How to softmod your xbox...for FREE

Step 6 The Art of HotSwapping

Hot swapping is the act of allowing the xbox to unlock the hard drive, so that you can gain access to it, by connecting it to a PC. It involves removing the IDE ribbon from the Drive, while it is power on.

Ok so you removed the xbox top (using the 6 Torx screws on the bottom) and set this as close to the pc you can get it. ATTENTION The Xbox must have the Video Molex connector connected to the xbox to unlock the hard drive, IT HOWEVER doesnt need to be hooked to the TV, just the xbox.

For a hotswap to be successful the Xbox hard drive needs to be unlocked. This can be done by simply doing this:
- put an audio cd in the xbox
- copy one track to the hd
- play the track from the HD, let play for a few seconds
- pause the song
- you HDD is now ready for hotswap!

More ways to unlock the drive:
1. Let the Xbox sit at the dash for a little while and then hotswap
2. Play a music track off of a soundtrack, pause it, then hotswap
3. Boot a game and start playing it, then hotswap
4. Unplug the DVD drive's power cable so you get an error 12 and hotswap
5. Hotswap right after you see the MS splash logo
6. If not connected to a TV, unhook the DVD drive's power cable and hotswap right when you get the red light.

Imagine this if you can:
You have both your computer and your xbox next to each other. The xbox is open so that you can easily disconnect the cables inside. Now turn on both your computer (the primary IDE slot should be empty and the secondary slot should be with your cd drive) and your xbox. You should be booting your computer from the ndure cd. Now once your xbox finishes loading, go to the music tab and play a song for 5 minutes. After five minutes disconnect the IDE cable from the back of your xbox and connect it to the primary IDE slot on your computer BUT DO NOT TURN OFF THE XBOX or DISCONNECT THE POWER CABLE from the xbox hard drive. Now on your computer type xbrowser and see if your computer is unlocked.

After making the swap, type 1 on the keyboard to enter the VGA console. (1 and 2 are basically the same thing) After the scrolling text, you should eventually end up at a screen like this(Picturte2):

Type xbrowser and you should see a screen that looks like this:


+<-/CD/----------------------------------------------------v>++<-/xbox----------------------------------v>+
|              Name                      | Size       | MTime         ||      Name     | Size        |   MTime       |
|/..                                            |UP--DIR|                       ||/..                    |UP--DIR |                      |
| ABOUT_THIS_CD.txt        |      1392|Apr 14 17:48|| C                   |       4096|Apr 14 17:48|
| C                                           |      4096|Apr 14 17:30|| E                   |       4096|Apr 14 17:48|
| E                                           |      4096|Apr 14 17:30||                       |                 |                      |
| eeprom                               |             0|Apr 14 17:30||                        |                |                      |
| F                                           |      4096|Apr 19 02:13||                        |                |                      |
| check                                  |       6013|Apr 18 21:47||                        |                |                      |
| isolinux                               |      4096|Apr 14 17:30||                        |                 |                      |
| ndure                                  |                |                       ||                        |                 |                      |
| readme.txt                          |                |                       ||                        |                 |                      |
| xbox                                     |                |                       ||                        |                 |                      |
|                                              |                |                       ||                        |                 |                      |
|                                              |                |                       ||                        |                 |                      |
|                                              |                |                       ||                        |                 |                      |
+--------------------------------------------- -----------------++------------------------------------------------+
|/..                                                                                    ||/..                     |                 |                      |
+---------------------------------------------------------------++------------------------------------------------+
GNU Midnight Commander 4.6.0
$
1Help   2Menu   3View   4Edit   5Copy   6RenMov   7Mkdir   8Delete   9PullDn   10Quit


Go into thendure folder and you should see this screen(Picture 3):

Hit enter on the *ndure script and you will be presented with the NDURE Installer Menu.
First, you will want to backup your C drive. This is very important. So choose Option 4 to backup your C drive to E:/backup. It may take awhile, but let it finish. When it's done, it should go back to the installer menu.
Now, we're ready to install Ndure. Select option 1 to install ndure. It will proceed through the 3 parts. Be patient, this process takes a long time (around 15 minutes or more). Part 2 takes the longest. Even if you think it might have frozen, let it go. There have been many times where I was wondering if it had froze, and then just see it finish up.
After all 3 parts, it should give you a message saying "Done, now exiting". At this point, you can turn off your computer and turn off your Xbox. Connect the hard drive back into your Xbox, and if everything went well, you now have a softmodded Xbox running Kingroach's NDURE 3.0. And the best part about all of this is it was free!

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 >.<

[tekjay]

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

[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.

[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.

[ryguy425425]

I got it somewhat figured out. I first bought another xbox and soft modded using the gamesave method (In my opinion a lot easier and safer). I threw in a 40 Gig HDD I had sitting around. Then I got bored one day and decided to attempt an EEPROM reader to recover the HDD Key. It took a few tries, but it worked. I then just unlocked the original HDD from the new xbox I bought, and locked it to the broken xbox. Worked perfectly, and it was even pre softmodded! I did end up losing all the data on the original xbox, as it's HDD is now a paperweight, but I do have 2 working xboxes!
For anyone who had the same problem as me:
http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/Reading_Xbox_Hdd_key.htm

[armadaskier4123]

Okay, so everything works fine for me except for when I boot into xboxhdm on my pc it holds on the linux boot screen. This happens every single time I try this. I am using a very new computer WITH usb 3.0 on it. I know the drive is unlocked because when I boot up my pc the bios starts a ide scan and every time I hotswap correctly, the drive is detected, and when I do it incorrectly, the drive isn't connected. So, please, please, can somebody help me help me on this... I have spent ours on edge trying to get this project done....

[ohainou]

Alright, so I was amongst the group that had errors. I had the Linux can't find your CD, please reinsert. I am running a pretty new Phenom II X6 computer I built. My DVD burner is an External USB drive. I did everything correct to this point and fired up the CD and hit option 1. Just wasn't finding my DVD drive (said checking dev/hda through dev/hdh). I honestly think that it went through all my SATA ports (have 6) and through my PATA port (two devices). USB wasn't included.

So....I went to an old HP Pavillion P4 I had stashed in the corner. Pulled it out and tried it there. I have my CD-ROM drive on PATA on that PC. It worked! So I believe your DVD/CD ROM drive can't be USB.

Also, I did the unplug power from DVD drive method. I will say it does work. You have to be very precise on your timing otherwise the drive re-locks itself. I counted 6 seconds (roughly) from when the green light turns on until it turns red. Pull AS SOON as you see the light hit red. From there connect to your PC as usual. You'll obviously know if the drive is locked (the CD will tell you). Took me two tries.

[slayernine]

I had a similar issue with a usb CD/DVD drive, then I tried a sata CD/DVD drive and had the same issue. Works perfectly with old IDE CD drive. Kinda silly but it pays off having an old crap computer to do this with.

[wiibrewer]

How long should it take for linux to boot? mine hangs for like 5 minutes at "Usb 2.0 enabled". If it matters I also have usb 3.0 ports on my computer if that has anything to do with it.

[waka]

Wow, thank-you for the very helpful tutorial! I have to say, the hardest part was unlocking the HD. I did this thanks to some users posts (thanks to bradtricker and others).

The very trick is to turn on your PC and press the "pause key" before the PC detects the drives. Now, unplug the xbox's DVD power cable and turn on the XBOX (keep in mind that the XBOX HD is still connected to the XBOX ribbon cable and power supply) you will receive an error, now quickly pull the XBOX ribbon cable smoothly and evenly out of the XBOX HD and connect the ribbon cable from your PC to your XBOX HD (connect it to the end of the ribbon cable so it is the last drive on the cable. Its also helpful not to have anything else connected to the cable)

Now that you have connected your unlocked XBOX HD to your PC ribbon cable, you can press the space bar on your keyboard to abort the pause process you started earlier. Your PC will now detect the XBOX HD and you can then boot from the CDROM you created earlier. If you see any read errors during the CDROM boot process from /dev/hda then your drive is still locked. Try the process over again until its unlocked. Remember that rebooting your PC during any process will re-lock your HD. I also recommend you download ConfigMagic and FTP it into your XBOX HD and run it. It has the option to backup your EEPROM to a file. This is usefull for upgrading your HD later.

[bombdigitay939]

Just wanted to say thank you and give a little insight for all the noobs, who had just about literally no idea about hotswapping and such things. The only technique I tried that worked -- Xbox setup -- 1. DVD Drive IDE Cable Unplugged PC Setup- 1. PC Hooked Up To Its Own HardDrive At Start Of PC HotSwap -- 1. Turn on xbox and watch the green light around the eject button, have your hand ready to pull out the IDE cable on the harddrive in the xbox, The MOMENT you see the green light turn red, yank it out fast. 2. Turn on pc, right after pressing the power button, grab the IDE cable out of the PC's harddrive, and put it in the xbox's drive. 3. If you set it up right to where it boots from the cd, the rest is in this tutorial. Also, for anyone who had the issue with the CD copy thing, mine didn't work, but i tried the button combo stated below -- RT+LT+Black+Start -- and it loaded up unleashed just fine. Hope this helps anyone else who might have had issues.

[xXGrimReaperXx]

Wow after two days I finally got it to work. I knew all the right steps, I just didn't do them together until now. I was using an old Dell Inspiron 3000. I wanted to give a big thanks to everyone here and especially gman (your post was the last I read before I got it working.) I first turned on the Xbox and pulled out the IDE quickly when I saw the Microsoft logo (All pins at once, not half and half.) I then booted up the live cd WITH my pc hard drive as the master/primary drive. When the cd asked "1.... , 2.... , 3.... , 4...." i QUICKLY unplugged my pc hard drive and plugged in the xbox hd. I then hit '1'. Then I closely watched for the "hda: ST1004..." then for the first time no errors. Then typed in 'xbrowser' and the rest was just as the instructions said :). Hope this comment helps someone.

[feveron]

Thanks so much for the tutorial!!! I finally softmodded my xbox and got it to run smoothly. I went through all the trouble just for one game, Ninja Gaiden Black. My set was NTSC and the game I bought from ebay was PAL. So I had no choice but to softmod again after screwing it up last time converting back to retail msdash. Anyway, for those who experienced error 21 upon powering up, I suggest pressing soft reset on the controller a few times after you power on (press the back, start, white & black buttons simultaneously). It should boot to UnleashX dashboard. If not, hotswap again and use the command xboxhd instead of xbrowser. I used xbrowser in the first place to install the ndure (using both options 1 & 2), but all I get is the error 21. Then I tried using xboxhd to rebuilt the xbox hard drive from scratch. It proceeded to format the drive and partitions, and copied all the contents from the ndure folder into C: partition. I supposed this step is the same as using xbrowser, only that your hard drive will be reformatted. So if you got files you want to backup, do so via FTP first. Then after using xboxhd to install ndure, restore all your backups.

[herocreator]

Everytime I run *ndure I get an error message that says: \ndure: 1: Syntax error newline unexpected. Anyone else have this problem?

[375948]

the website link in step 3 is broken. you need to download the script attached to the bottom of step 3 and use that instead

[Johnny2good]

lol all done booted up straight away nieszzzz now to figure out how to use it lmao thanx bro..

[bradtricker]

************HERE IS HOW TO DO IT**************

The key is to hit pause/break upon initial PC start up.

[PHiSiX]

the linux screen loads up etc. all fine, but when i typ: xboxhd it says the cd is not inserted ? help!

[apelsinapa]

This part was really bitching for me. I was getting error: "linux cd not found" when i did xbrowser. This was really enoying cause i was on it for about an hour.
Tested alot of methods for hotswapping, and everything failed.
I tried all this on my core2duo regular work station and failed all the time.

THOUGH!

I switched computer to my http/ftp/vpn private server which runs on a celeron 1ghz processor with a main board from 2001. It worked first try!

Also worth mentioning that i used the method where you disconnect the ide connector for the xbox dvd to get a "error 12" directly when booting the xbox.

[yuvinmw]

Huys can anyone plz help me without my xbox im screwed. here r my problems

1 i did the hotswap succesfly and backed the c drive up like u said

2 Now i got a big problem. the installed installed ndure and on step 2 it wen t for a while but in 5min an error came up saying no space to copy file/harddisk is full
3 so i exited the installer i booted up my xbox and the blue X logo didnt come it was green but instead of going to the original dash it went to and uleash x dash without doing anything.
4 i checked for apps or games and there is nothing there options work. it says 0.00 mb free on C: 

PLZZZZZZ Help me i dont want my xbox Screwed plzzzz my email: [e-mail] plzzz help

[gixxer61108]

i think u should be able to ssh into the xbox with filezilla or something at this point and and just drag and drop the xbmc folder into it.

[yuvinmw]

srry to question u but whats ssh (im a noob) and where\how do i drag and drop the xmbc folder when theres no space on c:/ . i also cant play movies/dvd or audio cds from my dvd drive plzzz help. thx alot in advance

[yuvinmw]

srry to question u but whats ssh (im a noob) and where\how do i drag and drop the xmbc folder when theres no space on c:/ . i also cant play movies/dvd or audio cds from my dvd drive plzzz help. thx alot in advance

[Razorblade_]

Actually is not "01", but "07",  "hdd timeout".

[Razorblade_]

Hi guys, I need some help.
After trying hotswapping, something went wrong, and now my xbox gives error "01". Unfortunatelly, I did not unlocked xbox hd.
If now I try to connect xbox hd to my pc ( after post ) and boot xboxhd, after I press "1" it says:

hda IRQ probe failed

And also both "xboxhd" and "xbrowser" command says hda not found.

Does anybody know what "hda IRQ probe failed" means? What is error 01?
Having this error, can I still try to hotswap or now my xbox doesn't send password to the xbox hd anymore?

Thanks in advance.

[JonnyBoy18]

Okay I have no idea why but I would get error 11 instead of 12, BUT I did finally get it to work. I left the power cable connected to the Xbox DVD drive but had the IDE cable disconnected from it. I had to used the "Pause/Break" key to pause my compuer during post, then hot swap, and then let it continue through post and to XboxHDM. It is also smart to have your computer powering the Xbox hard drive so that you can turn off your Xbox while the Ndure files are being copied. 

[rydog25822]

Ok i am completely at a loss. I have read every comment and still cannot figure out my problem. I cannot for the life of me get the hotswap done right. I get to the press option 1 part and it tells me no linux CD found. Please help. [e-mail]

[rydog25822]

Ok. Good news all. I finally got the hotswap to work, if you unplug the cd drive on the xbox the cable and the power then turn it on and wait for the error 12 to come up it WILL work, but you have to pull the cable out of the back of the xbox at the exact time the light turns red, works everytime. My problem now is when i get to setup screen there is no ndure folder lol, so i will reburn the disk and try agian. If you need help with the hotswap let me know, my machine also has Sata and one IDE but i found a way around that. Thanks will keep you updated. [e-mail]

[galori]

 I was having trouble getting xbrowser to find my drive too. The two things that finally helped me:

- booting the PC connecting to a different HD (still booting off the CD, but just having the HD connected while it boots)
- Using the "disconnect XBOX DVD IDE cable" method with the error 12, but the key is to disconnect the XBOX HD as soon as the red light flashes, don't wait. I think the hard drive re-locks if you wait.

[berzerk_juggalo]

There is a big issuea that the person who wrote this guide did not tell us. I had to read a different guide to find this out. Once you're ready to do the hotswap, you have to remove the IDE cable from your PC Hard Drive and plug THAT into the XBox HD. I tried 10+ times without doing this and couldn't figure out what the issue was. When I did it this way, it worked. Try it if you're having issues with this step.

[rodrivit]

Hey I've got a problem, I do everything you said but when I boot up the disk I get different writting and in it it says, "this is not an xbox" and it just stops, any ideas? Thanks a lot.

[jamyrna]

I just ran into that problem.  Turns out my video card was not suported by the disk.  I had to use a different one for it to work.