[SOLVED] 1.6 changed partition stuff now no boot

[nerdbombing]

I softmodded a 1.6, and a larger HDD ordered and on it's way.

I'm having company over tomorrow, and realized after using XBpartitioner-1.3 to prepare for HDD upgrade (thinking I'd be simply saving that step of partitioning later), I had an F partition that wasn't large enough to hold a single game (2,500mb). Whereas, had I not partitioned F drive, I would have kept 9,500mb free on E partition (enough for a game or two).

Man, hindsight... but I just went back into XBpartitioner-1.3, deleted the F partition and added it to E. Upon restart I now get MS error 21 . I now realize, that in changing partitions, I most likely formatted them to rearange stuff. I just didn't think it out in the moment, I should have just waited for the new HDD to arrive, or just robbed a smaller-then-the-ordered-one from the "old electronics shelf" in the basement....

Luckily I had FTP'd C and E partitioned to my PC, so I have copies of what it should be. But since i can't boot up, I don't see how I can access it to FTP those backups.

I'm thinking I have to boot from CD, maybe Hexen, and try that way somehow? I just can't seem to have it assign an IP. I've tried DHCP and Static, manually typed in the IP, but at the top of the "Network Settings" it shows "Current IP" as 0.0.0.0 . I can however, browse the files, and there's only one folder on E now, UDATA... Through file explorer ont he xbox, I found some config files and an evoxdash.xbe, copied said files over to the E drive. It now boots up to EVOX, but I still can't FTP and there's no options that seem to help. Then I decided to try running the Hexen option to install softmod of Kingroach and start from (what I think is) scratch. But alas, I'm still getting error 21 Then I tried Krayzie's install, and things seemed to be working as it install unleashX. After following the promt once isntal was complete, to remove the CD and reboot, it now reboots to Evox with only 2 slections "Launch Disc" and "System settings"(which is more for info, no settings that offer anything different then I've encounter yet).

Man I kept diggin a hole. things kept booting to evox with no options that helped, so i went back and forth with Hexen to get into file explorer and figure out why evox was loading and not unleashX (which was present on E). I figured it was something on C partition after I wiped E yet Evox would still boot. So i went back into Hexen file explorer and removed some of the things on C that I thought were directing the show to Evox. I compared files between my previous backups on the working HDD to make sure I wasn't deleting important stuff, but apparently I had because Hexen/CD drive won't load anymore. On reboots/shutdowns when thing boot up it goes to the error screen, hexen won't load. GD I should have jsut waited for  that damn HDD!!!!

Any ideas now?

(XBOX #6 Fancy)

Edited July 26, 2022 by nerdbombing
solved and personal identifier

[KaosEngineer]

If you have a backup copy of eeprom.bin, you can prepare a LOCKED hard drive for the Xbox on a PC. Locking is required on a softmodded console because they boot the original BIOS that uses that ATA security feature.  You'll need a USB-to-HDD interface adapter. A combo IDE/SATA works wonders since you can use it with both an original IDE and  newer SATA hard drive.

The application to use is FATXplorer 3.0 Beta. 

Which softmod was installed before you messed things up with XBPartitioner v1.3?

 

[KaosEngineer]

XBPartitioner is not a data-safe application. If you change a partition's size, all data stored on it will need to be rewritten to it and any partitions that come after it.

Data stored on the Xbox hard drive is stored in the following order:

Config Area - not visible by any homebrew tools to modify the content stored there (first 1024 sectors of the hard drive) - 512 KBs.

Cache drives X, Y, and Z (partitions 3, 4 and 5) - each 750 MBs in size.

System - C (partition 2) - 500 MBs

Data - E (partition 1) - 5,120,024,576 bytes (4,882 MBs)

On a modded console with a larger than 8GB hard drive, extended partitions follow the stock partitions:

F - partition 6

G - partition 7

 

 

[nerdbombing]

9 hours ago, KaosEngineer said:

The application to use is FATXplorer 3.0 Beta. 

Which softmod was installed before you messed things up with XBPartitioner v1.3?

 

FATXplorer --> So I take a blank HDD I still have(or format one with AOMEI partition assnt.) , initialize it and fire up FATXplorer? I didn't have luck with it last week, but there's just been an update. I didn't see options to lock a HDD last time I sued it, but I'll update FATXplorer and throw in a blank HDD and see what i can manage...

 

[nerdbombing]

I forgot to mention, I originally had

UnleashX Ver: 0.39.0222A Build 572

Inside the E folder, I had 3 files that weren't in sub folders, Config.xml, evoxdash.xbe, and items.xml. There's no dash or dashboard folder in E

[nerdbombing]

I used a formatted hdd using "Formatting Tools' in FATXexplorer, I selected "Original Xbox HDD" and left the check box for "Create/format a file" un marked.

My drive showed up so I clicked on it then clicked on "Next". I then selected "No LBA-Increasing BIOS/LBA28/Retail (Cerbios) as I don't know any better and couldn't determine which to select. It then listed partitions, I simply clicked "Next" again to get to the "Optional:Preload", where I selected zip's of my backup/copied versions of the original C and E drive. After that I kept moving forward and "Successfully created drive" . 

I then went to the "HDD Security Tools", slected my device from the drop down menu, and "Set Password" using my HDD key from the original backups. It said "Password" is set and that once powered down, it would lock. 

I put it in xbox and get error 16 now. CD won't read Hexen either. I then threw the drive back on PC, opened FATXexplorer,and the device won't show up in "Devices" and in "HDD Security Tools" I can select the device. But the "Unlock" tab is greyed out and isn't available. Under the drop down for selecting a divce it says "Status: ENABLED, PW level HIGH, not locked, not frozen [SEC5]"

I can't seem to lock it, even after removing the password and reapplying it. Once I remove the password, the device is still unviewable in "Devices". It still shows up in "HDD Security Tools" and is selectable, but it won't lock still... how'd I mess up or miss something?

[nerdbombing]

So i poked around some more and found xboxhdm23usb but I keep running into issues with that as well, but most likely from my lack of experience.

I keep getting an error, but I've followed some info I found at https://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4789

I placed copies of the original C and E drives within the hdm folder, and put a copy of the eeprom.bin in the main xboxhdm23usb folder. Upon doing so, xboxhd wont load and just cycles me back to the main menu. If i remove the content of E drive from hdm folder, then it goes into the XboxHDMaker

I removed content of just the E folder from within hdm folder, and the process continues and brings me back to the main "Idotsfan xboxhdm tools" screen, after showing some "errors" (I could only screen shot most of it, not all, as it kicks me back to the main idotsfan screen to fast to copy all the terminal jargon).

At this point, how do I switch the file system of a FATX drive back into fat32 or some other type that I can actually erase in partition assistant, etc.? Since I can't use this good drive for anything but xbox, and since it's not working for xbox, it's currently a paper weight....

[nerdbombing]

I tried locking an unlocking as well, with xboxhdm23usb, and I was able to get it to register as locked from FATXplorer (once). So I powered down the drive an put it back into the xbox but got an error 16 again. I tried reproducing what I did to get it to show up as locked in FATXplorer again, but now I'm not able to. I continually try to "set password" in FATXplorer and xboxhdm23usb but it always (besides that one instance) says "not locked" . I put in my eeprom.bin and even manually type in the HDD key, hit "Set password" and the results are always "unlocked".....

So to back track, within xboxhdm23usb, I unlocked the drive. Powered it down. Turned power back on, in FATXplorer it's showing as "Disabled, NOT FROZEN". And now the device is discovered in FATXplorer, which previously it was not. I then mounted C and E, but their contents are empty. I then copied my backup copies of C and E into their respective mounting points, and tried locking the drive again. But after trying in FATXplorer, it still shows "not locked" after powering down and back on. So I unlocked it with xboxhdm23usb and then in FATXplorer it shows "Disabled, NOT FROZEN" again, and it's not discoverable again. I then tried to lock it with xboxhdm23usb again, powered down and back on. No devices found on FATXplorer as usual, and FATXplorer still says "not locked". So I tried again in FATXplorer (shoot, or what it xboxhdm23usb?) to set the password, NOW after turning hdd off and on again, it says LOCKED! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!! and now it boots up, no error screens, but it takes me to the OEM MS dash.

Now, before I do anything else that I don't understand, what should i do next? Start over with new softmod and put splinter cell in? It's showing all my save games and music too.

Edited July 11, 2022 by nerdbombing
correcting steps taken

[nikeymikey]

I would seriously consider getting hold of a chip and installing it. It will save you from many things. It will also allow you to keep the drive unlocked. In 2022 softmods should really only be used as a either a means to hardmod a system or as a last resort. 

 

That's just my opinion though. If you want to go ahead and just softmod your system then thats your choice.  

 

The backups of C & E that you restored, were they backups of a softmodded drive or are they just the standard MS C&E drives? If they were the standard MS then you should be good to go with installing a softmod. I would recommend the Rocky5 softmod installer disc.

 

[KaosEngineer]

9 hours ago, nerdbombing said:

I placed copies of the original C and E drives within the hdm folder, and put a copy of the eeprom.bin in the main xboxhdm23usb folder. Upon doing so, xboxhd wont load and just cycles me back to the main menu. If i remove the content of E drive from hdm folder, then it goes into the XboxHDMaker

How much content is present in the E drive? 

XboxHDM has a limit on the amount of data, less than a CD disc full (IIRC, ~500-600MBs) that can be placed into the hdm/E folder it mounts to copy it to the Xbox hard drive.

[nerdbombing]

14 hours ago, nikeymikey said:

I would seriously consider getting hold of a chip and installing it. It will save you from many things.

The backups of C & E that you restored, were they backups of a softmodded drive or are they just the standard MS C&E drives? If they were the standard MS then you should be good to go with installing a softmod. I would recommend the Rocky5 softmod installer disc.

 

I'd like to see an easy to digest chart, like when comparing cable plans, you know? Like basic plan gets you this and this, while the ultimate plans gets all that plus this and that. I'll circle back to this, but up until I made some bone headed decisions, I've been satisfied with softmods. @SS_Dave I still don't agree but let's iron out the premise of "the real thing" verses self gratification: Been married 15 years? well the real thing might be boring or tedious, whereas my palm knows EXACTLY what I want and there's no undue pageantry, LOL. If you're telling me hardmodding is like having ANY flavor of "woman" I want, whenever I want, well then you might got me

As far as what backups of C and E, I believe they are softmod backups, or whatever is in the C and E after softmodding, because (As far as I know) you need to be softmodded to FTP those things over to my PC. At the least, that's all I've ever done. But even after using those backups, I was booting to the MS oem dash. So I threw in splinter cell and gave it a try, with success. I'm back up and running, games FTP'd back over, along with emulators and minor stuff like that. I did notice that after this whole debacle, I have one more file in C which I didn't before, "xb1xdash.xbe" as well as a D drive with no space. But all seems to work correctly....

14 hours ago, KaosEngineer said:

How much content is present in the E drive? 

XboxHDM has a limit on the amount of data, less than a CD disc full (IIRC, ~500-600MBs) that can be placed into the hdm/E folder it mounts to copy it to the Xbox hard drive.

My backup E drive has 2.1Gb, so I think that explains that, thanks again @KaosEngineer

Circling back to the hard vs. soft mod stuff; is there a thread already that compares features and cons of both?

[nerdbombing]

23 minutes ago, nerdbombing said:

....I have one more file in C which I didn't before, "xb1xdash.xbe" as well as a D drive with no space.

To clarify, the D drive only shows in file explorer on xbox, NOT within the FTP. When I FTP, I see C, E, F, X, Y, and Z

[KaosEngineer]

12 hours ago, nerdbombing said:

To clarify, the D drive only shows in file explorer on xbox, NOT within the FTP. When I FTP, I see C, E, F, X, Y, and Z

D is the DVD drive. There's no free space on it to write to so 0 bytes free and without a disc in the DVD drive, UnleashX's FTP server does not list it in the directory listing.

[nikeymikey]

16 hours ago, nerdbombing said:

Circling back to the hard vs. soft mod stuff; is there a thread already that compares features and cons of both?

Hardmods are generally better due to the fact that its easier to recover when things go wrong. That doesn't mean they are bulletproof tho, there are still a few ways to break that xbox!! But when it comes to hard drive failure or similar then its relatively simple to get up and running again with a hardmod. With a softmod if your hard drive dies and you don't have backups of the eeprom etc on a pc then you will most likely require a hardmod to bring the Xbox back from the dead. 

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by nikeymikey

[nerdbombing]

Thoughts?

[SS_Dave]

 

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

[nerdbombing]

3 hours ago, SS_Dave said:

"Costs: Game, memory card,

I was under the impression that a softmod is the first step in modchip install, but I assume you're saying that's not the case. Just put in the chip with a bios on it already, right?

I changed "Requires higher skill level" for TSOP to a lowercase X. To be fair, you can softmod w/o ever opening the xbox, whereas a TSOP you actually have to solder stuff, and can mechanically screw up easier then a softmod. But I could be wrong, the only TSOP I ever had was already done for me. To be honest, I don't even know what TSOP stands for and how it works compared to the other choices. I also didn't know you can remove the CD drive with a TSOP as well. Thanks @SS_Dave

[Prehistoricman]

TSOP is the shape of the BIOS flash chip (thin small outline package). It's basically a bad name, like how we call the SMC, System Management Controller, the PIC just because it's a Microchip brand microcontroller. Even the v1.6 has an SMC, but no PIC because it's the Xyclops chip.

An even worse name with wider usage is 'CMOS' for a the BIOS settings data in a PC. CMOS is a semiconductor manufacture technology and isn't specific to PCs at all.

In other news... old man shouts at clouds.

Edited July 13, 2022 by Prehistoricman

[SS_Dave]

5 hours ago, Prehistoricman said:

TSOP is the shape of the BIOS flash chip (thin small outline package). It's basically a bad name, like how we call the SMC, System Management Controller, the PIC just because it's a Microchip brand microcontroller. Even the v1.6 has an SMC, but no PIC because it's the Xyclops chip.

I 100% agree and I think the term TSOP came from the 1st YouTube clip on re-flashing the bios chip as he called it a TSOP, I also think it's the younger generation that are to lazy to type re-flash. It's not helped by experienced Xbox repairers/modifiers that constantly call it a TSOP.

I also suspect because a YouTube poster could not use a multimeter correctly is also why we have people constantly saying they have a version 1.5 Xbox and of the couple of Reddit users in the last 6 months that claim to have or had one can't/won't prove it...

 

I seen a post recently where the reply was it's the SB (he meant the MCPX X3 chip) at fault and I am sure 90% of Xbox users would have no idea what a South Bridge is.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

 

[nerdbombing]

8 hours ago, Prehistoricman said:

TSOP is the shape of the BIOS flash chip (thin small outline package). It's basically a bad name, like how we call the SMC, System Management Controller, the PIC just because it's a Microchip brand microcontroller. Even the v1.6 has an SMC, but no PIC because it's the Xyclops chip.

I obviously have a lot to learn, cause that analogy's 90% over my head. Straighten me out again if you don't mind: So the [general] difference between TSOP and Hardmod is that with a TSOP you are reflashing the stock 'microsoft chip's' bios to one of your liking, whereas a hardmod is permanently placed on the board to accomplish the same thing with a few added features? Like, one would have a "TSOP" circuit board they solder up and install a new bios onto the xbox with, and once it's flashed, they remove it and can do another, and so on?

[Prehistoricman]

1 hour ago, nerdbombing said:

So the [general] difference between TSOP and Hardmod is that with a TSOP you are reflashing the stock 'microsoft chip's' bios to one of your liking, whereas a hardmod is permanently placed on the board to accomplish the same thing with a few added features?

That is right. Hardmods are by not necessarily permanent. Usually you can just pull the modchip off the pinheader and the Xbox behaves like stock.

1 hour ago, nerdbombing said:

Like, one would have a "TSOP" circuit board they solder up and install a new bios onto the xbox with, and once it's flashed, they remove it and can do another, and so on?

I'm not understanding this question.

[nerdbombing]

1 hour ago, Prehistoricman said:

I'm not understanding this question.

It's because I don't under TSOP. I just watched this vid to learn something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIw8k5areQg  and this one too      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg4ODhIblcg

I was just under a different impression. Essentially, I had thought that the job Hexen performs was done by ways of a "portable modchip". I truly had no understanding of what the TSOP process was. Now, does my comparison chart need updating, as 1.6 version can't be tsop'd, a 1.6 can only be soft or 'mod chipped', or have things changed since those videos were posted?

 

 

[Prehistoricman]

7 hours ago, nerdbombing said:

Now, does my comparison chart need updating, as 1.6 version can't be tsop'd, a 1.6 can only be soft or 'mod chipped', or have things changed since those videos were posted?

Correct, there is no known way to reflash the ROM in the Xyclops. I do think that is a topic that is under-researched. It would be sick to bring motherboard flashing to the 1.6.

Hexen is just a program that has the ability to reflash the motherboard's BIOS chip.

[nerdbombing]