have you tried manually finding the sata port in your system settings so you can use dosflash16 in dos to send the command manually??

perhaps you are sending the command to the wrong port and that is why it is hanging, even though it should return an error message.

i dont see why this shoouldnt work although i agree with garyopa that an oven would give a more uniform heat distribution, and not a gradient like a hob top which could overheat some parts and not others.

cool story!

if you are running the latest ixtreme fw you can indeed log into live and download updates for games currently with no ban, but no1 really knows if you are tagged for banning yet, you could face a ban in the future.

brilliant this worked a treat for me i think this should be stickied as this was not easy to find without the help of Rattle top guy many thanks

personally i hate autoflashers, as they remove control over the flashing process and IMHO can be more of a pain than a good tool to inexperienced users, especially when the manual method is just as simple.

use dosflash 16 to flash the benq with the via card thats what i do works perfectly every time remember to erase the fw before you reflash any fw.

[GaZ]

got a new system and upgraded to vista ultimate to try crysis on dx10

now i find that FW toolbox doesnt work with vista, says ocx files not registered.

done a search but couldnt find any answers just similar questions in other posts

can some1 please enlighten me with a way to register the files or will i need an old box running xp to mod hitachi's

cheers

GaZ

i love it when we get snippets from ms saying we will blah blah or wont blah blah

they never tell you the truth just like they siad they wouldnt put HDMI on a console etc

easy fix, you MUST erase the flash on the drive BEFORE you update to a hacked version or it will not work. Dont ask me why, i just know it does.

also what do you mean by reconnecting the traces? that makes no sense do you know what traces are?

i assume you mean cables as you do not need to touch the benQ board to read/write to the drive with dosflash

never mind silly mods to force your drive to read $#!t media!!

all you will do is kill your laser

stop being a tight arse and buy quality discs, you are saving loads from not buying the games anyways!!

oh of course you are backing up your own games!!

firstly why why why would you not put iXtreme on the new system you must not like live!!

secondly hitachi's are very fussy with discs i have had four 360's with hitachis all sitting together at once and 3 of them didnt like the verbs, one did. just cos the discs are verbs doesnt mean  that they cant produce bad discs either btw but this is VERY unusual. you will have to find the type your drive prefers and use them from now on.

also a stealth backup is a backup that contains all of the PFI and DMI of the original disc as well as the SS, so that the backup is as close to a 1:1 copy as possible, to prevent ms seeing that you are playing a backup.

when you have the drives open, can you see the laser powering on, coz if the laser is f*cked then the motor will only spin for a few short revs.

the drive boot sequence is like so:

open tray, close tray
laser powered for a split second if it gets reflection from disc it then sends command to motor to spin
if theres no reflection it does not power the motor as it thinks there is no disc.

i ripped a ps2 drive to bits and replaced the motor several times before i figured out the laser was dead

if your laser is fine then you need a new motor, you may be able to use the sammy one ok as a lot of the parts are the same.

hitachi's that are bricked can still be recognised by windows, but if you have overwritten the routines in the ROM you will not be able to perform any commands to the drive ie no software dumping.

there are some guys who will rescue your key by doing an external read for a fee, some are on this board but you can find them with a google search

good luck!!

if someone has the money to do it and doesnt care, then whats the problem giving them the information they want?

i find it hard to believe you actually bricked the samsung drive as its hard to do unless you short it or something like that. bad flashes can be recovered.

samsungs can be recovered in a bad flash recovery mode aka the 10 second trick

google how to do it i cant be arsed outlining it, its dead simple then you can get the key and put it into your NTSC drive and get a working 360 from two dead ones.

good luck

google dropshipping and you will see how he is setup

it has been almost a year since i was conned by these bastards, so i wont be able to get anything back now but i am pleased as punch that there are other people who are prepared to let the scene know about these f***ers i suggest that anyone who has an account at any of the forums mentioned on their site please make posts linking to this one so that we can make sure they dont rip anyone off again.

either that or take their f***ing website down for a while and get them where it hurts - in their pocket!!

laser sounds like it is dying

google reflectivity and you will see what i mean

when lasers die the first thing that wont read will be recordables.

how odd!!

i had the same problem with these assholes!!

i bought a 360 laser from them and they sent me an EMPTY jiffy bag with the sales reciept in it!!

when i emailed to enquire i was branded a liar even though i had photographed and scanned the jiffy bag with the seal still intact and sent them the images. i then responed saying that i would be forced to pusue legal action to recoup my money (which i am fully entitled to do btw) and then i got the same bull$#!t message about threatening them and they banned my IP from their site so i couldnt contact them anymore!!

BEWARE!! these people are cowboys, are based in thailand and advertise as UK, and will rip you off!!

SPREAD THE WORD

aint done it in a while and im in work now or id try it for you.

from memory i plug it in before i power PC on, and it doesnt give it a letter in xp and make it visible, xplorer360 finds it and lets me browse it.

when i get home later i will try it out and write down how i manage to do it for you

www.viaarena.com is the official site where you can get all drivers for free