted to the MS dashboard no problem so I basically did a fresh softmod install and it all went smoothly.

For the hard modded console things were a little more problematic, the C drive was full so I couldn't install UnleashX, so I installed it to E temporarily, then went back in and completely deleted everything on C which was a recommended step by Rocky5 which I found while googling.. after that I installed UnleashX to C and removed it from E and it worked. However the MS Dash and audio wouldn't work, and I was getting no loading screens when launching apps and games, maybe because I had deleted important files... however I went into the HeXen disc on my PC and extracted all the files that should have been on C, FTP'ed them over and now the MS Dash + audio all works fine.

So alls well that ends well, HDD's are swapped and both systems are functioning normally