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Solved 360 Flashing Help PLEASE!!!

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RaserIbanez

RaserIbanez

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OK please forgive the length of this - if it seems long winded it is Only because I want to get a clear and precise answer to my specific problem - the best way to do that is to describe fully my situation. I will try to keep it as short as possible.

I have an old XBOX 360 Slim 250 Hard drive. I stopped playing on it because the touch plate on the front was knackered and it turns off randomly for like half hour before staying on long enough to start playing. I was going to just scrap the thing but I read about people modding / flashing their 360's - some even running Linux on them. This is right up my street and made sense to me as the XBOX is essentially a gaming computer, with good(ish) specs and I have been learning programming on a Linux OS for a few months now so I thought it would be an interesting project, and if I succeed I plan to make a decent step-by-step guide to explain the difficulties and questions I have struggled with.

Anyway...(already getting carried away!) I looked online and it seems this isn't a straight forward process and the guides online are all different and quite confusing. I find a good guide and it's not for my hardware, then there's tons of different ways to do it, and reasons for doing it.

I had to take it apart anyway to get the front touch-plate off so I decided to see what I have, specifically to see what I need to do. If you make it through my explanation (Thanks in advance) I will put a few short questions at the end to sum up exactly what I hope to find out.

WHAT I WANT TO ACHIEVE:
I want to mod the firmware / flash the DVD drive to accept a non-official Disc
Then install Linux on the Hard Drive (I have a X86 Ubuntu 7.10 (.iso) disk prepared - known to work on 360's)
BUT - I want to use a different hard-drive (I have a laptop drive that slots in perfectly and will be fine for Linux)

I don't want to spend any money on it - if I have to do that I may as-well just pay someone to do it or just repair my touch plate - I don't want to do that either. I want to better my knowledge and skills. At the moment the controller is my power button and once in Linux I will be able to shut down and eject the tray from a command terminal.

It just isn't as rewarding if I have to buy a device to do it for me - or pay someone to do something I can learn myself!


WHAT I HAVE:
XBOX 360 / 250GB / Slim
Firmware Ver: 0225
Hardware Ver: A0A0
DVD: Liteon DG-16D4S - 0225
Seperate Computers with Linux OS for other operations

WHAT I HAVE TRIED:
So apparently I need to extract the DVD's key so it can be flashed to allow non-official discs.

I thought 'why not just bang a LInux ready HDD in it and it should just boot up' stupid idea lol The 360 can run with NO drive in it the dashboard seems to be built in to the motherboard. (Or...Is It On The DVD???)

I only have Linux on my PC's / Laptop / Raspberry Pi, so I can't run the 'Jungleflash' and other software made for Windows. I have tried a virtual environment (xp) and 'Wine' (allows .exe and windows software to play in Linux) and No joy - so getting the key didn't happen as easily as it should have - I still have No key.

I have hooked the Liteon DVD to my PC's HDD type red cable, and was instructed to power it from the XBOX itself, then others said this was no good (I don't care about Xbox live banning me e.t.c I really don't use it at all - and even less if my project is completed)

I opened a command terminal in Linux and entered some commands to check for the hardware connected to the machine, and No DVD drive other than my own PC's one.

I then searched for some DVD/360 flashing software and found 'xbox-360-tools' for Linux which when I got it looked to be Exactly like the Windows version (contained the same filenames) and found it was an open-source version of the same thing that can extract the DVD - the maker didn't specify which version of Linux it was made for and it doesn't run properly in mine - Linux Ubuntu 15.10 (like trying to run Win8 software on an XP machine or something similar) I read into his files and it seems he 'borrowed ' the idea from the Windows version and 'made' it open source. Anyway the software was supposed to extract the key into a specific file destination, but I just got errors telling me it wasn't compatible. It seems ironic that the only system that will hack a Microsoft Xbox is a Microsoft Windows machine! I thought Linux would be the natural choice for programmers/hackers in the beginning. It seems popularity is leaning towards windows so software gets sold if they make it for that system. Linux is Open Source so if someone makes it it is solely to let others use and share it, and with no profit or monetary reward for their time and efforts. So they tend not to bother.(I wont start getting to deep into the world of OS politics lol)

I looked at making my own separate power supply to power the Liteon DVD drive. I thought there may be an internal software-type 'block' by Microsoft of some sort so if it's still connected to the XBOX it won't allow any tampering. The Liteon DVD drive only wants 5V-DC supply with 1.0 amp, and I am OK with electronics, but then I saw it can be connected to a PC power supply. I have a bread-board and tons of jumper wires male+female so I can connect different power leads without cutting and soldering. I have the 12pin female DVD connector with jumpers in every of the 10 usable slots, going to the circuit-board, but the PC power supply only has 4-wire connectors. The guide was crapola and not detailed at all.

Here is a link showing my picture of my power supply linked to a breadboard, ready to make a connection to a PC or other supply (no soldering needed):

2016_04_18_015633.jpg



If you know how I can hook this to a regular PC supply your input is much appreciated. Heres my immediate issue:
XBOX Power cable = 12 Pins/Wires (10 of which are in use)
PC Power Supplies = 4 maybe 5 Wires (depending on the power supply I am looking at)
5v 1.0a Power Plug = 2 Wires


Then I looked at these Maximus Lizard and CK3 devices that hook up to the Liteon and extract the key and thought about giving up. Especially if it involves money. But these things are just hardware right? they can be made with a bit of logic, they could if you could find a schematic at-least. So the poor-mans alternative is apparantly a 'Probe'

Now at this point in time I am still not 100% on a probes purpose. I originally thought it was a separate power supply for the Liteon DVD to connect to a PC for flashing, but now I see it is more a cheap and not so safe alternative to the commercial devices you can buy - So it must extract the Key then??? So if I make the probe I still need a power supply? But the probe uses the power cable on the DVD so where does the power / Voltage actually come from (What else do I need to make)

A wire can't do this alone, so I imagine that is just a 'piece of the puzzle', I then would still need the software to retrieve the key / flash the drive. And I am back at this problem again...Nothing out yet for Linux. I have an old XP disk if this is my only option - but no Product Key (these keys are a pain in the butt)

ANOTHER problem....So I am reading that the method in which I flash or retrieve the key, or (whatever I need to do first) depends on the type of chip on my board. Now so far my XBOX has been one of the ones that Can be modded when I look at other peoples questions e.t.c but it all falls down to two types ....MXIC and Winbond SPI - this can be read by a number on a chip on the mother-board. The chip is supposed to be a Mediatek one. I don't have one of them and the motherboard is completely stripped down on mine (exept for the main cpu and heatsink) so I haven't missed it or it ain't on the back lol. The two main chips (aside from the one under the heatsink and fan) have microsoft but nothing at all like what I had to look out for. I am now thinking it is under the Heatsink I cant remove non-violently.

If theres any Linux users reading this:
I have a drive with Kali on it. Kali Linux as you probably know is aimed at penetration testing, brute-forcing keys and network hacking e.tc e.tc....however there is software on there for 'reverse engineering' and hardware hacking. Is this a route I can go down? Could I reverse-engineer, or penetrate this encryption in Kali Linux. How haven't I already tried this - I only just thought about it - it may work, but it may not too.

IF you made it this far you deserve a certificate of some sort!
and Thanks for taking the time to consider the mind boggling situation I have found myself buried in. Here is basically what I need to know. - and don't worry, even if you have an answer to just one or two of the questions it will help. I just thought that rather than flooding forums with many questions it would be better to explain fully my problem and do it all in one post.

What I need to know please:
Can I extract this DVD key on a Linux OS realistically?

Is Kali Linux a better choice for flashing this DVD?

Is the mediatek chip (used to identify models) the main CPU under the big fan on m-board?

If not how can I tell what chip I have if I don't have the ones in the guides?

What is a Probe really used for?

Why do the videos all load up king kong? (I have the old .iso download version!)

Can I power this DVD drive, from the XBOX or not, while flashing from a PC? (do i 'need' another power supply)

Wouldn't it be easier to just swap the XBOX 360 DVD drive for a normal PC one (its for Linux not gaming and I am aware of the power plug being different I still have to overcome this anyway)?

If I make a Probe, how do I power the Lite-on DVD to extract and flash?

Can anyone suggest a start-to-finish guide for MY hardware and situation?

Has anyone run Linux on a 360, who can give me some pointers please???
 
RaserIbanez

RaserIbanez

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Again - apologies for the length of that post, it's been a along day and if I dont explain I wont get the right feedback. Also apologies for the low quality circuit photo - it was taken on an OLD Playstation2 Eyetoy USB camera, hooked straight to Linux Ubuntu

ALSO - I have NO idea how the mature breasted lady got in my post, I did not put her there, but i did however use a quick copy/paste type image upload site to get a link to the picture. So I am blaming them
 
HexDecimal

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Okay, I can answer a few points for you. Number 1, you are right, you need the DVD key, otherwise the Xbox will not accept the drive. Number 2, to run ANY OS other than the official Xbox stuff you need to RGH your console. You must buy a glitch chip as well as some other stuff. I really doubt you will be able to make a glitch chip yourself. The Xbox's OS is stored on a flash chip, on the motherboard.
 
NoloConosco

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So I actually find myself in the same position as you with much less knowledge on the matter.

I know I'm 2 years too late but currently going through all of this and too stubborn to quit lol.

I can only answer a couple of questions.

The probe-
There is a video on Youtube for making a probe with an ice pick and toggle switch. DIY Xbox 360 probe LiteOn. What Im under the impression it does, is cause something in your xbox to reset to make the flash happen. I read about Hotswapping instead of flashing on Benq and Hitachi but not sure if its possible for LiteOn.

King Kong-
The King Kong game contains a shader exploit in it as long as it's used with an xbox of a certain kernel type (4532 or 4548). People use this exploit to boot xell and linux. Don't really know how. Something about extracting the king kong ISO, patching it, and burning it to a dvd containing linux. If you figured out a way and still receive messages from this forum, please let me know if you found any updated tutorials on doing this
 
ImOx

ImOx

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So I actually find myself in the same position as you with much less knowledge on the matter.

I know I'm 2 years too late but currently going through all of this and too stubborn to quit lol.

I can only answer a couple of questions.

The probe-
There is a video on Youtube for making a probe with an ice pick and toggle switch. DIY Xbox 360 probe LiteOn. What Im under the impression it does, is cause something in your xbox to reset to make the flash happen. I read about Hotswapping instead of flashing on Benq and Hitachi but not sure if its possible for LiteOn.

King Kong-
The King Kong game contains a shader exploit in it as long as it's used with an xbox of a certain kernel type (4532 or 4548). People use this exploit to boot xell and linux. Don't really know how. Something about extracting the king kong ISO, patching it, and burning it to a dvd containing linux. If you figured out a way and still receive messages from this forum, please let me know if you found any updated tutorials on doing this
Right, well this thread died years ago already.
Hopefully someone, sometime, will find your reply useful so it wasn't a waste.
Archiving this thread now.
 
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