second.

why not order a replacement drive to experiement with?

here is a tip from robinsod.

I used my 25watt iron with a standard tip to try to remove the epoxy from my flash and did remove most of it except from the bottom of the chip around the pins. I ended up lifting a tons of traces from the chip but was able to dump my flash so as to save my key. I got a replacement drive from the links provided on the thread here on the board. The TS-H943A i got from them didn't have epoxy/glue on it. i used ChipQuik (Link http://www.emulation.com/catalog/off-the-shelf_solutions/lab&rework/chipquik.html) which is a low melting point solder that stays liquid for a while after heated to remove its flash. I then mounted a PLCC socket on the board and reflash my orginal bois. now i have a socketed working drive.

I hope i have been of help

he means the game files and not the xbe/xex signature. the data itself isn't signed/checksumed/hashed whatever unless the xbe/xex does the checking itself. please correct me if im wrong here but if the data was signed then a small scratch on the disc say in some texture would cause the game not to run. plus most times these things are streamed off the disc if im not mistaken. it would take a long time to read an entire large file to check its data.

I noticed that bug with it not drawing the tray in on power down as well.

I misplaced my orginal DVD flash. DOH!!

so i am going to flash over the ms07 with my orginal ms25.

update: my drive is now working perfectly with halo 2 once i flashed back to my orginal firmware.

also i attempted to reproduce the ms07 drive being recognized in windows before i flashed over to ms25 and it seemed to just freeze this time.

Tested fw versions ms07 in the 360 with halo 2 and it played the video part of the disc and then gave me an error within the xbox emulator. I have to confess i don't own a 360 game to try. It is not that i am a pirate but i am more curious about the hardware then i am playing games. I might go rent one to try. This makes me think that there isn't some virgin state. I was just hoping anyway and didn't think the chances were high.

I had a free sata port on my pc controller. so without rebooting windows. pluged a cable from into the free port and the other end into my drive running ms07. I connected the power from the 360 and started up then 360. Windows froze for a second and then came up with something about finding the hardware and then it was recognized by windows and displayed as a dvd-rom drive.

I tested reading a few discs in windows and it seemed to work fine. tried my halo 2 disc and saw the video partition. I had to disable/enable the drive in hardware manager to get it to refresh the drives root file listing. also right clicking on the drive in explorer and choosing eject didn't work. The eject button on the 360 works fine though.

perhaps since this firmware works in windows it might be possible to compare it with the ms25 and see what the problem is with the newer H943A firmware not being recognized.

Does anyone know a good utility for dvd-roms that will output alot of info about a drive from windows?

I am going to use my orginal flash chip now and test some more.

I ordered a new TS-H943 from the link in the other thread about replacing broken drives.

It came in today. There was no Epoxy on the flash chip. I desoldered the flash chip and dumped the contents. it differs from my old drives dump

It does not contain a key at 401A like the public dump or at 4290 like the dump from my orginal drive.
(there was only a small difference between mine and public dump. I posted about it here. http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=33&topic=359.msg5625#msg5625 )

The front drive tray clip is a darker grey color. It looks like the color of the clip of the dev kit drives i have seen in pictures. it isn't the chrome like the one that came with my 360 drive. pictures of dev kit here http://theconsolewars.blogspot.com/2005/08/smartxx-xbox-360-dissection-mutilation.html the drive in that beta dev kit was also a TS-943

Here is a link to download the dump of this ms07 version of the firmware.
http://rapidshare.de/files/17780852/H943ms07.bin.html

new drive
F/W=ms07
H/W:001
Ver.A
April 2005
Part No: X800473-003

old drive
F/W=ms25
H/W:005
Ver.A
December 2005
Part No: X800473-016

I am about to solder a PLCC socket onto this new drive and put my old flash from my orginal drive in it to test in the 360. I think it will work i compared the Hardware between the drives and it all looks the same.

I will also test this drive with windows recognition with the orginal version ms07 flash on the drive. I also wish to test the drive with the ms07 in the xbox 360 and see if perhaps it is in a virgin state and will write its key to the drive if it is in such a state. this is just a theory but it is possible something like this happens. Like DirecTV/Dish Network smart cards have a virgin state but once inserted into a receiver it writes the receivers id to itself thus marrying the devices.

Peace. I hope this is of interest to you guys.

If you aren't a coder then what makes you think someone else will implement your idea for you? when other options like I mentioned above with the flash are a simpler more elegant solution.

why try to bump a thread when it is still on the first page?
You're completely confusing me.

it doesn't require an apology to anyone. you were just misunderstanding/misinformaed. i just wanted you to be aware of the facts of the situation.

How can you judge his knowledge without knowing what everyone knows? i don't think you're in a position to judge this.

perhaps upgrading the flash to something twice the size and then have it be bank switchable for the orginal and hacked would be a better idea. It would be no coding and simpler to implement. not to mention a time saver because there would be no flashing to switch between ethier firmware. Others on the board have already done this in preperation for a Hacked FW release if my memory serves me correctly

who said TS coded the firmware? it was a team. like i said TS doesn't even own a xbox 360

streethawk: what does speaking to TS have to do with it? there are lots of knowledgable people here. TS doesn't even have a 360 not saying he isn't a great resource and knowledgable friendly guy(i think he is a guy). It is just directing your question to a single individual is a great way to get a narrow view point.

I am not saying i am one of the knowledgable people. I am a lowly wannabe hacker with some tools to break my electronics


what exactly seperates your idea from the hundreds of others?

Wouldn't a strong technical understanding of DVD roms help with understanding the posibilty of your idea. perhaps even exploring for other dvd roms that might be able to flash from cd.

also what darkfly and parasven said.

Peace

sorry for not being a help just wanted to voice my thoughts. ignore as needed

WOOOOO. There is NO EPOXY on the flash chip. That will make socketing this thing much much easier.


I also forgot to mention that the front clip on the tray is this mid grey color. This is another clue that this might be from some beta dev kitl

if you look at this link here
http://theconsolewars.blogspot.com/2005/08/smartxx-xbox-360-dissection-mutilation.html
it has picture of the dev kits at the top of the page and the clip looks to be that same color.

I will dump the flash with my willem when i get home today. I might try to use my cell phone tether to get on the internet and upload the dump so people can compare.

Just got my Toshiba-Samsung drive in. Looks to be in good condition. Has a few small scratches on the top. I will test it out when i get home from work today. I won't have any information on it till tommorrow though. my cable tv, internet, and phone are still out from the tornado but luckily i got power.

my old drive was
F/W=ms25 H/W:005 Ver.A
i think its Part No: X800473-016

This drive i got from them is
F/W=ms07 H/W:001 Ver.A  April 2005
its Part No: X800473-003

I have a feeling these are from the beta dev kit drives. i might be wrong though.

here is a link from the SmartXX Dev Kit DVD-Rom from long ago. It was a TS-H943
http://img362.imageshack.us/my.php?image=smartxxxbx360154dy.jpg
Its Part No: X800473-009. I can't see the F/W and H/W versions in the picture.

I got FREE shiping for being in the US. =)

i have heard of those reshippers that will reship things out of the country for stores that don't support international shiping. perhaps that might be cheaper then their shiping charges

Yea i think everything is in those signed archives on the harddrive with the exception of the wma audio files and its database. Those might be signed but i didn't see anything that looked like a signature when looking at the files.

uberfry: It might be because the forum was filling up with people who think their thoughts manifest reality. They come there and post their magical idea would be great and everyone should work on it and then give them credit because they thought it up. I went there looking for cool helpfull people like we have here. It ended up being "hey why don't we modify xexs so it doesn't break the signature" oh really whats this method you speak of. "uhh what i just had the idea. its great it would hack the box in no time" yea but its not real. it is fantasy. nevermind i've started a conversation with myself so i have to stop. my point was that i never really found any usefull or new information on the forum just a bunch of people waxing idiotic.  I don't really think i saw anything posted from team xecuter themselves. hopefully they have made some progress.

also the forum has been down a while. i don't know exact date but i haven't been able to get on i think at least for a week. i might be wrong.

I think it is Arakon.

This isn't publicly available. To play backup discs you would need to develop your own version of the hack. In the future there might be a public release.

why not? i am going to get a Hitachi as well(different source). i perfer uncharted territory though and the TS seems to be just that. Not that i am capable of charting said territory its just more thrilling. like a drug.

I have been tracking my Toshiba-Samsung and it should be here tuesday. Its not the hitachi but still the same source

Maybe the serial port would be a good avenue to the dump security sector. It would be easier then the other method that hae to reread the flash chip.

robby2000:
http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=33&topic=76.msg2459#msg2459

well it seems the xbox is the only thing to take my mind off things. sorry again i found the correct info in this posts. It is controlled by p1.0 & P1.1 bits

http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=33&topic=76.msg2076#msg2076
http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=33&topic=76.msg2122#msg2122

I was right in assuming it was a just a couple bits on one of the ports. should have looked harder. i didn't searches for P# but couldn't find it. sorry for the redunant thread.

It sucks not having power at your home for extender periods =( my office is a comfort. i was geting gittery because i hadn't been on the internet for so long