Reflashing an xbox.

[Pavey]

Have here a chipped xbox with a 200gb HD,however the dash only shows it as 130 gb.

Im guessing this is something to do with the bios on it,so i was hoping to reflash it with the bios i normally use.

Have no idea how to do this

I have a Slayers disk,and there is a section there about reflashing,but it gives you a few warnings along the lines of 'this can kill your xbox' etc,so am a bit reluctant to take this route without any pointers.

Cheers

[Shinebi]

First you have to know what type of chip you have. There are different sizes of BIOS: 256k, 512k, 1M. (1M is for Xecuter chip versions and SmartXX i think).

!!You can check the size of the bios that you want to use in any filemanaging proggie!!

Make sure that your chip can handle the size of the BIOS you would like to use. Older chips cannot handle different sizes, but more recent chips can take 256 and 512 versions.

I recommend opting for a Xecuter BIOS, 5130 or so is pretty recent (but i think this is only available in 512) The latest that I had on my Xelixis was 4981 or 4983. Works fine afaik, never had any problems, 256k.

The older bioses were limited to 137 MB of the HD, for these versions you could just have an extra partition (G) or flash the bios with a more recent bios AND reformat the entire HD.


The more recent bioses are limited to +/-300Gigs. After going over 300, the entire F partition becomes corrupt!! eg I have a 500G HD: all was seen, but after going over 300, it was blanked (all was still there but became invisible/unaccessible) This has to do with LBA48 stuff, instead of 16 bit clusters it should be 32 bit clusters, then all will be read as it should. You can format a HD of large size (400/500Gigs) with XBpartitioner v1.0. Xecuter 3 apparently formats with LBA48 activated, I'm still hoping I can get over 300 one of these days, but I'm still backing up my entire drive to a portable one as I had the partition wiped clean 3 times already...!!!

Check here on the forum and look for some threads about this topic.

(BIOS updates are not only to solve conflicts with certain hardware, they also increase the compatibilty with Xbox software. Shenmue 2, Indiana Jones and some other games would not launch from HD with older bioses, but they did lauch from HD when the original game was inserted: the mediacheck still had to be performed. Newer bioses did solve this issue)


!!!! If you flash the chip with a bios of the wrong size, the chip will fail to boot (again, this depends on the version of the chip). You can reflash the chip by hotswapping with an exact same model of the chip that has exact the same bios. (This can only be done with chips that DON'T have any extra ground wires/data wires to the mobo: cheapmods/LPC mods, Xelixis etc)!!!!

Hope this helps,


Tom

[Pavey]

Hello Tom

Lost me a bit to be honest there mate

I believe the bios i have is suitable,it's one i have used previously when using a 160gb HD. Just not to sure how to get it on to the chip.

The Slayers disk flashing section has a load of options to cycle through,just not sure what one to select.

[randombs]

there's that thing where F gets 137gb and then it makes G which takes the rest. could that be it? sounds like it to me.

what dash are you using?

i haven't used slayer's myself (just downloaded it and had a gander at the script and copied bits for my own one which does the bare basic stuff with less options)

my hdd is 250gb, and the bios decides how your formatting will work.

i'm using an xecuter 2 lite chip (the old original 2 lite from way back when) and there's a program for it that you run and then tell it how you wanna handle the hard drive and it'll edit the bios file to sort this out.

see if there's anything about formatting the G drive as that may hold the remaining space. if you don't want to (or can't, if you don't know what bios it is, or cba or whatever) you could just leave it like this or if you want one big gigantic F drive (mine is like this) then you'll have to reflash the bios i think.

don't go doing anything like that until you're 100% sure what you're dealing with, though. i think slayers might have a program on there that tells you what bios you're using.

does your chip have a little circuit stuck on the outside of the xbox with switches for on/off, etc?

[smouty]

If it worked with a 160Gb it should be OK. How was the 200Gb formatted?
It may be as simple as setting the option in xbmc/evox for use G: = yes.
You could also check your BIOS.
Backup the BIOS (slayers can do this) to C:\ ftp it to your PC then load it into either XBtool or Evtool.
You can see the options HERE
You want the second from bottom option which is sometimes known as a .67 BIOS.

[Pavey]

Had a look,and use g is selected,however the free space it says is available on G is 0.

The BIOS on the xbox at the moment is evod6.ejt. The one i have which i used on a 160gb hard drive is only on my computer at the moment,and its this i would like to put onto the xbox,just dont know how to.

The xbox at the moment was formatted with the Slayers disk.

[Shinebi]

What version xbox is it, a V6?
And does the startup screen have this little Evox shield in the top left corner?

Also check if you have a folder on the C drive that is called "Bios", there you can place you r different bios files if needed at any time.

You can only use G if you've first formatted it, ofcourse it says "0" atm...

[smouty]

The D6 is quite an old BIOS.
PM me if you need help as I forgot you have a Mac.

[Shinebi]

The D6 is quite an old BIOS.

Yeah there was also an "ejectfix" version of it?
...then came M7 and I think an "8" version, but none of these are "Executer", they're all Evox, I don't like these for obvious reasons...

[Pavey]

Found the part on the slayers disk to format G,do that,it formats it within an instant,and still showing 0.

Also no BIOS folder on C.

[Shinebi]

Yeah, I had that happen too, don't know why. Just upgrade to a new bios, then you won't need a G partition at all, as this will give you more headaches than it does now.

So: new bios, then reformat the complete drive (is what I recommend).

I have the Slayer's also, but never use it. Try to get hold of an EvolutionX install disc, as this has exact the same GUI as the OS on the HD.
This bootdisc/OS allows you to flash your bios from that C:/Bios folder. (You can add as many as you like in there)