Hi! Problem #1 I've got a problem with an HDD that has seemingly been locked with the wrong password. It's a Hitachi Deskstar 500GB IDE Drive "hds725050klat80". I did the Hexen Disc hotswap method (for softmodded consoles) described by ldotsfan at the now defunct xbox-scene.com site. In the end Hexen said the HDD preparation and HDD lock was succesful, only to boot up to Error #06 (Xbox cannot unlock the HDD with EEPROM). Now, I've used this method before with another drive (the one I'm currently using) and it worked well then. This time, however I had trouble booting the disc (since it's burned on an RW) and I'm suspecting this might have had something to do with it.. (like say the laser getting corrupt data from the disc) I want to unlock this HDD and I'm wondering if Hexen disc sets some kind of master hdd password (beside the user password)? Or if it defaults to a generic password if it for some reason fails to get the eeprom password? I've tried unlocking the HDD in Victoria HDD with passwords “XBOXSCENE” and “TEAMASSEMBLY” to no avail, as well as the rumoured Hitachi master password of 32 blank spaces. The eeprom password, however, is too long for Victoria HDD. It doesn't fit in the password bar and Victoria cuts the last character. There is an option to send the password to the HDD in file form. But, I have no idea what format that file should be in. However, this shouldn't even matter to begin with as if the HDD was locked with the correct eeprom password then the Xbox should be able to at least unlock it. So, probably, something went wrong with the Hexen disc.. Now I want to be able to use this HDD (don't want to throw it away), and it's totally fine if that means I have to wipe it. Wiping it in Victoria or Windows Disk Manager doesn't work (obviously, it's locked). But I keep seeing persistent rumours online, among HDD experts, that there are ways to clear the password. Some say that you can wipe the drive and password in a special app, others say that you can reflash drive firmware and wipe the password that way. Spoiler: Orignal instrcution by ldotsfan from xbox-scene.com 01. Insert Hexen Disc and power off the console 02. Connect IDE cable from Xbox to new HDD 03. Connect external power to new HDD (i.e. from a PC) 04. Power on console and recieve Error #05, power off console. (I also had errors #13 and #14) 05. Disconnect IDE cable from new HDD but keep the external power on 06. Power off console and connect IDE cable back to orignal HDD 07. Power on console, wait for Hexen disc to boot 08. Once disc is loaded and you can see the menu, disconnect IDE cable from old HDD and connect to new HDD 09. Enter "2. Softmod Xbox Tools" 10. Enter "2.4 LXHDM Softmod Disk Upgrade" (Optional) Enter "2.4.1 Instructions" and read instructions 11. Enter "2.4.2 Preparation", choose "ok" or "yes" on all prompts and wait for it to finnish 12. Enter one of two: "2.4.3a Build the new disk (NTSC)" or "2.4.3b Build the new disk (PAL)" 13. Once that is done you will be greeted by Evolution X dash, there you will have to choose the option "LOCK" (locks your HDD with eeprom) and after that the option "BACKUP" (backs up eeprom) Problem #2 - Hexen fails to format all of the ~200GB of an HDD (on a softmodded console) No matter what I try it always ends up with a ~120GB partition (leaving about 40-60 GB unformatted). What needs to be done for the whole drive to be formatted?
there is a tool called zu.exe I have used it a few times and its worked. You should try it on your drive, some instructions for someone unlocking an hitachi here: https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32234 Based on that thread: Put drive on primary master run zu /p8 <follow any instructions it gives> run zu /s. <follow any instructions it gives> run zu /p. <follow any instructions it gives> Let us know how you get on. I have used this tool on other drives (and other tools). But never had any HGST drives. Edit: According to another link, you may need to jumper the drive for safe mode: http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=166#p1555
You mean moving the jumpers next to the IDE interface? If that's the case then how do I find out what jumper combination is needed? Thanks for the reply, I have zu already. I've tried running it from within Hiren's Boot CD. Maybe I should try running it from a strictly DOS environment too.
apparently hitach 3.5 inch IDE drives is as so: You can also put them in safemode by disconnecting the PCB from the drive. Also make sure you are putting the period/fullstop in the commands after S and P
Well, apparently, Hitachi drives refer to safe mode as "Auto Spin Disable". That's the name of the jumper setting that you showed me. I made a bootable FreeDOS usb and ran "zu /P." (as well as /S.) for ~5 minutes with no results. Not sure what to do. Nope, this method only works for certain HDDs (2.5" iirc) There's also talk about shorting NVRAM or certain points on the controller board, no idea which specifc points (or what shorting NVRAM means). The motherboard I'm trying this on is an older Asus LGA1155 board that has a single IDE port onboard. It's an Intel chipset, so ZU should be supported. I can come back with detailed specs, if it's needed.
Not sure what procedure HeXeN follows but do you have the EEPROM dump that was used to set the password? Any chance of just finding out what the password got set to?
I did a backup of the EEPROM the first time I softmodded this console. But, the PC app Victoria 4.3 only supports up to 39 characters for HDD password, while the EEPROM password is 40 characters. Victoria also supports sending the password to the HDD as a file. But, I don't know what the format of the file should be and how this password file is created.. I don't know what Hexen locked the HDD with. Maybe it locked the HDD correctly, using the console's EEPROM and the HDD simply isn't compatible with this particular console 1.6b. Or, maybe, the console had trouble properly reading the -RW disc which somehow corrupted the locking process..
Right, so you verified the HDD is not locked with the code stored on that EEPROM? Did you try xboxhdm?
Edited my previous post, re-read it, please I have not tried running the live version xboxhdm on the xbox nor on the PC. I have tried the latest release for Windows, and it only lists the USB / Cardreader devices and ignores any and all HDDs. Spoiler: Screenshots Victoria: XboxHDM for Windows:
Oh right, I did at some point get a USB IDE controller that worked with the Windows version. But the CD version was perfect for disk unlocking. Does require an IDE controller on your motherboard though.
Yep, hence: "The motherboard I'm trying this on is an older Asus LGA1155 board that has a single IDE port onboard". Thanks for the link, I'll be sure to check it out and report back!
Could be an issue with the chipset your motherboard uses. Unlocking drives etc can be very controller specific - much like how the 360 drive modding was. Its why professional tools have their own USB or PCIE interfaces.
Victoria tutorial to unlock HDD by file: http://malthus.mooo.com/viewtopic.php?t=1072 XBOX HDD PASSWORD: 3D 05 5C E6 3F E0 80 EC 66 04 69 34 4F FA 2B 89 F2 8B D0 91 You can't really type in the 20 characters of the Xbox hdd password in the box provided by Victoria as the Xbox's password is not made up of all ASCII printable characters. You'll have to use the file method to unlock the drive. Do you have the password? Sidenote: Use XboxHDM23USB - if you don't back a backup copy of the eeprom.bin file for your xbox, you could use an EEPROM reader or Raspberry PI to read the config EEPROM on the Xbox motherboard to use XboxHDM to unlock the drive as the password is computed using the HDDKey stored in the EEPROM and info read from the HDD (config EEPROM 256 bytes - data format at xboxdevwiki.net/EEPROM). Add the eeprom.bin file to XboxHDM23USB where the startup batch file, xboxhd.bat, is found. To see the USB to IDE/SATA device your drive is connected to, go into the device manage and temporarily disable the USB devices you listed above as XboxHDM23USB only enumerates the first 4 USB drive devices found. This example password above is only 20 bytes of the 32 the tutorial mentions Victoria requires to accept the password file. If you have the password, open a Hex editor and copy/paste or keyin hex data; however, since there are only 20 bytes, add 12 more 00's to the file.
