HOW to read your XBOX EEPROM and GET the HDD KEY (1)
HOW to read your XBOX's EEPROM and GET the HDD KEY WITHOUT removing the chip Or Modding the XBOX
First my story.....
Hi all, first I would like to say thanks to everyone who helped me with information and suggestions on the forums and to Llamma for the posting of this HOW TO guide. I hope it helps a lot of people who have had the same head ach I have about getting to the secret key to unlock the XBOX's Hard drive.
My problem started when I purchased an XBOX off EBay for a cheap price, I knew in advance it was broken but the promise of fixing it myself was to be a challenge, and boy was it! Not that I couldn't do it after all I do have a paper that says I know how to fix electronics, even if I can't spell very well ;)
My package arrived and I tore into it, first thing taking the Xbox apart. Hum I thought didn't look like much, boy I thought it would be more like a computer motherboard, seeing how everyone says it's a computer basically. Well first thing I did was clean off the old paste on the CPU that cheap thermal paste, and replace it with high quality Arctic Silver paste. Then I checked the board out for any signs of burnt traces or other fixable problems and found none.
My next step was to check out the XBOX to see if she would power up. I plugged it in and with the push of the button it came on, with the flubber screen or whatever it is and booted up to a screen that said "XBOX LIVE UPDATE, Please do not turn off the power until update is finished." Great I thought I'll just plug it up to the network and let it do its thing, WOW this will be an easy fix. NOPE, it came up with a screen saying "XBOX LIVE cannot connect at this time Please try again later", so I click OK to go on, after all I don't need to update XBOX live I'm not going to be on it anyways.
I clicked OK and the screen went back to the XBOX LIVE UPDATER screen again, then it went to the cannot connect screen with the OK button. I click it and it just looped around again and again. Well I thought this is grim, So I called Micro... well you know who and they take four techs and 30 minutes to come up with the answer, throw it away and buy a XBOX 360!!! WHAT!!
That’s your solution!! So I read around on the forums and find out there is some nice software (homebrew) that can clean the hard drive and restore it to "new", so I am all up for that.
The problem I get though is all of them expect you to have Modded your XBOX or at least have the Hard Drive KEY (PASSWORD) to use them! Well I am in a pickle now seeing how I can't MOD the XBOX cause it won't boot a CD and only goes to that UPDATER screen. Man what to do. Then I find out the XBOX hard drive password is stored in an EEPROM on the board. That’s when the light went on! Hey if the EEPROM isn't locked and I can read the contents I can get the hard drive password from it myself. Then I find out that the password is encrypted. Crap I think... but wait! I find out that there is a program that will give me the Password if I have the EEPROM.BIN file, (the EEPROM.BIN file is just a dump of the contents of the EEPROM) - which is what I was going to do anyways so that brings me to building the EEPROM READER.
I built the reader and read the contents of my EEPROM in my XBOX and saved it as EEPROM.BIN, what else? Then I used the program I had found and made my first XBOX recover CD. After that I was able to easily unlock my hard drive, and use a file browser to look around on it and fix the corrupted files on the drive (apparently someone had installed a soft mod and then somehow screwed it up pretty good) but I was able to copy the original XBOX backup files to the C drive. Afterward I installed the drive back into the XBOX and powered it on and it came up all happy in the Micro... well Dash like a new XBOX!! THEN I found out the DVD drive didn't read...
So I borrowed my buddies XBOX that was modded and FTP into it and copied his C drive and some files off of E drive then REMAKE the XBOX restore CD and wiped my drive clean and restored it with HIS XBOX hard drive files and now I have a happily modded XBOX.... with a broken DVD drive :( but I am working on the laser fix, but that’s for another HOW TO.... so now that your all sleeping pretty good now I guess I get to the steps to build and fix your XBOX, and the software that I used.
HOW TO READ A XBOX EEPROM!!
(Without de soldering it)
First you will have to build this simple EEPROM reader. The Original device was much more complicated so I cut out all the stuff not needed by us for this project.
The original device and software that goes with it can be gotten at http://www.lancos.com/prog.html... stop in and say thanks for the program and device!
Here is my easy to build design, it uses off the shelf parts from RADIO SHACK.
You need the following:
1 PAK (5v Zenor Diodes comes 2 to a pack). Catalog #: 276-565
2 PAK(s) Four (4) K ohm resistors. Catalog #: 271-1321 (I had to make them using 1K resistors in series took 8 to make two 4K's)
1 female 9 pin connector. Catalog #: 276-1428
Wire, I use the following for the jumpers from the EEPROM reader to the XBOX
Blue insulated wrapping wire (30 AWG) Catalog #. 278-503
Of course you need solder, solder iron (lo watt) so as NOT to burn off any traces!!
Here is mine....
Here are the plans to build it.
And now that you have it built you need to know what to do with it. First, make sure you XBOX is UNPLUGGED!!! I don’t want anyone to get FRIED or fry your XBOX!
Now there are two options, first if your XBOX is dead no power or it is a bad motherboard but you still want to use the drive or if you just want to copy the EEPROM to use on another XBOX then you will need to supply an EXTERNAL 3.3 Volts or 5 Volts to one of two places. Meaning choose one of the following the EEPROM or the LPC pads, shown below.
First you can connect your readers SCL and SDA and GND wires to the spots I list above or in the following pictures, and connect your power supply (3.3V or 5V) to pin 8 of the EEPROM or the spot listed on LPC picture above. (NOTICE: I DIDN’T use the LPC connections when I read mine but according to BUNNIE’S Book and my own observations it should be OK to use. – maybe better for those who aren’t good solders cause the pins on the EEPROM are VERY small!)
Take a look at the two following pictures, Mind you that if your XBOX DOES have power and works DO NOT ADD A EXTERNAL POWER SUPPLY!!!!!!!!!!
