How to softmod your xbox...for FREE

This instructable will show you how you can convert your normal xbox into a super crazy multimedia, avi , mp3 playing GOD...All without a mod chip...This also allows you to still be able play on xbox live. All you needs is a computer, a cd burner and a torx 20 screwdriver: will go into this in a later step.

**NOTE: I am not responsible for any damage that may be caused while attempting anything in this tutorial. If you attempt in doing this, you do so at your own risk. If something gets broken, it's only your own fault and you should not blame anybody. Please notice that according to ANSI standards, hotswapping is not considered safe and is therefore only recommended if you cannot find another way to modify your Xbox.:**

Do everything in this video and much more:

Step 1 Materials:

Xbox
Desktop PC with an ATA connection NOT SATA
CD Recorder in your PC
Blank CD-R
ISO Recorder v2(Or any other program to burn ISOs to cds)
WinRAR or the very awesome and free 7-zip
XboxHDM v1.9 (Scrow down to download it)
Kingroach's NDURE 3.0 (Scrow down to download it) or go here NDURE 3.0
Torx 20 Screwdriver for opening the xbox
Whatever is needed to open up your computer case
Some intelligence and patience

Download the necessary files from above. Install ISO Recorder and WinRAR. After WinRAR is installed, use it to extract xboxhdm.

Comments

[liquidice]

after suffering for hours trying to unlock my HDD, I figured I would tell everyone what I've learned and what this tutorial doesnt mention. Ive learned that if you swap the IDE cables AFTER your PC has booted up, it wont detect the xbox drive.

1st step: unplug dvd ribbon on xbox.

2nd step: turn on PC, boot to your bios (we're doing this so the pc wont boot all they way yet)

3rd step: turn on xbox and the instant u see the red ring, unplug the IDE for the hard drive (be fast, yet gentle), then plug in ur primary IDE from PC. if it didnt work, u were either too fast or too slow, try again.

4th step: exit bios, let PC boot to CD. Then press 1, type xbrowser. if all goes well, u should see a directory of files on the xbox hard drive.

5th step: finish tutorial, and crack open a beer, you earned it ;)

if this tutorial had mentioned to connect the pc-xbox BEFORE the PC posts, I'd have saved me a few hours and a headache >.<

[dfalk]

Does I need a game to do this?

[tekjay]

hey i got error 07 after doing this, any tips to make this error go away?

[saucygamer]

This worked for me but there were a couple of tips I want to share: first off, be sure the CD/DVD disc you burn is readable by the drive that is installing NDURE. Not thinking, I used a 10yr old drive and it failed on a couple of critical files and I had to rebuild my XBOX hard drive and do other nasty stuff.

Also, for me, generating error 12 was a great method to unlock my hard drive but it can be tricky to get: dont pull out the DVD drive cable until about halfway through the startup animation or you will instead get error 11 and the HDD wont be unlocked.

[cowboymiller]

hey guys, i hope people are still reading these comments.
So i followed the tut to the T the first time and it worked like a charm (minus using a diff method to unlock the drive)
Got myself a 250gb drive, and aout 50 of my Fav games on the drive along with a dedicated FTP stream of movies for the XMBC. its amazing.
So i thought i would get a couple cheap xboxs and do this to them for the rest of the house (lots of kids)
I felt confident i had memorized the entire tut so i proceeded with out it on the 1st xbox. low and behold it didn't work, unlock worked, install of ndure work however when the box restarted, i only got the splash screen then a black screen.
it will play games from the CD still but will NOT boot without a GAME in the drive.
Still able to unlock the drive and access is it from the boot cd with the browser, but when i try to restore from the backup, it errors saying either no disk space OR read only file system. So not able to restore from backup, then with out thinking, i tried it again and it wiped out the backup and created a backup of the broken system.
after racking my brain for weeks i realized that i had totally used the original BOOT CD i had created which I'm guessing was the wrong kernel.
This is Xbox 2. is there ANYWAY to fix this HD?
This brings me to the 3rd xbox, i discovered the problem with the kernels AFTER attempting the same thing on the 3rd box. so kinda in the same delima however this one is still unlockable but ill NOT boot to any game or theHD, just a service 21 error. When i look at the drive with the browser i can see the backup is still intact but will not let me restore it, giving the same disk space error or READ only error. Is there a way to fix this one?? please if ANYONE has some answers that would be great. other wise its a loss of $100 on my part. Expensive mistake I'm trying to fix. i did however get a lot of games and accessories out of that $100 hope to hear from someone.

[bbear4]

It worked for me! Thanks for making it vzjrz

[b37ho]

i have a problem whit my xbox classis, how to install software in new hardisk in xbox classic. PLEASE HELP ME, Thank`s

[Pinny89]

PLEASE someone help...
i follow the instructions to the letter, my XBox HDD is unlocked etc. i made the boot disk with the ndure script and when i enter XBROWSER i see the ndure script there but when i try to start it, it just says "no such file in directory"

i tried to make the ndure script into .exe, .bat, nothing works, just the same old error... but when i hit F3 i can view the script and i can edit it...

please help, im loosing my mind trying to figure this out :/

[pspuser924]

I couldnt get it running until i read this:
easiest way i found to unlock the drive is to disconnect the ribbon from the dvd player and also its power cable.

use a molex from your pc to power the xbox HDD.

now boot the pc into xboxhdm and turn on the xbox.

once the xbox has booted it will give you the "xbox needs service" screen, when this shows up you need to swap ata cables.

dont do it like the tut suggests as i tried all ways mentioned and it just would not unlock, my way unlocks first time everytime.

[adamvan2000]

This worked awesome, dude! Thanks for the helpful tip. On my way to having an xbox linux server. Bwahahahahaha! in yer face, MS!

[bkhabir]

Please how can i vonvert my x box so that i can download game to it.... Please help me out

[tylerwatt12]

wow. that actually works cant believe it. i tried every other method... and not having an xbox controller with me didnt help either lol. i found this xbox in the dumpster XD

[thellt]

well hello tyler i found you lol. its helti.... im moding my xbox 2. XD

[tylerwatt12]

need help?

[pspuser924]

It's sad how these perfectly operational systems end up in the dump. They make an awesome dvd player.

[sonicfan10312]

i find it funny when people think macafe and avast are good avg hasnt said a thing.

[bkhabir]

Hello..... Please i am tired of buying disc on my x box can you please help me out i really want to know how to convert it and download games on it and the software to down and steps to take please if any suggestion mail me into my mail [e-mail]

[pspuser924]

Follow the tutorial, don't get frustrated, and try snesorama for the games.

[bkhabir]

Please how can i vonvert my x box so that i can download game to it.... Please help me out

[noizetank]

HI Guys

I have managed to lock my deagate drive, followed all your instructions and half way through hotswap (After Ihad saved C drive) the processed errored and stopped.
Now I get red lights when i turn XB on. How do i sortr this out, and what could have gone wrong?
Thanks in advance

[ssetnicky]

I tried to download NDURE 3.0 and Avast! says it's a Decompression Bomb. I'm not touching that file!

[jas330]

i have avast nothing happended so its prob safe i also scanned it with mcaffe and avast

[acevell]

Ok I made a bad I installed it all correctly but I may have deleted my m$ dash file because I can't return to the ms dashboard when I hot swapped I made a back up my question is can I restore the xbox to retail state with the back up?if so can anyone fill me in on how?Thanks a million

[hansley]

my cd didn't boot why? help plzz!thx

[theend757]

Did you follow the guide to make the ISO. What software did you use to burn the ISO?

[jsleight]

I somehow broke my dashboard doing this. Is there anyway to fix this? I got errors when it tried installing ndure onto the xbox and then the next time i turn it on i got an error everytime the dash tried to load. I can't restore the c backup either because i didn't restore before trying the install again and it saved my broken c image as the backup.

[jsleight]

So i found out this is just a terrible way to softmod your xbox. MUCH BETTER WAY: Download the files of a previously modded xbox. Check torrentz, they are there. Also download xplorer360(if you windows 7 google for how to get it to work). Hotswap your xbox by unplugging the dvd player power and ata cable, turn on the xbox and as soon as the front light turns red unplug the hard drive ata cable and plug in an ata cable going from your primary ata on your computer. Open up xplorer, select your xbox and delete everything in it's harddrive folders. Then transfer all the files from your torrent download into the applicable drives on your xbox. Uplug it from your computer reconnect everything and your xbox is modded. No boot bs required. Only issue is that xplorer 360 will hang sometimes, so expect to close and restart it often.

[robc_calif]

(removed by author or community request)

[jsleight]

I tried a copy of halo 2 to fix it. Unfortunately everytime it tries to run xbox live I get an error it says it has to restart to access the dashboard and it just restarts halo 2 again. So i just end up in an infinite loop.

[robc_calif]

Can you FTP your xbox from anouther computer? If so You can rebuild orginal Dash. I have a copy of Last Orginal updated Xbox Dash in a zip file "I ruined mine once". A simple unzip and and copy to Dash Directory. let me know I we can work you upload.

[jsleight]

I can't use ftp without modding it first I believe.

I am able to connect to it through xplorer360.

[robc_calif]

Hey what ever you do do not erase or format hard drive, you are OK!!!! Rebuilt your ndure from begining, the install process does not over write your the hard disk key and more, and this alone saved me my first try!!! I lost video and saw nothing and yet could load a game and play. You are not lost yet, redo ndure setup with the instructions here reduced so you can read them on screen and can see ndure setup at same time. You may have missed a step. My XBOX has worked great but was not easy.

[theend757]

Seem like a lot of people are little confuse with the hot swap. I made a little simple picture. This is when you ready to hot swap.

First
Where you need to be and xbox and computer must be on when hot swap
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/838/sany1874.jpg/

Second when you hot swap
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/sany1862.jpg/

[jflores12]

I need help. I have tried to use the hotswap method to fix error 21, but no luck.): I do have the EEPROM that I got from an EEPROM Reader. I couldn't backup through FTP because it wouldnt let me.

[patun]

i cant play the video.. :(

[psnyder1]

hey guys.. im not 'new' to modding (i softmodded my wii a few months back) but for sum reason when i try to boot off the xboxhdm disk, my pc says boot disk fail, insert and press enter blah blah blah. ive tried to reburn the iso image on 5 different disks using 2 different computers and 3 different burning programs.. i feel kinda dumb cuz i cant figure this out.. but i really would love any pointers. can someone please help?

[jvanwyk]

anybody tried ndure 3.1?

[robc_calif]

OH! If this 62 year old man can do it you can too!

[ryguy425425]

Looks like I'm really unlucky. I got to the xbrowser step, but it gave me an error when I went to run the ndure script. I tried to burn the reburn the cd, but with the new disk I could not get my drive to unlock. I put the xbox back together, and now with everything put back together I get an error 6 when I try to turn on the xbox, which means that the drive can not be unlocked. Is there any way to fix this?

[robc_calif]

Yes there is, if have a copy of HDDKEY.Bin, if not and you can not hotswap the HD again, then you have a hard disk paperweight. Seagate has a program available to download where you can disable locking but I do not know if this means after removing security you will still have the data left on drive. If after the diableing of security and the data still is accessable you would still need a lockable hard drive to replace it and then use the Seagate program to set "USER" password to match HDDKEY.Bin Code. A program/bin reader is available to read the HDDKEY.Bin and tell you the password to enter to make the hard drive work.