Gaming New to 360 softmodding

Deleted-188346 · Sep 10, 2010

Hey guys, I don't know much about how to softmod an xBox 360, or the pros and cons.
And, before people lecture me about looking at online guides...well, I already did. Most of the guides (that I saw) seem to be from 2007-2008, and the information may or may not be outdated.

So, where is softmodding at, with the xBox 360?
Is the process different for softmodding an 360 Arcade model?

I plan to buy an xBox 360 Arcade preferably, can somebody give me a link to one of the better guides?

hundshamer · Sep 10, 2010

It depends on what you want to do. If it's just to play backups the you need to look into jungleflasher. At the moment you can use the "LT" firmware for you DVD drive and play online. If you want a full hack look into the Jtag. For that you need a model with the 7371 firmware or below (easier to look for the blade dash a.k.a. "pre-NXE"). You cannot play online with this method but you can get all the DLC and XBLA games like the Wii softmod. Unless you get a DVD drive that is NOT a Lite-on 8x or 9x firmware your going to need to solder. If you're buying a brand new 360 be prepared to get one of those Lite-on DVD drives.

Deleted-188346 · Sep 10, 2010

I don't have a solder, nor do I know how to solder, so that isn't an option.

I'm not really interested in playing online. I just want to play offline, along with xBox Arcade games, and possibly homebrew.

I'm fine with removing the disc drive, connecting it to my SATA cable on my computer, and flashing it. Is that only for older 360's?

Armadillo · Sep 11, 2010

Just connecting it the pc, dumping it and then flashing it is for the older drives only. Newer drives need you to cut tracks and solder, before you can dump and then flash it.

If you want xbox arcade games and homebrew, then you need to jtag it, a flashed drive just won't do. If you want to jtag it, then you'll have to do a bit of searching as you need an xbox made before june 18th 2009 and not updated to the 8XXX dash or above. Also, again, it requires soldering. You can buy already jtag'd boxes, but you will pay a premium for them.

Hero-Link · Sep 22, 2010

Guys, i just got my hands on a old xbox360 (before the arcade versions!), only went online once, never hacked.

It's the first time i'm hearing about being able to use DLC and such, much like the Wii. Can anyone direct me to a guide where i can read more about this?

i'm thinking of modding the console (it was never modded in any way, it's still a "virgin"), but i wanted the DLC for the games (namely Alan Wake mostly), and i'm a noob at the xbox360 modding. So any help would be awesome

FAST6191 · Sep 22, 2010

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dnfmv5h_186pp2zddm

It is a bit outdated people use freeboot now rather than XBR and you will want to add dashlaunch there once you are at freeboot but that pretty much has it all covered.

If you want more technical http://www.free60.org/JTAG_Hack and http://www.eurasia.nu/wiki/index.php/Free60JtagHack

The short version is you
Check the dash as detailed in the links above
Dump the first couple of megabytes of NAND
Check it all to make sure it is all good to go further
Wire up the JTAG wiring.
Add in a homebrew launcher to said dump
Flash it back
Dump the rest of the ram in homebrew
Build a complete NAND image with hacked loader/dashboard
Flash that back in software

Congratulations you have a new hacked capable of running DLC, XBLA, homebrew and generally having many nice features (USB loading, hard drive loading, hacked games, unlimited size hard drives, system link over the internet, software level controller remapping to name but a few things)

The complexity, as always, comes with knowing what goes on where and how to deal with things when they go wrong.

Bonus points- JTAG and rebooter alone will not allow you to run copied games from the DVD drive but once hacked with it the 360 can be made to cough up DVD keys via software so you can avoid having to dump them and then just build a hacked firmware and flash it right to the drive if you wanted.

Hero-Link · Sep 22, 2010

Awesome!

thanks a lot mate!

Hitto · Sep 28, 2010

Hey, someone just gave me a 360 with a broken hard drive, can you please confirm there is NO OTHER WAY currently to, say, run a USB ISO loader on your 360 than by crackin' open the case and flashing the DVD drive?

Also, can I replace the 360's hard drive with one of my own, or do I have to buy their horribly horribly overpriced pieces of shit?

On an unrelated note, whoa nelly, this is miles away from plopping a bannerbomb and wiiflow on an SD card O_O;

FAST6191 · Sep 28, 2010

If the 360 was made before mid June 2009 and not updated since August 11th 2009 the you have the option of the SMC / JTAG hack. Otherwise yes flashing the DVD drive is the only way- assuming it is note a liteon (that was covered http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=255781 and in more detail elsewhere) then it is just a matter of using a compatible sata card (via 6421 being universal that you can pick up for about €10 or double that for a laptop one and most nvidia kit since the 3 series if you have a motherboard with one of their chipsets).

If you JTAG hack it you can rock any drive you can fit and power (internally they are just 2.5 inch sata drives so if you want to jump to standard drives you need to find a 12V line in there somewhere), otherwise you are limited to "flashing" certain models WD laptop drives or being a piece of junk. http://www.360-hq.com/xbox-tutorials-64.html has the basics although newer versions of the program are available and we have larger HDSS.bin files.
Do also check it is the drive and not the housing (which you can pick up in most flash cart style shops or DX if you fancy a wait).

As of the last few updates though you do have USB options as a storage device (up to 16 gigs after you let the 360 format it)

Lastly you say wii is easy and it probably is but I have had more headaches caused by trying to hack wiis (and keep them updated) than I have playing 360 hacker or at least after the first time you do it.

Hitto · Sep 28, 2010

Thanks for the info! About wii hacking, To each his own, I guess! (the scene really dumbed it down, though) I could've mentioned just using your iPhone to jailbreak your console too

OK screwdrivers, here we go... (apparently the firmware is mega-recent so no JTAG!)

Gaming New to 360 softmodding

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