Installing media center on a chipped xbox

[jdogg69]

I am more familiar with softmodding but this i'm not that familiar with. My friend has a v1.6 xbox with an alladin chip in it and he wants to be able to use xbox media center. Right now his xbox just has the M$ dashboard so all it does is plays burnt games. How do I get media center on there so he can watch divx movies, play emulators etc.. I know I will probably be told to use a installer disc such as slayers but is the the only way or the most common way? Also how safe is it ? Any info on this topic would be great, the people here are very knowledgeable and helpful.

[Snipes101]

OOo before i say anything dose he have his eeprom.bin?

Now im not to sure about chips, but here i go

ok know to the xbox, Softmod it with a exploit disk I think would be the best way, don't us disk like salyers and s**t they have nasty bugs. Once softmodded download a cd from are files "Install XBMC CD v2.0 (By Zzk2001).rar" i tested his out with no bugs yet

BUT WAIT FOR SOME MORE OPINIONS CAUSE I DON'T KNOW IF I'M RIGHT OK JUST WAIT TILL SOME ONE ELSE HELPs YOU TOO OK

[jdogg69]

I downloaded slayer's auto installer 2.7 and burned it do a dvd and put it in my xbox just to check it out. There is an option to replace primary dashboard. Could i just pop in the auto installer disc then choose that option or do i have to pick the option wich formats the hard drive first. Could I just ftp into my xbox and replace the C drive with the dashboard of my choice or can you softmod an xbox that has a chip in it already? I basically just want to know the best and safest way to change the dashboard on a xbox that has a chip and that isn't softmodded. . Is it just with a softmodded xbox that you have a M$ dash in your C drive and an alternate dash in your E drive? Anyways any advice would be greatly appreciated. The install disk does have a backup eeprom option wich you can then backup via ftp so that will be the first thing I do before anything else.

[Blink]

Softmods and modchips do the same thing, they just have different methods of doing it.  Softmods patch or replace the microsoft bios that is loaded by software means, and modchips totally bypass the bios and load their own by hardware means. 

Whoever flashed the bios on the aladdin chip probably didnt edit the bios he put on it first.  Check out http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=345835 on how to reflash it.  Most likely you can just use an evox cd to reflash it.   You will first need to figure out which aladdin chip it is, and then we can tell you which bios is best to use.  Basically you edit the bios to tell it what program to load first, which you can set to xbmc, currently it loads a hacked bios but still goes to the msdash.

[Kingofrandom78]

Softmodding does nothing to the bios. If you needed to mess with the bios then how would hotswapping a softmod work?

Softmods just use a buffer overflow with fonts ON THE HDD to boot a different unsigned default.xbe which  doesnt need signed stuff and crap like that.

Chips use a different bios to allow unsigned stuff to be run.

[Kyla666 (zzk2001)]

i really hate to say this BUT

Yachi is right   

My install CD for XBMC is for a SoftMod Only As it replaces the e:/dashboared 

with A chip you have to findout what you're bios Is and setup so it loads the .xbe you want from the Path you Want  Say e:/Dash  then you use a installer Disc Or if in the Chips setting Has FTP you Just FTP over the Dash you Like then Set the Path on the Chip settings

Most chips will have a Option to Boot to Bio settings and have a FTP

[Kingofrandom78]

oh yes im right!

heh, well with a chip they usually replace the xboxdash.xbe because they dont need it, softmods do need it to load the fonts and crap....

just check yer bios as zzk said and it shud tell you were the dash is loaded from.

[jdogg69]

Thanks for all your help.

[Blink]

A quick look into how a softmod works, will let you know that the bios is actually patched (look up nkpatcher for specifics).  But back to the question at hand.  It will depend on the amount of flash memory on the chip for which bios to use.  Id use the X2 bios (512k i think) if itll fit.  Its got a config file you can leave on the hdd and just edit that when you need to change what boots first and other bios config stuff, instead of having to reflash the chip everytime you want to make a change to the bios.