teh Forum

The new name in teh 'X0r scene is TheSpecialist. He is the frontman for the dutch group who released the first real hack for teh360. But don't expect it to hit your box anytime soon. Wait, no one I know has an Xbox 360. Regardless, the hack is a DVD firmware hack that bypasses the media check. Interesting first move though... but no closer to a mod chip.

Xbox-Scene article 1 - article 2

i'm putting my X360 under teh knife tomorrow, by friday i hope to be playing the 43.3GB of games queued up in newsbin on my 'updated' X360 DVD drive. at this point, i'm not too concerned with comprimising the X360 itself, to allow for X180 style functionality, i really just want to play these expensive, sold-out, nexgen games. if and when a nexgen mod chip comes along, i'm sure i'll pimp out the X360, but i guess i'll just have to deal with streaming media and running emulators on old X180 hardware until then

wish me luck!

Just be sure to use plenty of anaesthetics. I'm not sure whether they should be use on the 360 or yourself though. (also, I'm not too clear on whether they should be used pre or post-op.) It's probably best to try a little of each.

I just got back from the Kirkland meat market and they are all about anaesthetics er..I mean aesthetics - so go under the knife for sure because really no one is impressed...so who cares...

yeah? well what if i burned down your precious Kirkland meat market, poured ketchup on it, and ate it? i'm gonna...

I didn't even know you had an X360. But I am glad you are taking the plunge. You got the Hitachi or Toshiba?

Beeeph wrote:yeah? well what if i burned down your precious Kirkland meat market, poured ketchup on it, and ate it? i'm gonna...

yeah...well what did the mama tomato say to the baby tomato?

well i done gone and done it...i hacked the xbox360...and it was a total fraggen biotch. it took me roughly 12 hours to get this thing to play a "backup" disc. i read somewhere on the forum that the hardest part was taking the case off...not true, that part took about five minutes. here's how it went down...

taking the case off














saturday, 1:15pm: at this point, we've successfully ripped out the dvd drive and we're feeling pretty good about the situation...




saturday, 1:20pm: we hook the drive up to a PC and try to flash it...but for some reason it hangs during the write phase. hmmm...we do some more reading on the forums.



saturday, 1:50pm: we finally discover that microsoft, and their eager attempts to thwart our efforts, have begun shipping xbox 360s that disabled writing to the firmware by adding a pesky little surface mount resistor. we become slightly nervous and do more reading...





saturday, 2:30pm: it turns out this is a fairly new development, but fortunately there's a way around it known as the "VCC hack" which basically involves desoldering the resistor and soldering two wires in it's place to short the write line at the right time (approx 10 seconds after selecting, in the command prompt, the device to flash). after reading all this, it suddenly hits us...i'm starting to lose my hair



saturday, 3:30pm: we wrap up our discussion on the pros and cons of going bald and begin reading more. it turns out the VCC hack worked for about half the people that have tried it. the other half ended up with a $400 brick. This leaves me with a terrible decision, do I risk ending up as a broke, balding man with a $400 brick for the chance to have unlimited downloadable access to all the hottest nextgen console games? ya damn skippy! we pull the dvd board off and get to work...







saturday, 4:30pm: we find the tiny resistor, pop it off, and solder two wires in it's place. put the board back on and hook er up...



saturday, 5:30pm: after an hour of trying different combinations of things, we got the dude to flash...



saturday, 6:00pm: we pop in the first backup...



saturday, 6:02pm: we hook er up to the TV (the arkeg) only to find the most frightening of images...



saturday, 6:45pm: we do more reading and discover we're using the wrong firmware, we get the right firmware and do it all over again.



saturday, 10:45pm: dag nam it all to hell! it still ain't workin! after four hours of trying different brands of dual layer DVDs, we finally discover that the burner we're using isn't working well with the dual layer DVDs. we burn a disc with a different burner...and it works!

Nice!

Good show old boy!

That resistor solder is a surprise. Seems those wishing to engage in the process might be bright to try to find a old used 360.

What drive do you have and what firmware did you end up using?

twould definitely be a bright move to find an x360 with a samsung m25 dvd drive in it. the samsung m28 is the new drive that comes complete with surface mount resistors and requires the xtreme4.2a/b FM. even with the latest hardware, this entire process would only about an hour if i were to attempt it once more. with older hardware, it'd take about ~30 mins. with seth 2.0, about ~20mins.

Good Site here - 360 Drives DB

Xboxes being manufactured in Hungary.