More Xbox Fun and Mischief

by spite  (spite_fowl@yahoo.com)

Disclaimer:  I take no responsibility for what you do to or with your Xbox.  This is a purely educational read.  I do not claim to know anything in depth about the Xbox.  This is merely a primer to get you interested in the Xbox and explain a little of what you can do with it.  If you don't understand something or feel I left something important out, check out the sites at the bottom and I'm sure you can find what you need.

Microsoft's first console outing has been received with varied success.  You could label it the second most successful console in the States, seconded only to the PlayStation 2.  In Japan it hasn't garnered nearly as big of a reaction.  Of course, not only games or licenses are the sole reason for its success in America.  The potential of this system goes far beyond what you see straight out of the box.  Many things I mention in this article have been discovered due to the great many intelligent and creative hackers in the Xbox scene.

Xbox Hardware

The Xbox is made up of basically an Intel 733 MHz Celeron notebook processor, an integrated Nvidia video processor, EIDE DVD drive (mentioned later), and either an 8 or 10 GB EIDE hard drive.

Before doing any modification on the Xbox hardware or software, you must modify your Xbox BIOS.

The safest way by far to do this is with a modchip.  Modchips for the Xbox come in a variety of options.  You can get no solder "pogo-pin" chips like the Matrix.  You can get solder/pogo pin/clip modchips like the Xecuter 2.  You can also get cheaply manufactured and flashed mods from a variety of people and places.  The only thing you need to remember when buying a modchip is that you need one feature above all: To circumvent the Xbox reading the Microsoft BIOS, but for it to read whatever other BIOS you'd like to use.

I will not go further into installing a modchip as you can find instructions anywhere you buy one, though I will recommend a Matrix chip.  It is by far the easiest to install in my opinion, especially if you have no soldering skills.  If you can solder, the Xecuter 2 comes highly recommended.  Read more about this at the sites I list below.

Before we talk about the drives inside the Xbox, let me notify you that you cannot just open up an Xbox with your standard Philips or flathead screwdriver.  That's all you have/need?  Well, expect to encounter Torx T-10 and Torx T-20 screws.  Torx T-20 on the case of the box and smaller Torx T-10 inside.

The DVD drive is using special firmware for an Xbox.  There are three manufacturers known for these drives: Thomson, Samsung, and Philips.  There is a very important difference in these drives in the amount of media they may or may not read.  At the bottom level is Thomson, which can of course read pressed CDs and DVDs, including the Xbox pressed DVDs.  They can also read CD-RWs with a varied amount of success depending on brand.  They cannot read 99 percent of CD-Rs you may find.  The Philips is akin to the Samsung except it has a more successful rate with CD-RWs and especially CD-Rs, yet it's still not entirely compatible.  The Samsung is the holy grail of Xbox DVD drives.  It can read a staggering amount of CD-Rs and CD-RWs.  DVD-R and DVD-RW have varied success on all brands, but as far as I can tell up to this point, only Thomson can read DVD+.

The DVD drive connects with a standard EIDE cable connecting back to the Xbox mainboard.  The power cable is a proprietary cable used specifically for the Xbox DVD drive.  This means no way to easily swap out a new DVD drive unless you want to attempt to open, solder, and connect a new DVD drive to this cable.  There is a PC Samsung DVD drive that can be modified - both hardware and software (firmware) - to be compatible with the Xbox providing the ability to play Xbox pressed DVDs as well as every other media you can throw at it.  You can find more information about this at some of the sites I list below.

Thankfully the hard drive is a bit easier to swap.  The hard drive is using a flat EIDE cable with only two connections (one for the HD and one for DVD), leaving nothing open for future hard drive expansion (of course!).  Your hard drive comes locked to your specific Xbox using a code that is hard coded into your Xbox.  It is formatted with a file system called XFAT.  If you're not happy with that 8 or 10 GB hard drive, don't fret.  You can easily replace this with up to 120 GB!  First let's talk about the connections.  The hard drive also runs off the EIDE cable coming from the DVD drive.  The hard drive does not use proprietary power connectors like the DVD drive.  It uses a standard cable like you'd find in your PC to connect any other IDE drive.  The only difference is that it only has one connector available!  That of course is being used by your hard drive.  Again, don't fret; you can easily plug in a splitter for this power cable to give you another connector.  This means you may be able to connect a PC DVD drive using this extra power connection and removing the EIDE cable from the stock drive to your PC drive.  This opens many possibilities but also many problems, such as having to open the Xbox DVD drive to open the PC drive, having to mount the drive on top of the stock DVD drive, etc.

As I said earlier, the Xbox hard drive is locked, meaning it will not function outside of your Xbox because of the key hard coded into your hardware that it needs to read.  Don't worry, you can easily replace the drive and the new drive will operate with or without this code.  This hard drive is said to be "unlocked."  The disadvantage to this is that you cannot run this hard drive like an unmodded Xbox would.  Don't expect to use the MS Dash (explained later) and play on Xbox live with that hard drive.  It is possible to lock a new hard drive (depending on brand and type) but I will not be going that in depth in this article.  Again, look at the sites at the bottom for more reference to this.

You know about the hardware, replacing drives, etc. but you still only have your MS installed software, so it does you no good.  Now I will talk a little bit about the software modifying.

When you first get your modchip, it will most likely be unflashed for legal purposes.  This means that if you do install it, your Xbox will either see no BIOS, or boot up its own MS installed BIOS, which is no good to us.  Depending on the chip you get, you may have different options for flashing it.  I will talk about the Matrix chip which is what I use, but mostly anything you get will be flashed in a similar fashion.  When you purchase a Matrix modchip you will receive a flasher with it.  This flasher has a standard 9 volt battery connection, a small naked 8-pin male connection, and a standard PC parallel port connection.  First, find whatever hacked BIOS you want to use.  I will not tell you where to get this, but with a little bit of exploration I'm sure you can find it.  You need a program to flash this BIOS to your modchip.  Again, I will not tell you where to get it, but hey, you should be able to find this stuff on your own.  Remember these next steps, because you can screw something up if you do it wrong.

Connect the 9 volt battery to your flasher.

Connect the modchip to the 8-pin male connection on your flasher.

Connect the flasher to the parallel port of your computer.

Open your flasher program, select the BIOS you wish to flash, and flash it!  Once you verify the BIOS is flashed onto your modchip, it's time to install it into your Xbox.

Depending on the BIOS you use, it may modify the Xbox booting sequence to let you know that the install has been successful.  See documentation for your modchip and BIOS for any information on installing and verifying your install.

Now that you have an Xbox running off this new BIOS, the possibilities of what you can do are endless.  I'll briefly go into a few things that you can now do.

Install a New Dashboard

Boot up your Xbox without a game and you'll see a nice green animated menu that lets you explore your memory space, songs ripped from a CD, Xbox preferences, etc.  This is your Xbox dashboard, from now on referenced as your MS Dash.  There are a few different dashboards you can pick to install to replace this pretty but restrictive software.  Most widely known and used is the Evolution X, or Evox Dash.

Find the Evox Dash software, preferably in ISO form, and burn it to whatever media your drive can read.  Boot up your Xbox with this CD and voilà, you're running the Evox Dash.  From here you can discover something new your Xbox can do.  Notice that little port in the back of your Xbox that looks suspiciously like an Ethernet port?  Gasp - it is an Ethernet port!  Find a crossover cable and connect this to the NIC in your PC and that simply you are connected.  Fire up your favorite FTP client, find the Xbox IP settings in Evox, and connect to your Xbox.  Here you see your Xbox hard drive's directory structure: C, D, E, X, Y, Z

The C drive stores your dashboard software.  In there you can replace your MS Dash board with Evox so that you won't have to boot up with a CD-RW or whatnot every time.  Remember to back up your Xbox hard drive before editing, changing, or deleting anything.  It's not that big so just do it.  You'll thank me later if you make a mistake.  Sending files to and from your Xbox is just like FTP'ing to any site and transferring files, so just replace it outright, rename it, whatever, and you'll have Evox boot up as your default dashboard.

XBE, what the heck is that?  You most likely have seen it by now.  XBE is the Xbox's version of the windows .EXE, a.k.a. an executable file.  Your dashboard will have an executable file, most likely called evoxdash.xbe or default.xbe, etc.  Some BIOSes are made to look for specific XBEs on boot up, so again read your documentation.

Now that you have a modded XboxXbox, a new dash, and a network connection to your PC, what else can you do?  Well, just about anything.  There are many pieces of software made by Xbox hackers to do just about anything you want.  Want to watch a movie file, listen to an MP3, and browse JPEGs?  Check out Xbox Media Player.  It has the built in ability to play tons of formats in a very nice GUI system.  If you want to play these files straight off your PC through the network, check out ReLaX.  You can set up network drives just for your Xbox and stream these files right through media player.  Want to play your Xbox games but are sick of swapping DVDs?  There are many apps that let you install the game files onto the hard drive itself and you never need the disc again.  Want to play all those consoles of the golden years?  There are emulators for damn near everything.  PSX, SNES, Genesis, Mame, just look and you can find it all.

Of course we've not discussed nearly everything you can possibly do with this system.  Let's talk a little bit about the operating system that runs default in the Xbox.  It's basically a watered down, non-desktop version of Windows 2000.  Can't tell, can you?  How about running Linux on the box?  Not possible?  Well, it is.  Run a standard Windows OS?  Also possible.  Just look and you may find!

Just a quick closing remark.  What would a system admin think if he traced you back and discovered you were port scanning him on an Xbox?  You know what I'm saying (wink).

Here are a few sites to quench your thirst:

www.xbox-scene.com  Highly recommended.  Tons of articles, FAQs, links, everything.  Go here first and read.

www.gamebuy.com  I've bought from them in the past.  If you need a modchip, go here.  Great service, quick shipping.

www.xemulation.com  Good info on the emulation on the Xbox.