XBOX (original) soft mod

[17daysolderthannes]

OK, so I finally got an XBOX at a price I was willing to pay ($15, lmao) and of course I want it to be worth a damn so I want to soft mod it for use with emulators and what not. I know SOMEONE on this forum has had to have done a soft mod on an XBOX before.

What site/tutorial did you use? Where did you download your files and what were they called (exactly)? I already have an 8MB action replay on the way and just bought a copy of Splinter Cell for the save exploit.

Also, can someone help make sense of all of the conflicting information out there: my XBOX has a build date of 2003, is that good? is it better to be newer or older? I have heard its best to have the latest update, how could I get that since XBOX LIVE (regular XBOX) is pretty much extinct AFAIK? I have also heard that there was an earlier clock exploit that could get you stuck in an infinite loop if the clock ever lost its time and that a newer, safer method is currently used, how would I make sure the tutorial I am using is the most recent/safest method?

Finally, before someone starts crying bloody murder about legality, it is NOT illegal to soft mod an XBOX, its only illegal to pirate games, which I don't intend to do and have already bought a handful of legit XBOX games. I just want it for emulators (of systems I also own and collect for, for convenience purposes) and other homebrew software.

Some of you might say "screw it, you only paid $15 bucks," but if I do screw up this XBOX that means I have to find another one, and even without cords that will set me back at least $30 on eBay, so I'd rather not screw it up once or twice first and end up costing me almost $100 in bricked XBOXes.

If a thread answering all of these questions already exists, feel free to redirect me, but I searched and didn't find anything, but then again that doesn't mean crap seeing as forum search features are about as useful as net nanny is for looking up porn.

[Crispy]

www.xbox-scene.com then go on tutorials. Should have everythign you need xbxo related, and the forums are great too.

[tom61]

www.xbox-scene.com then go on tutorials. Should have everythign you need xbxo related, and the forums are great too.

Actually, I recommend not using the tutorial section there, as all the XBox original guides are vastly out of date last I checked. Instead, head directly to the forums on there, that's where the newer guides are.

[Crispy]

Yeah, i guess they don't get updated now. The forums over there ate great

[kid_sinn]

i dont mean to bump but i thought this question deserved a good answer besides go read other forums and such
so i thought i would help a little on this problem giving asmuch info as i could as i just made another soft moded xbox just the other day
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first and formost

if you plan on soft moding a xbox you will have to bridige a small copple places on the motherboard
not a problem but in order to know exzactly where you will have to know your verson number
the build date of 2003 will help identify your motherboard along with the
www.xbox-scene.com old gides the forums and newer guids are mostly newer xbox360

ok once you have found your motherboard verson then you want to locate the solder points that break the tosp bios chip from being flashabal again www.xbox-scene.com old guides will help given you know what verson
prier to soldering its a good idea to make sure you know the verson and what size the tosp flashibal(after soldering) bios chip is


now you will need to use xbins to get your files ofcorse www.xbox-scene.com can fill you in on how to get there its irc and you need a ftp client to connect
basicly you will go in the chat room request a password from the bot get the name and password log in with ftp and download files

scince you are using splinter cell you will need that game save and a original disk , the disk must be before the date they patched that game , and re releaced it those new ones that say platmium are no good you need a serial number to compare the disk to to prove its the right disk

now that you have that you need to use the knolage of what size the tsop on that verson xbox motherboard is you must get a replacment bios , the xecuter 2 bios is most widly used , and you must get it in the proper size to prevent over flashing which will leave the xbox useless
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finaly making ths save , ok heres where it gets tricky , expecualy if you dont allready have one moded xbox ,
so if you dont have a friend with one help

heres what i do anyhow
and i allready have a chiped box so its easy for me
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i use a mech assault game disk but its the same thing , old game that happened to save a .xbe file on the mem card ,
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1)basicly build the save file on the computer ,
i
ts 2 folders
Tdata and Udata
inside the udata is the user data for the game its not important to tamper with ,
inside the Tdata is a save of the game this save is hacked basicly inside the save the game has a .xbe file better known as a xbox.exe file
so its a program , called run lunix
theres also a bios folder inside that Tdata folder for you to put the new xecuter2 bios in
ok with the new bios of the right size in the folder , and with both the udata and tdata folders and a new dvd you burn that as a data disk

2) moving the save to a moded xbox

now with a xbox that has a modchip
and the dvd2xbox program you can implant the save in the Edrive of the xbos along with the other saves

now the brewed save is inside a xbox and can then be moved to the actonreplay card using the save to card function

3) making the final move from a card to a new ready to be soft moded xbox

now with a xbox ready to be soft moded, ie: you have the soldered points done and the xbox still works you can boot it and then coppy the save from the action replay to the ready to be moded xbox

with the save coppyed to the ready to be moded xbox , and the right serial number disk , you are ready to go

boot the game and select load game from the menu ,
then you see the save it should say plan as day "run Linux"

you click that and in a sec you are looking at a small lightweight type operating system screen basicly it says what kind of TSoP you have it can only read it if you have proplery soldered the points and the chip is flashibal now , it will tell you the size of the bios inside the chip so you know you chose the right bios
if all checks out well with your new bios and the old bios size then you can flash
basicly you select flash and select the bios from the folder you want to flash with

a loading bar pops up cross your fangers and hope like hell the lights dont go out or the electricty dont spike in your house
the first bar is removing the old bios the 2ed one is replacing it with the new one,

then after its done it will power off its self, uncross your fangers and pray that its not fried, press the power button and with a little luck it is booting with the xecuter2 bios and a new xecuter2 logo under the xbox logo

now chances are your going to need a new hard drive to take full advantage of saving full games and emulators on it




hope that helped some i know its not as good of an explanatation as i would have liked to post , but thats how to softmod xbox's in a nutshell

[crazy_asylum]

@kid_sinn

you dont even need to open your xbox to softmod it. what your discribing is a tosp flash for a new bios which is unnecessary, but helpful if you want some functionality of a modchip.

all you need is a exploited game save and a memory card with it already on it or an adapter and for hooking the xbox memory card to a computer for action replay and one of the 3 games. all you do is run the game save and follow the simple instructions and your done.

then with flashfxp you can ftp emulators and games over to your xbox, which is what is did until i switched to a new bios to run without a dvd drive.

[17daysolderthannes]

@kid_sinn

you dont even need to open your xbox to softmod it. what your discribing is a tosp flash for a new bios which is unnecessary, but helpful if you want some functionality of a modchip.

all you need is a exploited game save and a memory card with it already on it or an adapter and for hooking the xbox memory card to a computer for action replay and one of the 3 games. all you do is run the game save and follow the simple instructions and your done.

then with flashfxp you can ftp emulators and games over to your xbox, which is what is did until i switched to a new bios to run without a dvd drive.

can you also just transfer stuff via a CD-R or DVD-R? Just trust me when I say that my setup will make it hella awkward to try to plug the XBOX into FTP (TV and computer in different rooms, only PC I have is a laptop but the mac is the server computer etc etc my head hurts). Also, I think the audio exploit sounds the best to me as it is the only one that runs the stock dashboard most of the time until you decide to boot the modded dash. Is there any major drawback to the audio exploit? if not, that's the route I think I want to go.

edit: of all the tutorials I've read, this one is the closest to the method I want to use (Action Replay, Splinter Cell, etc.):

http://www.techfreaks.org/articles/modxbox.shtml

I downloaded the file: Softmod.Installer.Deluxe.v2.0.Xbox-Hq.rar from filefront and it was 17.6 MB, does that sound right?

Is this the XBE mod or whatever the newest version is? Do you know of any potential problems with the method presented there? Also, could someone clear up the difference between the EVO X and Unleash X dashboards? people just say "I like this one" but never really say why or show comparative pictures. Could someone provide a picture of EXACTLY what each looks like (googling it produced several different looking designs).

[crazy_asylum]

edit: of all the tutorials I've read, this one is the closest to the method I want to use (Action Replay, Splinter Cell, etc.):

http://www.techfreaks.org/articles/modxbox.shtml

I downloaded the file: Softmod.Installer.Deluxe.v2.0.Xbox-Hq.rar from filefront and it was 17.6 MB, does that sound right?

Is this the XBE mod or whatever the newest version is? Do you know of any potential problems with the method presented there? Also, could someone clear up the difference between the EVO X and Unleash X dashboards? people just say "I like this one" but never really say why or show comparative pictures. Could someone provide a picture of EXACTLY what each looks like (googling it produced several different looking designs).

that tutorial is fine, its pretty much the same procedure you would go through for any other softmod just with different games and files. you shouldnt have any problems with it.

evo x and unleash x are to me very similar (others may disagree). they both give you functionality with basically the only difference being the way the dash is set up. so its mostly just user preference between the two. i personally dont use either, i use XBMC which is not included in the softmod package. once you've softmodded your box you can change to a number of different dashboards using a slayers boot disk

[17daysolderthannes]

edit: of all the tutorials I've read, this one is the closest to the method I want to use (Action Replay, Splinter Cell, etc.):

http://www.techfreaks.org/articles/modxbox.shtml

I downloaded the file: Softmod.Installer.Deluxe.v2.0.Xbox-Hq.rar from filefront and it was 17.6 MB, does that sound right?

Is this the XBE mod or whatever the newest version is? Do you know of any potential problems with the method presented there? Also, could someone clear up the difference between the EVO X and Unleash X dashboards? people just say "I like this one" but never really say why or show comparative pictures. Could someone provide a picture of EXACTLY what each looks like (googling it produced several different looking designs).

that tutorial is fine, its pretty much the same procedure you would go through for any other softmod just with different games and files. you shouldnt have any problems with it.

evo x and unleash x are to me very similar (others may disagree). they both give you functionality with basically the only difference being the way the dash is set up. so its mostly just user preference between the two. i personally dont use either, i use XBMC which is not included in the softmod package. once you've softmodded your box you can change to a number of different dashboards using a slayers boot disk

ok sounds good, but now I have another problem: the stupid XBOX won't read my CD-R music CDs. I read that only certain brands will work, anyone know which ones? Will I be able to transfer the music via FTP and still be able to use it in games after I soft mod?

[Joes2Silly]

You can transfer music if you keep the original MS dash installed after softmodding the box (dual boot) and you should be able to use it in games. As for your disks not reading, you probably just have a older xbox DVD drive (Thompson) and maybe even a 1.0-1.1 board.....

[17daysolderthannes]

You can transfer music if you keep the original MS dash installed after softmodding the box (dual boot) and you should be able to use it in games. As for your disks not reading, you probably just have a older xbox DVD drive (Thompson) and maybe even a 1.0-1.1 board.....

right, but I've already established that I can't transfer the audio via CD, so I want to know if I can do it via FTP.

[vskid]

Yes, you can transfer anything to a modded xbox with FTP. I'm just not sure if it would work with the MS dash, it would for sure work with XBMC.

[crazy_asylum]

If you want to be able to transfer music using ftp and listen to them on the m$ dash then you just need to save them in either the UDATA or TDATA folders in the E: drive (not sure which it is) but it will need to be in the sub folder with other music files. You can just look around while ftping to find it. if done right then you should see the music in the music blade of the m$ dash.

[17daysolderthannes]

If you want to be able to transfer music using ftp and listen to them on the m$ dash then you just need to save them in either the UDATA or TDATA folders in the E: drive (not sure which it is) but it will need to be in the sub folder with other music files. You can just look around while ftping to find it. if done right then you should see the music in the music blade of the m$ dash.

cool. The only problem is, I would imagine they have to be in .wav or .aiff format, huh? oh, and I should be able to FTP to it using a mac, right? I have an older PC laptop but the hard drive is small and mostly full and the files I would like to put are already on the mac, so it would be easier overall if I could do it straight from the mac.

[vskid]

Yep, FTP is cross platform. I use Filezilla, which has a mac version.