Bricked X2 bios, how do I recover?

[Sugartitty]

Hi! this is is my first post, sorry if in any way miss categorized or confusing.

I bought two XBOXs at a pawnshop. The one with the X2 modchip is a 1.6 and my backup is a 1.1 xbox. I am completely new to the modding scene. I had a modded xbox back in ~2006? I was a kid back then, I only used it to play backups and emulators, never messed with it much. This is a load of nostalgia for me.

At first the X2 1.6 xbox was working fine, until I got curious and played around with Hexen. I tried flashing the X2 1.6 bios listed there. It froze and never completed so I rebooted my xbox during the flashing process (yikes).

Now when I turn it on, it bootloops 3 times (quickly turns on and off) then I get green/red flashing light and it boots into error 16.

From my own research I (think) this is what is happening, could be wrong though:

I borked the bios on my modchip. Guessing the tsop on my motherboard still has stock bios? When X2 fails 3 times, it tries to boot from the tsop. I have custom firmware on the hard drive (custom dashboard, emulators, F partition etc(, and the drive might be unlocked too.

Currently my 1.1 xbox is not assembled, it is in parts because I am going to solder my tsop and put it back together, it will be soon though. (Assuming I don't bork it as well).

Would it be possible to use my (soon) modded 1.1 console, swap the hard drive from my bricked X2 1.6, and somehow restore it so microsoft dash will load on stock bios? From there, surely I could softmod and flash the X2 chip and be back in business... Or should I remove the chip from my 1.6 and install it on my 1.1 and from there flash new bios?

Not really sure how to do the things listed above safely without borking anything else. Tried to find manuals for the Xecuter chip, but all is lost in time. Now only X3 seems to get love.

Edited March 14, 2022 by Sugartitty
Updated tags

[SS_Dave]

I would take the chip from the 1.6 and fit it to your 1.1 and flash the EvoxM8plus bios for the 1.6 boards as trying to play with the files on the 1.6 HDD could lead to more trouble.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

[brooselee]

I just fixed one by hotswapping modchips. Boot with working modchip, load xblast from HDD, swap chips, flash bios from HDD to broken chip. I was successful in doing this with an X2 Pro just a couple weeks ago.

[Sugartitty]

Thanks for the good and helpful answers. I would go with what @ssammakko said.

Sadly, shortly after making this post, the philips disc drive on my 1.1 xbox was killed by Need For Speed Underground (RIP). It completely ate the disc and got stuck far back, ended up bricking it in the process causing the console to no longer boot. I used the 1.6 disc drive and now it is back alive.

This does mean my 1.6 now not only has faulty bios flashed, it also lacks a disc drive. For now I am leaving this as is. I got the 1.1 xbox to a point I am happy with. TSOP flashed and installed an SSD.

I will still likely go through with restoring the second xbox in the future, but for now it is a "for parts" backup system.