Hiiiiii Again and more on testing

Guys..just forget about Inserting the HDD trick, what I noticed and is 99% true is:

The Hitachi drive needs to be powered before the Dashboard loads...
in other meaning,If you manage to restart the Dashboard in any possible way while
the Hitachi drive is still powered on,the Dash will boot again and the Hitachi will spin
fast immediatly and always boots the disc... I was trying this for more then an hour
with always any of my backups 100% booting
So I thought that Inserting or removing the HDD many times will damage it soon
and then I tried another trick...

- Set the Video Cable to HD mode ( or vice a versa ) and after booting the 360 for 1 or 2 seconds
  switch the cable to the other setting ( TV <-> HD ) which will also reboots the dash and makes the
  Hitachi spins fast and boots ur backup.

( These last successfull testings were made using the v1.1 FW. )

N.B:  Having a HD cable or a HDD only applies to the Premium pack Owners,
        so we have to find another way to reboot the dash while the 360 is
        still powered so the Core Pack owners can try this too

So it's now clear about 99% that it's not a Media or a Burner problem,it's something
to do with the Hitachi drive itself or it's firmware
( seems like a timing problem in the FW while media detection )

I hope this helps with the Hitachi drives, and maybe this will clarify some things
about the Hitachi drive behaviour..and maybe a FW fix will resolve all these issues.

Hiiiiii Again and more on testing

Guys..just forget about Inserting the HDD trick, what I noticed and is 99% true is:

The Hitachi drive needs to be powered before the Dashboard loads...
in other meaning,If you manage to restart the Dashboard in any possible way while
the Hitachi drive is still powered on,the Dash will boot again and the Hitachi will spin
fast immediatly and always boots the disc... I was trying this for more then an hour
with always any of my backups 100% booting
So I thought that Inserting or removing the HDD many times will damage it soon
and then I tried another trick...

- Set the Video Cable to HD mode ( or vice a versa ) and after booting the 360 for 1 or 2 seconds
  switch the cable to the other setting ( TV <-> HD ) which will also reboots the dash and makes the
  Hitachi spins fast and boots ur backup.

( These last successfull testings were made using the v1.1 FW. )

N.B:  Having a HD cable or a HDD only applies to the Premium pack Owners,
        so we have to find another way to reboot the dash while the 360 is
        still powered so the Core Pack owners can try this too

So it's now clear about 99% that it's not a Media or a Burner problem,it's something
to do with the Hitachi drive itself or it's firmware
( seems like a timing problem in the FW while media detection )

I hope this helps with the Hitachi drives, and maybe this will clarify some things
about the Hitachi drive behaviour..and maybe a FW fix will resolve all these issues.

Hiiiiii Again and more on testing

Guys..just forget about Inserting the HDD trick, what I noticed and is 99% true is:

The Hitachi drive needs to be powered before the Dashboard loads...
in other meaning,If you manage to restart the Dashboard in any possible way while
the Hitachi drive is still powered on,the Dash will boot again and the Hitachi will spin
fast immediatly and always boots the disc... I was trying this for more then an hour
with always any of my backups 100% booting
So I thought that Inserting or removing the HDD many times will damage it soon
and then I tried another trick...

- Set the Video Cable to HD mode ( or vice a versa ) and after booting the 360 for 1 or 2 seconds
  switch the cable to the other setting ( TV <-> HD ) which will also reboots the dash and makes the
  Hitachi spins fast and boots ur backup.

( These last successfull testings were made using the v1.1 FW. )

N.B:  Having a HD cable or a HDD only applies to the Premium pack Owners,
        so we have to find another way to reboot the dash while the 360 is
        still powered so the Core Pack owners can try this too

So it's now clear about 99% that it's not a Media or a Burner problem,it's something
to do with the Hitachi drive itself or it's firmware
( seems like a timing problem in the FW while media detection )

I hope this helps with the Hitachi drives, and maybe this will clarify some things
about the Hitachi drive behaviour..and maybe a FW fix will resolve all these issues.

Hi..

After lot of testings with both FW 1.0 and 1.1 , Memorex,Verbatim, Pioneer 109, Pioneer 110D
Backups with Xtreme method , other backups with wxripper method,etc...

My Final all time working Method was the one I read today somewhere in the forum,which is:
Boot the 360 with the backup in, after the Ring of light flash once,Insert the HDD,the 360
will reboot and every time I do this the game boots too.

I tried the same discs 10's of times with no luck..then the same damn disc boots 100% every time
I apply the HDD insertion trick...

Try it out guys and U will see that it's 100% working.

Flashed the fierst FW v1.0 to a 47DH and a 47DJ drive, both new from new opened 360's
Burner used are Pioneer 109 and 110D with Memorex DL DVD+R and Verbatim at 2.4x
my 12 backups all boots fine ( I did them previously when I did my lovely Sammi FW patch )
and after many tests i found the following:

The 47DH drive sometimes boots the game fine and sometimes it requires 2 or 3 retries,even if
i shutdown the console and start it again with the disc in sometimes still gives the message: open tray.

The 47DJ drive have much better chances of booting these same backups, and almost 90% loads fine
when I shutdown the console and start it again with the disc in.

Tonight I'll flash the FW v1.1 and do new tests... actually I enjoy flashing and testing more then
playing these games

I got home, Flashed my Hitachi 47DH drive and that's my results:

test 1: using the old original Dashboard that came with the Xbox360 NTSC/J

- All my discs are burned at 2.4X on pioneer dvr109 or dvr110,
  games images were extracted using both xtreme method(isobuster) and wxripper
  ss patches are all homemade using my other Samsung drive.

- Memorex DVD+R DL discs boots fine, sometimes from the first time,
  sometimes it tries to read the disc then it acts like it failed a test or something and give the message: Open Tray
  so I open the tray,wait a second and close it again allowing the drive to retry the booting process and it will work
  after 2 or 3 attempts.

- Verbatim DVD+R DL discs, same Results as with Memorex , but Verbatim need more attempts to get it running.


test 2: updated my Dashboard with the Tomb Raider Legend Disc
- Same results as test1.


test 3: updated my Dashboard with the June 2006 update CD
- Same results as test1,test2.

N.B: what I have noticed is that the media used are not the problem, because when the game boots
       the reading is normal and all the game's demos and movies run flawlessly.
       It have something to do with the ss tests,
       maybe we should find a way to extract the ss using the Hitachi drive,
       or the firmware itself have to be revised by the MASTER C4EVA

Thx again for C4E and all the others who contributed in this ( but surely I dont include TS )

Hi Guys, I was working with the Slax disc too to get the drive into modeB and it did, but for some reason windowXP was unstable, and it was freezing for about 5 to 10 minutes then works again, I tried to dump the firmware and the DOs Window freezed about 10 minutes,I left it as I was working on another PC then it finished with the firmware file dumped.
SO I decided to try the cross-wires method, I have built a custom xbox1 dvd power cable to match the one used for 360, i also added a small Switch ( A reset Switch from a PC case ) to cross the wires for max 1 sec after powering on the 360, I left my WindowsXP running without even restarting it,go to Device-Manager and did a hardware refresh,the Hitachi was detected immediatly
I dumped the firmware again in 1 second, compared it to the one i dumped before with the slax method ( that took 10 minutes to dump) and the 2 files was identical.
Also I noticed that if I turn the 360 off or disconnect the Drive, WinXP will freeze again

so I do recommend using the cross-wires method ( with caution of crossing the wires for more then 1 sec  )
Hope that helps ...

Instead of blaming noobs and wasting time posting meaningless talk, why wont U try to help him and direct him the right way
If you think that you're too smart and this firmware is for smart people like U.

Babont : PM me after few hours till I get back to my PC and U'll have what U need.

I also need to know If anyone have tried tweaking the POT of the Hitachi drive, maybe we can get better media recognition.

I'll be testing multiple media types tonight and I'll post back my findings.

Thx Geebee for your tutorials, but my question about sending the custom commands to a Hitachi was not answered  yet !!

Did anyone extracted the SS with a Hitachi drive ??

Can anyone confirm that sending the 4 Custom commands with DVDINFOPRO to a Hitachi drive will not kill the drive ??
I want to extract the SS of some games but never tried it with a Hitachi Drive !?!?

Is this firmware for all 47D versions, I mean does the last letter have any difference ex: 47DH    the "H"  

Great work C4E , thx for all your efforts  unlike TS that his efforts are worthless  

I was searching for one too, what I did is that I have opened about 10 broken PC CD/DVD drive with no luck..
then from about 30 minutes I found one that is used for the Bios on an old broken motherboard ( PC CHIPS M848 )
I will desolder it and try the multi-firmware mod too coz i'm sick of refalshing the firmware every time I need
to make a backup.... 

I will also check later for the SST chip that is used with the xbox1 Aladdin Advance modchips, I have plenty of them
that I used to flash with different bioses... I hope it have the same number..that will be great

Also I will try to extend this mod in order to install an external Sata cable from the 360 Samsung (I will think of a way
to attach 2 Sata cables to the 360 drive at the same time, the original 360 cable and a second one used for attaching it to PC )
by the way is there a male Sata socket available ( like the one that is on the PC motherboard itself ) ?!?

So having 2 firmwares available ( one for playing backups and the second for extracting and dumping ss.bin )
with an external switch installed somewhere on the back of the 360 and a male Sata connector beside it is my
current project.. Then I can re-assemble my console and still play/backup at the same time.

Anyone who have better ideas to improve this mod please feel free to share the info in the forum..

Regards..

I will also check the firmware of my DVR-109 becuase I think I update it when I purchased my burner...

I'll post it's firmware as soon I finish work and get back home...

Cheers

Hello

About the Pioneer DVR-109 I have it and I have the DVR-110 also, I already have 2 working backups done with the
DVR-109 without the need to change anything about this bitsetting u're talking about....

I just extracted the ss.bin for the games, burned my images and playing

I will try the DVR-110 later and post the results too...

I am using both Verbatim DVD+R DL 2.4x  and Memorex DVD+R DL 2.4x without any problem,just working both fine...

Regards...

Hi Guys..

for those who are having problems with inserting their keys into the extreme.bin firmware:

1- U dont need any program or patcher to extract or to insert your key,except a hex editor and I use WinHex

2- Get ur original firmware with MTKFLASH, keep a side backup of it somewhere on ur PC, then open the orig.bin file
    with a hex editor ( WinHex ) and goto address 0004000 (hexadecimal) here u should select all data until u reach the address 0004200
    the key is somewhere between this limit, but to make sure just copy the whole block ( 0004000 to 0004200 )

3- Now open the file extreme.bin and also go to address 0004000, select everything until 0004200 and now at this point
   u must paste the data (the 0004000 to 0004200 block ) u copied from ur original firmware file exactly onto this block...got it

4- After u paste the block in the extreme.bin file, save it to a new file let's say : key_patched.bin and this is your patched firmware
    now that will be able to boot your copies.

5-  Now... there's another supplied firmware in the package called something like extrm0800.bin this one is needed to be flashed
     just in case u need to backup ur original discs. And when done with ur backups and u are ready to play, u have to flash ur patched
     firmware again.

Regards....

Rogero

Hello
Please does anyone released some ss for NTSC games, I have lot of backups that need their ss to be burned
Also where can I find a compatibility list between region codes for titles.
Any help will be appreciated.. Thanks..

Rogero

Hello Everybody..
I just want to confirm that this firmware is great, I just backed up my Ghost Recon, flashed the xtreme firmware with my key inserted in
and the game just booted fine, there's a little delay at the first screen then it worked just like the original does, also I noticed
that the DVD drive of the 360 is running with a lower noise then it does with the original Disc,I made sure of this and that's true.

Thanks for the author of this hack, the moderators and all other helpfull users..

Regards.

Rogero