Beginners Guide To Xbox Modding

[TheInfamous]

How Does an XBOX Work?

So how does this all relate to your xbox? Well, like I said, your xbox is very much like a personal computer. It has a processor, a DVD-ROM drive, a display adapter, a sound adapter, a hard disk drive, and most importantly a BIOS. Not bad for $200, eh? When you turn on your xbox, it does its own little POST, goes to the BIOS, plays that flubber animation thing, and looks to the DVD-ROM for an authentic xbox game or a DVD movie. If it does find one of those things, it will boot up the game; or, if it’s a DVD movie, it will play it (if you have Microsoft’s little DVD playback kit installed, which is a dongle that connects to one of the controller ports that unlocks the DVD-ROM drive). If it doesn’t find either of these (it’s very picky), then it boots up it’s own little OS referred to as the dashboard. This is that green screen with the three menu options like “SettingsÃÂ� �€, “Musicâà ¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚, and “Memory,â € or something like that. We want to replace the BIOS so it’s not so picky about what it will execute.


Replacing the BIOS

Most of you probably wouldn’t have a clue how to go about hacking the xbox’s BIOS and writing your own. (Hacking, in this case, refers to the idea of uncovering the structure of how they went about designing and implementing the console so it can be exploited. Since Mr. Bill isn’t going to just give away their design, this is the only option. The line between learning about the system and breaking the law is very blurry nowadays, unfortunately.) Luckily for us there are geniuses out there that have already hacked the BIOS and written new ones. All we have to do is replace the current BIOS with the new ones. How do we do this? Well, there are a few options. We could just flash the current BIOS with the new one. But this is fairly tricky. A more popular alternative is to buy another BIOS chip (the infamous “modchipâ € and “put it in front of” the original BIOS chip, so to speak. That way when the computer goes to look for the BIOS, it is fooled into looking at our replacement modchip, which has a BIOS on it.

Installing the new BIOS chip is probably the hardest part of the whole project. If you pursue this, you will undoubtedly be haunted by “d0.â⠂¬Â You will know what this is… My advice is to not let it get to you!



This is where it is usually necessary to know how to solder. The most dreaded part. You’re not alone in being intimidated. In fact, people capitalize on others who are afraid to solder. The Matrix/Xodus modchip, for instance, “requires no soldering.” I put that last phrase in quotations because it is not really true for all xboxes. There are two known versions of the xbox, referred to as v1.0 and v1.1. They have the same functionality and are almost identical. v1.1 requires soldering in order to install the Matrix/Xodus. This is not the best modchip choice for many reasons. However, if you are still afraid of soldering, and you have a v1.0 xbox (go to www.xbox100.com for a guide to figuring out which version you have), consider the Matrix/Xodus. www.xbox100.com has a comparison chart for different modchips and BIOSes. It’s entirely up to you, but keep in mind that soldering is not a difficult skill to learn. Soldering is also a valuable skill to have, so why not learn now?! I learned to solder on my own in two days. There are guides dedicated to teaching how to solder, and I will give you a few things to start with. You will need a 15-Watt soldering iron, some rosin/resin core solder, and patience. Two out of three of these can be found at Radio Shack. (Actually, from my experience, the other third can be learned there during interaction with the employees.) Get an old circuit board from a junk CD-ROM drive or something and the thinnest wire you can find and practice, practice, practice!! Anyway, once you know how to solder, my suggestion is the Xecutor2 lite modchip. It has many pluses, the most attractive is that it comes with a BIOS already installed (a very good one). It only has ten wires to solder.



Now, I will not give a guide here on how to install it. There is a very good step-by-step tutorial with pictures on how to disassemble the xbox at www.xbox100.com, as well as some graphical guides for installing the chip.



I’ve Got the BIOS Replaced, Now What?

Now that you have the modchip in, a BIOS installed, and the xbox boots up normally, you have begun to unleash the xbox’s potential. At this point you can play games that are not authentic, boot from other media (although most xboxes seem to be very picky about CD-Rs), run unsigned programs, etc… These are the reasons we did it in the first place! You can leave it at that, or you can do more. Most likely you will pursue the latter.



Replacing the Dashboard

One popular and powerful route from here is to replace the dashboard (remember, the “mini-OS” on the xbox). By far the most popular replacement dashboard is the Evolution-X dashboard (or Evox, for short). Those guys at work on the Evox project are brilliant, and we should all thank them! I will not tell you how to get it, where to get it, or which version to get. That’s up to you.



Replacing the dashboard allows you to easily run programs that you can install on the HDD, backup games onto the HDD and play them from there, and even replace the original 8-10 GB HDD with a much larger one. You can also network your xbox with your PC. www.xbox100.com has more information on how to do this. You can even have several HDDs installed that you can switch between. You can imagine the possibilities. For instance, you might want to take your xbox to a friend’s house, but you don’t want to lug all the game discs. You can replace the dashboard without networking your xbox to your PC, and there is an entire guide dedicated to just that, guess where, www.xbox100.com. However you do it, the basic procedure is that you copy the Evox files over to your C: and replace the original dashboard file.



You will probably want to learn about the evox.ini file. This has all the settings for the Evox dashboard, including networking, menus, etc… There are many tutorials that demonstrate how to set up this file. Try to decipher them.






Replacing the HDD

Why replace (or swap) the HDD? More room for stuff. This procedure is not that hard, actually. Just buy a good, beefy HDD, follow the outline below, and go to www.xbox100.com for more detailed guides. Western Digital is a good brand, as well as Maxtor. Some say that the 7200 RPM (rotations per minute) drives are too hot, while others say it doesn’t matter. Some even install their own cooling fan just to be safe. 5400 RPM drives are pretty hard to come by, nowadays, however, so a 7200 RPM drive should be fine.

There is a lot involved with this procedure, but it is not too complicated. Again, in accordance with this generalized guide, these steps are just an outline to the procedure.



1. Make sure you have a BIOS that has what is known as the HDD swap feature.

2. Make sure you have the latest Evox dashboard installed on your xbox already.

3. Backup the original C: and E: drives onto your PC’s HDD. This will involve networking to your PC, so make sure you know how to do that.

4. Create an Evox boot disc with evox.ini set up to format the drive (can be found in a tutorial at www.xbox100.com). Burn it onto a CD-RW or a DVD-RW or whatever your xbox will accept. (Refer to the section on burning xbox discs.)

5. Open up the console again (you should already know how to do this because you should have already have a working modchip installed).

6. Unplug the original HDD and replace it with the new one.

7. Put the xbox back together.

8. Boot the disc you made. It will start Evox, and there will be a menu option to set up the drive (if you have the correct settings in the evox.ini file). Format it.

9. Copy the C: and E: drives from your PC’s HDD back to your new HDD.

10. Take the disc out, boot the xbox again.

11. Keep the original HDD just in case. Besides, you can’t use it for anything else anyway.

12. You’re done. The extra space is all on F: now.