Hacking The difference between standard backup releases and JTAG/RGH releases?

Mantis

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So, I have around a hundred retail games and many XBLA/indie games, and I'd like to download backups. I would like to know the difference between those that are labelled as JTAG/RGH releases and just standard backups. I understand that a standard backup would typically contain an ISO file. Can't I just extract the contents of the ISO file and transfer it to my 360's drive when it's modded? Like back in the Xbox days nearly a decade ago when I just uploaded the contents of an Xbox disc with the default.xbe file to my console via FTP, or is it more complicated than that?

Thanks, much appreciated! :yay:
 

DinohScene

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You can extract the contents of normal ISO's with Xbox Image browser and copy them to a FAT32 USB drive or upload it via FTP yes.
It saves space on the drive and allow you for easy modding of files.

XBLA needs to be Yarisswapped (usually done by the uploader/dumpgroup) and placed in the original folder structure on the MS dash or on any given location on FSD/XeXmenu.

Indie games are possible with Dashlaunch 3.0
I haven't downloaded any/tried any so I can't give you an answer on it.
My guesses are the same for XBLA games.


Note that you will need either XeXMenu or FSD in order to execute xex files.
MS Dash cannot execute xex files
 

FAST6191

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DinohScene took the bulk of it but if you are seeing JTAG releases of full games assuming you are not looking at p2p nonsense it is probably from last year when XGD3 appeared and people could not rip or burn the isos properly yet but if you had the retail game you could install it to the hard drive and rip that which meant JTAG (and later RGH) users could run it.
If you are looking at p2p (as opposed to scene releases which we tend not to advise doing) then it can be anything (360 hacking beyond the likes of Halo and COD and savegame hacking has not really taken off like the Wii and certainly not the DS although some people are doing some things) but is usually like the above method and might be slightly to quite a lot smaller than the average iso release (if the download sizes are something along the lines of http://www.stripesonfire.com/xbox-360-game-install-list/ and http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202456 then almost certainly).

If you are looking at JTAG/RGH XBLA and DLC titles (again a distinction usually reserved for the p2p side of things) then you might be looking at some of the stuff for profile sharing which did not work with scene stuff that as DinohScene said is yaris swapped and would not work properly with profile sharing methods. Some places then made the distinction between the two methods.
 

DinohScene

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Exactly what FAST said.

jTAG/RGH releases are pretty much just dumped discs in xex format.
All the random padding has been removed which reduces the size of the game.

For exampe:
Naughty bear 360 isn't even 1 GB in total.
Yet the full ISO is 7.3 GB~
This means that it has 6 GB of random padding.
 

Mantis

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Right, I'm with you now, thanks. Actually, I use (removed, as recommended by Fudge) as my gaming tracker which has been very reliable. A lot of the games are scene releases although many are not. What kind of benefits would I get from profile sharing? Due to its aesthetic values and ease of use I will be using FSD, and loading up Dashlaunch for games that I can't run with FSD. You had any luck with Castle Crashers? I can't run it on my 360 (not RGH'd yet, but it's console banned now) as I have been told save data is actually stored online.
 

Fudge

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Right, I'm with you now, thanks. Actually, I use as my gaming tracker which has been very reliable. A lot of the games are scene releases although many are not. What kind of benefits would I get from profile sharing? Due to its aesthetic values and ease of use I will be using FSD, and loading up Dashlaunch for games that I can't run with FSD. You had any luck with Castle Crashers? I can't run it on my 360 (not RGH'd yet, but it's console banned now) as I have been told save data is actually stored online.
I would remove from your post, it's a piracy site, an excellent one may I add! Castle Crashers won't work for you right now because of a few possible reasons

You downloaded a release for JTAG
You own the license that is on you're account but not the console. If it is on your account you have to be on live for it to work if the license is not already on the console you happen to be using.

EDIT: Raulpica is such a sometimes!
 

DinohScene

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I agree about B******r.
Mighty fine site.

Pretty much everything can be executed on a RGH.
JTAG releases and RGH releases.

But why would you do profile sharing if you can run them without the owned profile.
Yarisswapped releases tho.
 

Mantis

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Okay, removed the mention of aforementioned site. Indeed, the underground sister of it is a great site, too! :D Okay, I understand about Castle Crashers. I guess I can just edit the save in the JTAG release to be the same as my old stats (as far as I can remember them). I assumed profile sharing would allow me to load my profile on a non-banned 360 and thus update my achievements, but I don't know much about it.
 

DinohScene

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If you still care about Live (for your GT)
Then I suggest that you NEVER boot homebrew or XeXMenu or FSD with your GT.

This does add data to your GT and is detectable by MS.
This is likely to end up in your GT being banned.

More info on the staying safe stuff here
 

Mantis

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Isn't there any software like Modio that can remove this data? To my knowledge, save games from offline play don't have timestamps. Thus, would it not be possible to keep my profile on my PC and just extract the data I want using Modio (new games and associated achievement data), and inject that into the profile on my PC? (Not sure if that made sense.) Actually, I just checked out your link and it seems pretty complicated. I guess if I created a dummy profile with my save games to use on my 360 with FSD and the like and copied the relevant data from that to my proper Live GT on my PC (to transfer to another 360 via USB drive) that might work? Or maybe not... :glare:

'Tis a shame, but if I must I guess I'll abandon Xbox Live. Gamerscore is just a number, after all.
 

Mantis

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I hear you can, but you'll need a dual NAND. This essentially turns your console into two Xbox 360s. You can boot into the non-RGH NAND to use Xbox Live, or you can boot into the RGH NAND for homebrew, custom dashes, booting from the HDD, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong though, guys. Of course, this isn't cheaply possible for me since I was console banned.
 

FAST6191

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You can not go on live with RGH or JTAG consoles using the hacked mode. There were some ways to get online with JTAG back when but MS got banning down to a fine art (some 20 minutes in the end) and I do not think people have bothered to try getting back online in a proper manner (it got to the point where people would buy a bunch of keyvaults from RRoD boards and stick them online but that is not something we deal with around here).

With RGH you can do a dual NAND hack where you can swap back to something approximating a stock NAND image, this takes some serious doing to keep up to date and do properly in the first place. MS takes an exceptionally dim view of hacked consoles on live and nobody quite knows what they will do next update (RGH was and still is quite a big deal although it could have been worse and MS have tried to make it harder to keep up with).

To this end the party line around here is the only mods you can do and retain live are proper save editing (still somewhat tricky to do properly and not be detected), installation of GOTY DLC (stuff like fallout 3 and borderlands double pack that came as an installer can but stuck on the hard drive via any method that can access it or use USB to get it onto the hard drive via USBxtaf), a hard drive replacement mod (the given series of WD drives you could mod to work on a stock system), a DVD mod (although MS have done bans in the past and even though we are sitting pretty right now with no proper mass bans in a while it could get hard again) and optical drive emulation although what might be misinformation says they might not be entirely as safe as the DVD stuff.

The other potential options were profile sharing (not active any more as far as I know), stuff like the old modern warfare 2 I think it was glitch that allowed some XBLA that was a demo to function as a real thing (long since gone), profile modding (MS really dislike this and all that can be done is you unlock some achievements but if you want to get banned for a pointless score go right ahead just tell us so we can laugh at you if you do get banned), the old shadow complex glitch that allowed full gameplay (although they might have blacklisted that version) on the demo as you could bypass the wall put in to end the demo, there was a method called live2con earlier in life where some of the smaller LIVE format DLC as seen in some rockband and music games was rendered as CON files (those used for profiles and saves but still largely the same format ( http://free60.org/STFS )) but that is probably no more and the last one I can think of was disc swapping and possibly hard drive content modding where copied discs with altered data was put on and installed by stopping the game installing and swapping out - I mainly saw this for call of duty world at war and similar titles and MS did not care for it then either.

Oh and I guess you could host a VPN system link game and have JTAG/RGH join you but that does not really count. The only real thing you have to gain there is the ability to play on certain/older title updates if you wanted some of the "bugs" that were fixed in later title updates.

That is the basic answer and it gets more tedious which is why you probably still lack for a proper answer.
 
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DinohScene

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Isn't there any software like Modio that can remove this data? To my knowledge, save games from offline play don't have timestamps. Thus, would it not be possible to keep my profile on my PC and just extract the data I want using Modio (new games and associated achievement data), and inject that into the profile on my PC? (Not sure if that made sense.) Actually, I just checked out your link and it seems pretty complicated. I guess if I created a dummy profile with my save games to use on my 360 with FSD and the like and copied the relevant data from that to my proper Live GT on my PC (to transfer to another 360 via USB drive) that might work? Or maybe not... :glare:

'Tis a shame, but if I must I guess I'll abandon Xbox Live. Gamerscore is just a number, after all.


You can play games and update gamerscore with JTAG/RGH but it requires you to sign in AFTER you've booted a game.

If you're done with playing then LOG OUT before returning to the dash.

Then it should be safe to use.



I've always had this question but never got it answered properly, but can you go on Xbox Live with RGH'd console? Because I'm thinking about RGHing mine too.


Yes and no.

Like Mantis said.
Dual NAND.
But you CANNOT go on XBLive with the hacked state.

Same rules apply for keeping the GT safe.
Plus the fact that you want to prevent having downloaded games on the HDD etc.


edit:
Ninja'd by FAST.
 
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Rasas

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I think the site should have a decent FAQ for the somewhat frequent topics on the subject. I write it but my English isn't that great so unless someone is willing to revise the one I type up I think someone else should do it.

Edit: Guess there is one in games and content but it seems to be missing some things.
http://gbatemp.net/topic/123840-frequently-asked-questions-about-the-xbox360-and-backups/
 

Devin

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And with the Dual Nand option, can you play backups on Xbox Live? Or is it just original copies?

Yes you can, but you can't play them off the internal HDD. Only burned games, and ODDEs.

But doesn't that require you to have a flashed DVD Drive?

For burned discs yes, for the ODDE you'll need your drive keys. (Which you can easily dump with your hacked NAND.)

EDIT: If you have a dump of a NAND, it should be quite easy to grab the drive keys. Wonder if anyone made a homebrew that flashes your disc drive. It would be pretty sweet.
 

DinohScene

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If you're out to play backups from a HDD and want to be able to connect to XBLive then a ODDE is the best option there is.

RGH is (no offense) for somewhat more knowledged people that don't care about Live/have a Live box/know what their doing.

A ODDE can sometimes be cheaper then a complete RGH.


But yes.
For an ODDE you will need to dump your DVD keys (don't have to flash a CFW to the drive)

@Devin.
Afaik no one has made one yet );
Bummer since there are some NAND flashers lol
 

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