SING XBL & KINGROACH's NDURE PC INSTALLER
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Disclaimer
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All information on this website is for informational purpose only and is
provided "AS IS". Everything you do with this information is at your own
risk.
Everything done on this project is for the sole purpose of supporting
interoperable software under Sect. 1201 (f) Reverse Engineering exception
of the DMCA.
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Prerequisites
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Skill Level: Intermediate
You should be somewhat familiar with PC internals. That is to say, you have
some hands-on experience opening up a PC case and changing or removing an
IDE (aka ATA) hard disk, and know how to difference between 'primary',
'secondary', 'master' and 'slave'.
You should be familiar with burning raw CD images.
You should know how to create zip files.
Your brain should have normal oxygenated blow flow and be free of
alcoholic and narcotic substances.
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Rational
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A retail X-Box hard disk is locked with a ATA security password. This is a
password generated from the combination of a secret 'key' value on the
EEPROM and the hard disk's serial number. These two values are unique
across all X-Boxes, which is the reason why an X-Box hard disk cannot be
unlocked with any EEPROM other than its own.
X-Box disks also have their own special disk partitioning format and
filesystem. So you can't fdisk or format the disk in a typical Windows PC.
Therefore, you can't just get any old disk and fit it into the X-Box and
expect it to work. It needs to be X-Box partitioned, FATX formatted,
preloaded with a softmod, then locked with the EEPROM.
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Tools Needed
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- A desktop PC (laptops *might* work if it has a means of hotswapping 3.5
inch IDE hard disks) that supports CD booting (practically all modern
ones do). Minimum requirements for the PC are: Pentium, 64MB RAM, VESA
compatible video, has IDE hard disk ports, keyboard, mouse and Ethernet).
- XBL (
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl). At least version 0.1.12a.
- A couple of blank writable/re-writable CD/DVDs.
- Torx 20 and Torx 10 screwdrivers.
- Your X-Box EEPROM.
- Your spanking new hard disk.
- Either Kingroach's NDURE PC installer 3.0 OR xbl_ndure_installer-1.0
(don't ask where to download).
- Retail MS dashboard 5960 (likewise, don't ask).
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Instructions
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1. First, make sure the disk you have (or going to obtain) is compatible
with the X-Box. Head over to
http://xboxdrives.x-pec.com/ to find out.
2. If you softmodded your X-Box by following my "SOFTMODDING AN X-BOX BY
HOTSWAPPING" tute and you created the recovery xbl CD at the end, you
can reuse this CD and skip to step 8.
3. Extract XBL zip file.
Create a new folder (I'll call it "softmod" for this tute). Unzip the
XBL zip file you downloaded into "softmod".
4. Prepare the softmod files on your PC.
You have two options here: either make use of a pre-generated softmod
package (xbl_ndure_installer-1.0) or run Kingroach NDURE PC
Installer and generate the softmod package yourself so you can customize
various aspects of the softmod. If you're new to softmodding, using the
pre-generated package is recommended.
a. Using pre-generated softmod package (xbl_ndure_installer).
Simply copy the file named "xpkg.zip" found inside the
xbl_ndure_installer zip file into the "out\extras" sub-folder
inside"softmod" (the folder you extracted the xbl zip into earlier).
b. Generating the files using Kingroach NDURE PC Installer.
Create a new folder (can be named anything, but we will refer to it as
"kroach" for this tute).
Run the Kingroach installer, a Windows style install menu should appear
with a bunch of checkboxes in it. Check the following...
- Basic Files
- Retail Files
- Add Shadowc
- Kernel specific fonts (select only the number that corresponds to
your BIOS version, check your dashboard settings if you're unsure
what your BIOS is, leave the rest unchecked).
- Add Ndure Toolset
When the installer prompts for an install folder, use "kroach" that
was created earlier.
Now using your favourite zipping program, zip up the C and E that is
inside "kroach" into a zip file named xbox.zip (must be named this).
Move the just-created xbox.zip into the "out\extras" sub-folder inside
"softmod" (the folder you extracted the xbl zip into earlier).
5. Backup your EEPROM (shame on you if you haven't done so), and put
the eeprom.bin into "extras" sub-folder.
WARNING: MAKE SURE THE EEPROM IS REALLY FROM THE X-BOX YOU'RE
TRYING TO UPGRADE OR THE X-BOX WILL NOT UNLOCK YOUR HARD DISK.
6. Check the layout of your retail dash zip. If must be named "ms-c.zip".
If your copy is not in a zip format, you will have to extract it and rezip
it as "ms-c.zip". Note that the retail dash zip must have entries that
begin with "C\". eg...
C\xboxdash.xbe
C\xodash\
C\Audio
...and so on.
If not, you will need to create a folder named "C" and extract the contents
in there, and then zip up the "C" folder to get the correct file layout.
Move "ms-c.zip" into the "out\extras" sub-folder inside the "softmod" folder.
7. At this point, "out\extras" should contain ms-c.zip, eeprom.bin and
xbox.zip or xpkg.zip (depending on the method you used).
Double-click make_iso.bat in the "softmods" folder to generate an ISO file
named xbl.iso and burn xbl.iso to a CD as a raw image (make sure it's
IMAGE!!!).
8. Disconnect all existing IDE hard disks from the PC.
9. Set the X-Box hard disk to primary master and connect to PC.
10. Boot up PC with the xbl CD. Select option 2 at the boot menu (type "2"
without the quotes at the boot prompt). This should boot up the
graphical interface.
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_intro_2.png)
See "Troubleshooting" if you have mouse, keyboard or display issues.
11. Right-click on the desktop and select the "Partition X-Box Disk"
option. A dialog box will popup with the list of hard disks connected to the
system.
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_disk_select_1.png)
If you've followed this guide properly, /dev/hda should be the only
entry there. If multiple disks show, then you have not disconnected
your existing disk. This isn't a problem, as long as you know which
disk is your upgrade disk. If no disks show, then you didn't connect the
hard disk properly, or the disk might be malfunctioning.
12. Right-click on the desktop and reboot (you may have to press the reboot
button if the system doesn't reboot). When the system comes up again,
select option 2 again.
13. Right-click on the desktop and select "Format X-Box disk". Select the
disk and click OK.
14. Right-click on the desktop and select "Remove Softmod Package" (that's
not a mistake, removing a softmod is really just installing the retail
dashboard and overwriting whatever is in the disk, precisely what we're
trying to do here).
Select the hard disk and select "all_auto" when prompted for a method.
Click "OK".
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_instmod_select_method.png).
Click "Yes" when prompted with the confirmation screen.
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_unmod_confirm.png).
The installer will verify the retail dash,
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_unmod_verify.png).
and install the dash (may take some time)
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_unmod_extract.png).
Once done you will see a success notification message.
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_unmod_ok.png).
15. Right-click on the desktop and select "Install Softmod Package".
Select the hard disk. Next for method, select "xboxhd_auto" if you're
using softmod files you generated yourself from Kingroach NDURE PC
Installer. Select "xblpkg_auto" if you used the pre-generated
xbl_ndure_installer. Click OK.
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_instmod_select_method.png).
The installer will verify the softmod package and backup the existing dashboard to X:,
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_instmod_verify.png).
Choose the BIOS (kernel) version that corresponds to your X-Box:
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_instmod_select_bios.png).
The installer will then extract the files (will take some time, don't close the window).
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_instmod_extract.png).
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_instmod_shadowc_gauge.png).
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_instmod_filler_gauge.png).
If all went well, you will a success notification screen.
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_instmod_ok.png).
16. Right-click on the desktop and reboot (you may have to press the
reboot button if the system doesn't reboot). When the system comes up
again, select option 1 this time.
17. Right-click on the desktop and select "Lock Disk". When prompted for a
locking method, select "Automatic".
(Screenshot:
http://smdx2.com:9000/~xbugs/xbl/screenshots/xbl_lockdisk_select_method.png)
You will get a success notification message if the locking was successful.
See "Troubleshooting" if you get locking errors.
18. Right-click on the desktop and shutdown the PC. Put the disk back into
the X-Box.
19. When the X-Box boots into UnleashX, go to Systems -> Settings ->
Storage. Enable F: and save the settings. Then, from the main menu,
go to Systems -> Format Menu. The password is "Xbox" (without the
quotes, and case sensitive) when prompted for one. Select format F:
Use the UnleashX file explorer and check if F: appears. It should show
the balance space of the upgraded disk.
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Troubleshooting
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- The keyboard/mouse doesn't work in xbl.
If you have a USB mouse, you need to boot option 2 as
"2 xbl_ui_mouse=/dev/input/mice".
If you have a serial mouse, you need to boot option 2 as
"2 xbl_ui_mouse=/dev/ttyS0" (this is if the mouse is on COM1, replace
ttyS0 with ttyS1 for COM2, ttyS2 for COM3 and ttyS3 for COM4).
If you have a USB keyboard/mouse and it doesn't get detected, then the
hardware autodetection wasn't able to pick it up. Try appending
"xbl_drv_list=usb-uhci,usb-ohci,ehci-hcd" (without the quotes) to the
boot option.
Firewire devices are not supported.
Note: the boot options are case-sensitive. ie xbl_ui_mouse is not the
same as XBL_UI_MOUSE or Xbl_UI_Mouse.
- The video appears garbled.
Your monitor probably doesn't support the default display resolution
(800x600x16). Try overriding the default by appending
"xbl_ui_screen=640x480x16" (replace "640x480x16 by whatever mode that
your display supports).
- I can't get the hard disk to lock. Complains about the disk being
frozen.
A hard disk is "frozen" when it disables itself from receiving
security related commands from the CPU until the next reboot. Some PC
BIOSes freeze the disk as a security measure to prevent malware
(viruses, trojans etc) from locking your disk and then holding you
hostage with the password. To overcome this, do not plug in the IDE
ribbon of the disk when your PC is booting. Do it only at the boot
menu of the live CD which you are using.
- I get invalid EEPROM errors when trying to lock/unlock the disk.
Your EEPROM file is corrupted. Perform the EEPROM backup again and
recreate the xbl CD.
- I get errors about not being able being able to access extras/xbox.zip
on the CD/DVD.
You either forgot to copy xbox.zip to the "extras" folder before
creating the ISO or named it wrongly. Check the "extras" folder again.
- I get package verification errors when installing the dashboard
(uininstalling softmod) or when installing the softmod.
The zip files have the wrong file layout. Make sure the zip contains
the "C" folder and not just the sub-folders and files.
If the layout is correct. then your CD was improperly burnt, causing
corrupted files.
- I get disk full errors when installing the softmod.
Your ms-c.zip (retail dashboard is likely zipped in the wrong format).
Make sure the zip contains the "C" folder and not just the sub-folders
and files.
- I've successfully installed the softmod, but I get an error on boot
(or the system freezes).
If you're getting error 5, you have not locked the disk successfully.
If you're getting error 6, you locked the disk with the incorrect EEPROM.
If you've chosen to run the Kingroach NDURE PC Installer setup,
make sure you've selected the correct kernel version or "generic" at
the setup menu.
Check the layout of the the xbox.zip. The C and E folders should be
part of the top-level file structure. eg. You should have something like
the following in the zip listing...
C\xodash\
C\xodash\ernie.xtf
C\xodash\XBox.xtf
... (more files here) ...
C\xboxdash.xbe
C\xb0xdash.xbe
... (more files here) ...
E\dash\default.xbe
E\dash\Config.xml
... (more files here) ...
E\ndts\default.xbe
E\ndts\UnleashX.xbe
... (more files here) ...
In other words, all the entries should start with either "C\" or "E\".
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