Hello people. I need assistance on multiple issues I'm having currently, so any help would be highly appreciated (I believe I'm at the right place). And btw as you might have noticed, I'm a newbie here so if I'm being a rookie with thread posting by the rules of the forums, pardon my lack of experience. Anyway, I'm getting to the matters now. I just acquired an original Xbox, today more specifically. The console is both soft and hard modded. It has an extra OS which the console boots up with instead of its original dashboard (you can switch to the original dashboard through it though) and it also has a modchip installed. And as one of the main deals of this post, it has a customized intro animation. Think of the classic Xbox boot up animation with a watermark logo displaying on it to the top left of the screen (it's a local video game/electronics store's logo, the place that did the mod presumably. Annoying as heck. Fyi, I didn't get the console directly from that store but got it from someone who got it from there. So, the methods they went with on the device is beyond my knowledge). What I want: I don't like alternative OS' on my consoles, so I want it to boot up with its own genuine dashboard. If that means softmod removal, not sure if there's a relation but I definetely want to keep the installed modchip active. I'm not sure if modchips require some software based touches to work properly with a console or if they work merely by physical connections without any soft relation but I want to keep it active no matter what as I get rid of the alternative OS. (You might wonder why I go with such preferances, well I like having the original software of the console, building a collection by having genuine CiB games to run on it (I'm not fond of digital gaming) but having the console region-free without compromising its original menu. So the whole meaning of the modchip is the region-free functionality to me.) And I guess the most important part, at least for now, is fixing the intro animation. I looked it up online and found out that it might be either softmod related or modchip related. It is said that intro customization can be done by using a specific bios on the modchip installation. I obviously can't know what method the people who did the mod followed though. If you need to know any additional info in order to provide help, do let me know because I'm not sure what is related with what in all this since I'm entirely inexperienced with the original Xbox. The softmod OS doesn't have its name displayed on it so I can't figure out what it is. Also I don't know what brand the modchip is. If these should affect the fix methods to go with, please let me know how to get the necessary info. Anyway, it's gotten a bit too long. If you could help out with any of these issues or at least share what you know, I'd appreciate big time. Thank you very much in advance.
I'm not sure how to answer this.. First off to better help we need to know what chip is installed in the xbox.. For example if its a x3 chip then yes the flubber/startup animation settings can be controlled by that chip and its a very easy thing to reset to default.. Also I'm not sure about the running of the original dash and keeping the modchip working, from my experience if you load to the original dash the modchip more or less gets disabled. You may be able to instead of removing the custom os find a skin that works for it that looks like the standard xbox dashboard.. not sure on that though. Also.. Disc based games... Dat load time. D;
If you have a completely stock hard drive and install a modchip without updating any of the hard drive files it will work completely fine. It will be region free and play burned games. But that will not solve the issue with the boot up screen and the watermark that he is talking about. I am assuming that it must be a EvoX bios with the red colored shield. If it was a soft mod then you would have a totally stock boot up animation. You really need to know hat kind of mod chip you have before you know what bios it can use and what size it can hold.
To address certain points; For a stock looking bootup with a modchip. You'll need to flash a bios with a transparent image, or the later EVOX bios have an option to remove it. To boot to MSDASH (not sure why you would want this to begin with) when creating the bios above, change the dashboard XBE to the MSDASH xbe. That should be it. If you're softmodded, (depending on current setup) you'll have to install the softmod again but with dual boot. Boot up by the eject button and it will load the MSDASH. hopefully I understood what your needs were, but that should cover it.
Thanks for the replies. I got further info about what I have here, the dashboard I see after boot up is UnleashX I guess (this exactly --> http://img26.photobucket.com/albums/v78/UnleashX/Image_0073.jpg ) I also wanted to open up the console but expectedly, it requires some unique screwdriver which I don't have at the moment. I'll order the necesary tools online and let you know what modchip it is or at least would take a photo for identification. @ToxicMedz, I'm good with the load times, it's not that bad X) About the skin change, that may be a good idea as a second resort. I've been looking for an original looking one but no luck so far. But I found an original looking dashboard simply, named User Interface X (UIX). Anyone who's ever used UIX? It looks like what I want by the screenshots I've seen, at least it is as close as it gets for now. Maybe I can switch to a different dashboard instead of changing the skin. I found some guides for that (here --> http://www.smdepot.net/forum/index.php?topic=433.0 ) The methods listed there are compatible with EvoX and UXE as you'd see. Can't be sure but again by some looking up, I get that UXE is the shortage for UnleashX..? If so, I want to prefer the no FTP way since the FTP way looks a bit more complicated with the included network usage along with a PC and all. Don't get one part in the no FTP way though, might be a silly question but that step is skipped in that guide entirely (probably just because it's obvious but what the heck..) I guess I should download the dashboard files and transfer them to the Xbox hard drive via a usb flash drive or something, am I right? I mean it would accept that for the file transfer..? Another thing, @davidthomas, the guy I got the Xbox from gave me a few burned dvd' for me to apply some tests. One of them is a multi game disc, containing two games (halo and buffy). When I load it, it fetches me another dashboard looking interface (exactly this --> http://www.wagonbutterworth.com/projects/xbox_mod/IMG_0910.JPG ...Mine is has the text "EvoX CD!" on the top right and "RemoteX V1.8.3752" on the bottom right though). So since this a burned disc, it should be working along with the modchip bios as far as my knowlegde goes and since what I see is something about EvoX (excuse my primitive terms in general, I'm not familiar with any of these) does that indicate to an EvoX bios as what I have here flashed to the modchip? Anyway I guess I'll have to know what modchip I exactly have before I get to the bios flashing phase to remove that watermark image but if the updated case gives you some certain ideas on any other thing to do next at this point, please let me know. @HEX1GON, btw, if I set it to dual boot and use the eject button for a boot up directly with MSDASH, that would mean an ejected DVD drive in every turn on am I right? That sounds kind of imperfect as a solution. And when a console is softmodded, it's impossible to push the softmod dashboard behind MSDASH for good I take it? In general, should I at least know that it's not lilkely to happen keeping the modchip working without a softmod done? And how does the bios flashing process go, do you need a softmod interface to do that necessarily? Or can you do that with a burned disc merely by having nothing to do with softmod? I got all kinds of confused...
Yes, if you go the softmod route you'll need to power on with the eject button to boot straight to MSDASH. Modchip route not so much.. You'll just need to write to the modchip with a bios that's to your needs (without any icons, or different logos and colours). You then can pretty much leave it as is, without making any changes to the hard disk. Also, if you're softmodded backups/mutigame discs will still boot as if a modchip is installed. The noticeable difference in the XBOX's behaviour is that the status LED will turn orange, while in softmod state. So make sure when you open your XBOX is that you do infact have a modchip.
