HOW to read your XBOX EEPROM and GET the HDD KEY (2)
HOW to read your XBOX's EEPROM and GET the HDD KEY WITHOUT removing the chip Or Modding the XBOX
Verson 1.6 XBOX
No matter what XBOX you have the EEPROM is the same design Pins 1,2,3,4 will always be GND and 5,6,7,8 will be 5 = SDA, 6 = SCL, 7 = WDC (We don’t Care), 8 = 3.3V or 5V.
Now connect you reader to the points you have decided to use and then connect the reader to your computers serial port. (I am not sure if a USB to Serial port converter will work, I have a KEYSPAN it DOESN’T work, but my Laptop’s Serial port works great!)
After making your connections, wait to apply power, we need to setup the reader software next!!
I used a program called PONYPROG (http://www.lancos.com/prog.html) to read my EEPROM with, it is easy to use and well written and the original EEPROM reader was what I cut down to make our EEPROM reader for this project. Install Ponyprog on your computer, I got the old and new 2000 versions, I like the old but the new one is easier to use so I used it in the following examples. Setup is easy just do what the pictures I have say and you should have it installed and ready to read in about 5 Min.
SETUP…..
Now after that make sure to Calibrate!!!
Now you can apply power to your READER or XBOX, wait for an ERROR SCREEN to show up on the XBOX by disconnecting the Hard drive (on a working XBOX) if it’s one that has no power or broken then apply your EXTERNAL power now.
Now try to do a read…. The Icon on the far left looks like a chip with an arrow pointing to a paper.
If you read your EEPROM it should look like this picture, notice that on the PURPLE TEXT line 4 down a bunch of numbers 449836153119 (These aren’t real #’s!), this should be YOUR XBOX serial number on the bottom of your XBOX!!! If you had a GOOD read. If not try again and check ALL connections and power.
Now SAVEAS your file and save it as EEPROM.BIN ß- MUST be this name.
Now disconnect external power- or turn off XBOX and UNPLUG. Disconnect all wires from XBOX LPC port or EEPROM. Make SURE you know where you saved the EEPROM.BIN file to before you exit Ponyprog program.
Now you can look at your XBOX HDD password with LIVEINFO BETA 3, Search Google just put it in the same folder as your EEPROM.BIN file and run it and click Load EEPROM and it should load up your EEPROM.BIN and give you’re a screen like this…
RIGHT there! In the box that says Unique HDD Key is your Password to the Hard Drive.
Thanks goes out to Yoshihiro and group for this great Program. But WAIT! We aren’t totally done yet.
Now you have your Key/Password what to do with it?? Well now I am going to give you a Quick walk thru of how to make a Backup and Restore CD for working on your Xbox in the future when you want to wipe it clean and start all over again! (Some times we just have to wipe our drives because we put so much junk on them that we need to just clean it all out and start over again, and I’ll show you how!!!)
SO YOU WANT TO MAKE A BACKUP/RESTORE CD HUH?
OK Here’s the
HOW TO MAKE A BACKUP/RESTORE CDROM FOR YOUR XBOX
Now that you have your precious XBOX HDD KEY what are you really going to do with it??
You may want to do some of the following things with it and I will show you the easy way to do them! Read on Modders!
1. Unlock you HDD
2. Soft MOD your XBOX
3. Be able to make a backup of your HDD NOW even if it is modded incase…… (Yeah better do this one folks!)
4. Just poke around and see what all the fuss is about.
I really can’t say how important it is to make a backup of your XBOX hard drive and software. Your sitting there Modding the crap out of your XBOX when all of a sudden XBOX LIVE pops up and wants to download an update, yeah really you did read my story at the top right? Next thing you know your XBOX is stuck in update limbo and you’re screwed! Man o man if only I had listened to UNICRON’S how to guide I’d be like ok mother …! I got your update right here! Pop that CD in and in a few minutes your back up and running.
Really, would I write all this just to jerk you around??? And what’s so cool is how easy it is to do!!
First off if your XBOX was NEVER modded to begin with you’re going to be hurting…. I’m sorry but even with access to the HDD it’s not easy to mod it, as far as I know at THIS time. So what do you need to do? If you have a buddy who HAS modded his/her XBOX that’s a great starting place for us….
Your buddies XBOX…. Wow, your buddy has modded his/her XBOX and you want to do it too.
Start by FTP into his/her XBOX, I used a great program called WEBDRIVE on my XP system, it lets you set up ANY FTP site or HTTP site or other computer as a NETWORK drive on YOUR computer!!! It works GREAT with the XBOX, I just click on it as if it was X Drive on my system and open up whatever drive I want and copy software to the XBOX easy!!! It has a 30 day trail and then you have to buy it but hey, It’s a lot easier than using FTP software and you don’t even think about it NOT being a Drive on your computer cause it works so great! (PS. Send advertising check to UNICRON at P.O. box 556…….) LOL
So anyways, FTP into your buddies XBOX, go to C drive and copy the entire C drive contents (all files and folders) to your computer, copy it to a folder called XBOX-Cdrive. Now jump into the Xbox E drive. I used Evox Mod so this is what I did, others will be different so you will have to figure out what you need to get here, but for Evox here is what you need off of E drive.
On Xbox E drive copy the following folders with ALL files in them.
1. TDATA
2. UDATA
3. DASHBOARD
4. BIOSLD
Copy these folders to your computer in a folder called XBOX-Edrive
Now that is done you can move onto the next step in creating a Backup/Restore CD.
Now you need to download and unzip a program/ file called Xboxhdm_V1.9 this is an easy to use LINUX that has cool easy to use tools for working on your XBOX HDD. After it is unzipped you need to copy the contents (all files and folders) from the folder you made XBOX-Cdrive to a folder in Xboxhdm_V1.9/ linux/C folder the C folder.
Now copy folders you copied to the folder you made called XBOX-Edrive (the 4 folders) to
Xboxhdm_V1.9/ linux/E folder the E folder.
Now you need to copy your EEPROM.BIN file you made with the reader for YOUR XBOX to the Xboxhdm_V1.9/ linux/EEPROM folder.
Now were cooking!! We now have everything to make a BACKUP/RESTORE CD-ROM Disc!!
(Notice – for you who can FTP into your OWN XBOX I would copy the C drive and E drive files I listed above to make your own BACKUP/RESTORE CD-ROM Disc, just copy the EEPROM.BIN file from your XBOX E drive Located in the DASHBOARD – BACKUP folder names of course EEPROM.BIN!!)
Now change to the main folder of Xboxhdm_V1.9 - you will see a file called MAKE-ISO-WIN. Bat
This file will create a bootable CD-ROM that we can use to work on our XBOX!
Run this file, afterward a file called LINUX.ISO will appear in this folder. Now using your favorite burning software (mine is NERO) load it up and burn you a DISC.
Now for the fun part!!
WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS DISC??
You got the Disc with your XBOX BACKUP and HDD KEY/PASSWORD on it. You’re ready to go! Now turn off your computer. Now unhook all drives except your CD-ROM/DVD drive you need this!!!
Now hook up your XBOX HDD. It needs to have some jumper changed first, look at the back of the drive, see the jumper between the power connector and IDE cable?
Here’s a picture for you who don’t follow….
Notice the 6 pins between the Power connector on the right and the IDE connector on the left.
Here is a HDD jumper block. Place it on the 2 pins CLOSEST to the IDE Connector to set it as MASTER. See picture below.
Note also that THIS is not how all hard drives are set up with the jumper block. Most hard drives use the MASTER then SLAVE then CABLE SELECT or view CABLE SELECT when no jumpers are present!! Confusing, but when in doubt VIEW the HDD label for a diagram or go to the manufactures web site for the correct jumper settings. The above is just how the XBOX HDD is setup and as far as I know the CABLE SELECT maybe a slave setting when used in a normal computer, but this is what we are going with for now.
Now after setting the XBOX HDD to MASTER connect it to the Primary Master IDE cable and make sure your CD ROM is on it’s own IDE cable and set as MASTER.
After that is all done, now boot your computer but hit DEL at boot up to get into BIOS screen, or F1 on some systems, get into the bios and set it to boot sequence CD-ROM - HDD- Floppy whatever as long as CDROM is first boot device.
Now SAVE setup, exit the BIOS so it reboots.
Now make sure the XBOXHDMV_1.9 Disc is in the CD-ROM drive, I will refer to it as the LINUX CD. You may need to reboot do a CNTL-ALT-DEL to reboot after putting the CD in.
The LINUX CD will boot up you'll see a bunch of stuff wait for the menu options.
Pick option 3 (boot LINUX with locking/unlock)
after that boots and your at a command prompt type
Unlock –a (hit enter)
this will unlock your XBOX hard drive using the EEPROM.BIN file you copied to the folder before burning the CD. It should say DONE and show the status of your hard drive now if that worked type.
Reboot (hit enter)
the computer reboots; now after that you will be at the LINUX menu again select option (1). Then after some stuff you'll be at the command prompt type this.
XBOXHDM (hit enter -this brings up the main menu)
Select option 1, this will Rebuild your hard drive back to “Original” state but with the mod already installed!
It will Format the XBOX HDD then after that you'll be back at the main menu, select option 8 to quit this program. Now type
Reboot (hit enter)
After rebooting the computer select option 3 (boot LINUX with locking/unlocking)
When it gets to a command prompt type
Lock -a (hit enter)
this will lock your HDD so the XBOX won’t freak out!
At the command prompt type
Shutdown (hit enter)
Unhook you XBOX HDD - CHANGE the jumper to the CABLE SELECT position on the XBOX drive and plug it up to your XBOX (AC POWER UNPLUGGED!!!!!)
make sure all cables are hooked up, plug in AC power to XBOX and Bam! The XBOX should boot up like a happy camper!!!
You can then use that disc to make NEW HDD for your XBOX or a buddies (as long as you have HIS EEPROM.BIN file burned to the disc)
you can leave the C and E folder with the software in them the only file you need to change before burning your buddies is his EEPROM.BIN file in the right place.
(Only one EEPROM.BIN file can be in the EPROM folder on the CD)
Well I hope this helps out a lot of people out there! It was a testing time and I worked hard gathering all the info up in one place so if anyone benefits from this feel free to PM me at www.Llamma.com and let me know it helped!
I’d like to thank my proof readers Janrocks (hugs) and G-man (What up) for helping out!!
