Well.. I wrote up a quick tutorial to try and help out a bit better. A few steps are slightly out of order but changing them would require me to re-write a lot of the tutorial. If I had more time, I would make this better, but I have *WAY* too many side-projects going on aside from work. Feel free to post any questions/comments.
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How to SoftMod your 1.6b to flash an Xecuter3 chip:
1. Open up your box and install the pin header & 1.6 LPC rebuild. Check this page if you need a pictures and instructions.
2. Place your Xbox next to your computer and power the box up.
3. With your computer and the Xbox on, disconnect the I/O cable from the back of the hard drive and then quickly connect an I/O cable from your computer. In Device manager, go to the action menu and click "Scan for hardware changes". If the swap was done correctly, the Xbox drive should detect within 3-5 seconds. If it wasn't done correctly, it will be detected after 20-30 seconds since the OS tries repeatedly to access the drive (but can't). If you already screwed something up on your drive to the point that the MS Dash wont boot (service required), do the same thing except pull the cable from the Xbox while it's booting. I usually pull it right when the green X "crashes down".
4. Assuming you hot-swapped the HD correctly, use Winhex or another tool to back up the drive just in case something gets screwed up. I believe that "HDD Driver" has an option to back up an Xbox drive but I don't have a drive currently connected to test with.
5. Go get xboxhdm, UXE, and EvolutionX from xbins if you don't already have them. If you don't know what xbins is, read this guide:
http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/xbins.php
6. Extract the contents of the xboxhdm archive to a temporary folder somewhere. Look at the contents of the folder you just extracted. Inside the "linux" folder, you will notice that there are folders named "C", "E", and "F". Anything placed in those folders are what will be going on to the Xbox drive when this script is booted. To keep things simple, the only folder we will be concerned with is "C" (C drive on the xbox).
7. Open up the UXE archive and take everything from the "uxe-updatefonts61" folder and extract it to the "C" folder. Everything should look like this when you are finished:
http://myweb.cableone.net/snelda/pics/xbox/xboxHDMComplete.gif
8. Use a text editor (notepad etc.) to edit the "evox.ini" file in the "fonts" folder (it was extracted from the UXE package in the previous step). Find the line toward the end of the file that says:
Remove the pound sign from that line.
Under the "[BIOS]" section (in the middle of the file), there are instructions for evox about various chip manufacturers and how to flash them. Add this line with the other 6 "Flash" lines and save the file:
9. Run the "make-iso-win.bat" batch file in the xboxhdm folder. This will create a bootable iso containing everything in the linux folder.
10. Load up your favorite burning software and burn the ISO image to a disc.
11. Retart your computer and boot off of the xboxhdm disc you just created. Most IDE controllers will leave the drive unlocked on restart. If you go through the next few steps and the drive can't be read/written to, you will have to pause the bootup process (push pause on the keyboard) before the BIOS detects IDE devices, hot-swap again, and unpause.
12. When you first boot the disc, you have 4 options. Choose option #1. After linux boots, type "xboxhd" at the prompt and hit enter. Again, assuming the drive is unlocked, you will see a menu with some options. Choose option 2 and follow the prompts. If everything was done correctly, evolution-x will boot on the xbox once you put the drive back in. (The modchip should not be connected to the pin header yet)
13. Once evox is up and running on your box, use an FTP client to connect to the xbox. Make a subfolder inside the fonts folder (on the C drive) and name it "bios". Put "flashbios_v303.bin" (flashbios) and "X3_1959_v16plus.bin" (Xecuter3 bios) in that folder (or the bios of your choice. However, I would strongly suggest using the X3 Bios first so you can later use it to flash the backup bank of the chip with flashbios v3.03. Then you don't have to go through this again in case of a screw-up).
14. Carefully push the modchip onto the pin header and turn on banks 1 and 2 (this is assuming you are using a 1mb bios). Switch all other banks off and make sure the flash protection switches are off also.
15. Select "System utils" on the evox menu and then select "flash bios".
16. Select "flashbios_v303.bin"
17. Evox will ask you to confirm the flash. Hit yes, wait until the chip is flashed, and then reboot with the chip on.
18. Use the Xecutor3 bios to flash the backup bank with "flashbios_v303.bin".
19. Enjoy!
-------------------
How to SoftMod your 1.6b to flash an Xecuter3 chip:
1. Open up your box and install the pin header & 1.6 LPC rebuild. Check this page if you need a pictures and instructions.
2. Place your Xbox next to your computer and power the box up.
3. With your computer and the Xbox on, disconnect the I/O cable from the back of the hard drive and then quickly connect an I/O cable from your computer. In Device manager, go to the action menu and click "Scan for hardware changes". If the swap was done correctly, the Xbox drive should detect within 3-5 seconds. If it wasn't done correctly, it will be detected after 20-30 seconds since the OS tries repeatedly to access the drive (but can't). If you already screwed something up on your drive to the point that the MS Dash wont boot (service required), do the same thing except pull the cable from the Xbox while it's booting. I usually pull it right when the green X "crashes down".
4. Assuming you hot-swapped the HD correctly, use Winhex or another tool to back up the drive just in case something gets screwed up. I believe that "HDD Driver" has an option to back up an Xbox drive but I don't have a drive currently connected to test with.
5. Go get xboxhdm, UXE, and EvolutionX from xbins if you don't already have them. If you don't know what xbins is, read this guide:
http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/xbins.php
6. Extract the contents of the xboxhdm archive to a temporary folder somewhere. Look at the contents of the folder you just extracted. Inside the "linux" folder, you will notice that there are folders named "C", "E", and "F". Anything placed in those folders are what will be going on to the Xbox drive when this script is booted. To keep things simple, the only folder we will be concerned with is "C" (C drive on the xbox).
7. Open up the UXE archive and take everything from the "uxe-updatefonts61" folder and extract it to the "C" folder. Everything should look like this when you are finished:
http://myweb.cableone.net/snelda/pics/xbox/xboxHDMComplete.gif
8. Use a text editor (notepad etc.) to edit the "evox.ini" file in the "fonts" folder (it was extracted from the UXE package in the previous step). Find the line toward the end of the file that says:
Code:
# Item "Flash BIOS",ID_Flash_BiosUnder the "[BIOS]" section (in the middle of the file), there are instructions for evox about various chip manufacturers and how to flash them. Add this line with the other 6 "Flash" lines and save the file:
Code:
Flash = 0x01AD,"X-ecuter 3",0x10000010. Load up your favorite burning software and burn the ISO image to a disc.
11. Retart your computer and boot off of the xboxhdm disc you just created. Most IDE controllers will leave the drive unlocked on restart. If you go through the next few steps and the drive can't be read/written to, you will have to pause the bootup process (push pause on the keyboard) before the BIOS detects IDE devices, hot-swap again, and unpause.
12. When you first boot the disc, you have 4 options. Choose option #1. After linux boots, type "xboxhd" at the prompt and hit enter. Again, assuming the drive is unlocked, you will see a menu with some options. Choose option 2 and follow the prompts. If everything was done correctly, evolution-x will boot on the xbox once you put the drive back in. (The modchip should not be connected to the pin header yet)
13. Once evox is up and running on your box, use an FTP client to connect to the xbox. Make a subfolder inside the fonts folder (on the C drive) and name it "bios". Put "flashbios_v303.bin" (flashbios) and "X3_1959_v16plus.bin" (Xecuter3 bios) in that folder (or the bios of your choice. However, I would strongly suggest using the X3 Bios first so you can later use it to flash the backup bank of the chip with flashbios v3.03. Then you don't have to go through this again in case of a screw-up).
14. Carefully push the modchip onto the pin header and turn on banks 1 and 2 (this is assuming you are using a 1mb bios). Switch all other banks off and make sure the flash protection switches are off also.
15. Select "System utils" on the evox menu and then select "flash bios".
16. Select "flashbios_v303.bin"
17. Evox will ask you to confirm the flash. Hit yes, wait until the chip is flashed, and then reboot with the chip on.
18. Use the Xecutor3 bios to flash the backup bank with "flashbios_v303.bin".
19. Enjoy!
