I made a video because typing it all would be pretty ridiculous, so just watch this and tell me what you think. Any help would be appreciated. [video=youtube_share;lqUqcfnXKhY]http://youtu.be/lqUqcfnXKhY[/video]
Okay dude let me tell you what "MODE B" is about... MODE B is a special testing mode which is specific for the old Hitachi-LG drives which cause it to operate like a standard PC SATA DVD drive. It enable things like a special debug command which (for this purpose) is used to read or flash sections of the firmware flash memory. There's two ways of triggering the MODE B on a 0047DH drive: Hardware way: On boot, the drive change the tray status pin as input, detects the status of the said pin to detect if there's a load connected to it (aka: access led) and if a load is found there the pin is set up as output again but the drive set itself up as "B" mode and from that point onwards it behaves like a generic PC SATA DVD-ROM drive. If it doesn't detect a load on the pin (aka: voltage is present on the pin even with set as input) the drive assumes it's connected to a XBOX360 and will operate on "A" mode. Software way: Jungle flasher can send a stream of commands which will cause the drive to switch to mode B after it's been already powered on. That's what the "Send mode B" button is for. For JF to be able to detect the drive, you need it to be already visible on Windows device manager (if you're using the onboard SATA). If you're using Xecuter flashing stuff instead, you don't need it to show up on windows device manager but JF should be able to find it. While on mode B, the drive eject signal will behave like a normal eject button of a DVD rom (single short to GND causes the tray to open or to close). While on mode A, the signal will cause the drive to open the tray while at +3.3v and close the door while at 0v.
Yes, they are easy to brick. Even I bricked some myself. I was able to unbrick them with a chip programmer though.
I've got a 79fl board here somewhere with the epoxy mostly removed that needs to be reprogrammed. The software warned me it might get bricked and I'll admit it, I was kinda curious to see how badly it got bricked. It was bad.
Well imagine you pulling the rug under a person while he/she is still walking over it... Basically you're messing with a piece of live code while the processor is running on it. So you corrupt a single byte on a important routine you can have it freeze or go rough writing on to random sectors on the flash. Basically as bad as you said, Ape.
I successfully modded the drive. How did you guys find out so much about this anyway? I'd love to read about all the different kinds of Xbox 360 drives and their specifics. I loved how you guys talk about the electrical currents and how it responds, I really want to read the stuff that you read to find out that Mode B is to do with electrical signals being active and such.
These were findings of the original hackers who were working with reverse engineering the drive. But because they did not think about the purpose of that behavior they never explained it to the public. I have a few of these drives which I took from faulty XBOX360 consoles. When I have trouble reading a DVD or DVDR on my recorder I hook it to the PC. By setting it up with the led (it will be the drive's access led, even) I can use it as a normal PC drive. That's quite handy honestly.
