Modding an X-box
11-16-2004, 01:59 AM
#1
3.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 5,042
Modding an X-box
I have a modded x-box, (all legit of course). I was wondering if a lot of people on here have done the same. It is a pretty big thing with all my friends, I have modded all of theirs and it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
PS. If you wanna do it I can help ya out.
PS. If you wanna do it I can help ya out.
11-16-2004, 04:24 AM
#6
3.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 5,042
Re:Modding an X-box
How Does a PC Work?
An xbox is basically a personal computer (a PC). It shares many characteristics and functionalities with a personal computer. It was purposely designed this way. The system you are using to read this guide is probably composed of the following:
1. A motherboard
2. A CPU
3. Main memory
4. A hard disk
5. A display adapter/Video Card.
6. A network interface card (a NIC or a network card)
7. A sound card
8. A CD-ROM drive or a DVD-ROM (read only memory
9. Other input/output (I/O) devices such as a keyboard, a mouse, speakers, and a monitor which allow human interaction.
To load something generally means to bring something from the HDD, the network, or the CD/DVD-ROM to the main memory so the CPU can work with it.
That’s just the hardware. Your PC probably also has a lot of software, the most important being the operating system (the OS). Most of you are probably using Mr. Bill’s Windows, although there are alternatives such as Unix, Linux, etc… The OS takes care of just about everything. It decides how to manage the memory, how to format and maintain the hard drive, how to manage all the other devices listed above, and the list goes on. The main idea is that nothing of interest can happen without an operating system, such as loading and executing programs. So how does the computer know what to do before the operating system is loaded? After all, the OS is a program! How can it be loaded to memory if there’s nothing to manage the devices involved? That is where the BIOS comes in.
A BIOS is a Basic Input/Output System. It is a very small amount of software basically designed to tell your computer how to load the OS. This is a very simplistic view. The term CMOS might come to mind for some of you. The BIOS is sometimes referred to as the CMOS because of the type of chip it is sometimes stored on, but let’s just stick with the term BIOS.
When you boot your computer (interestingly, this term comes from the idea of the computer picking itself up by it’s bootstraps), the first thing that happens is it tests itself at a low level. It checks that the memory is okay, everything is powered, the disks are connected, the keyboard is connected, etc., this is called a Power On Self Test (POST). If any part of this test fails, you will usually get a beeping signal from the crappy little speaker in the computer case indicating that something is wrong, and the system will halt. This will probably happen to you on your xbox at some point. If it passes the POST, it looks to the BIOS to figure out what to do. Once the BIOS tells it how to load the OS, it does that, and bing-bang-boom you’re in Windows (unless you use Win9x, in which case it’s much longer than bing-bang-boom). Usually when you press the <del> key during the POST, you can change some of the BIOS settings (processor speed is a popular one, referred to as overclocking, which is a different subject altogether).
The BIOS is stored on a non-volatile chip, which means when you turn off your computer, the data is still there. It is a ROM (read only memory), which means it can’t be changed. But these days ROM is sort of a misnomer, because it can be changed. That is what flashing refers to. To flash the BIOS means to overwrite the current data on the chip with other data. This is what we’re most interested in!
How Does an XBOX Work?
So how does this all relate to your xbox? Well, like I said, your xbox is very much like a personal computer. It has a processor, a DVD-ROM drive, a display adapter, a sound adapter, a hard disk drive, and most importantly a BIOS. Not bad for $200, eh? When you turn on your xbox, it does its own little POST, goes to the BIOS, plays that flubber animation thing, and looks to the DVD-ROM for an authentic xbox game or a DVD movie. If it does find one of those things, it will boot up the game; or, if it’s a DVD movie, it will play it (if you have Microsoft’s little DVD playback kit installed, which is a dongle that connects to one of the controller ports that unlocks the DVD-ROM drive). If it doesn’t find either of these (it’s very picky), then it boots up it’s own little OS referred to as the dashboard. This is that green screen with the three menu options like “Settings”, “Music”, and “Memory,” or something like that. We want to replace the BIOS so it’s not so picky about what it will execute.
Replacing the BIOS
Most of you probably wouldn’t have a clue how to go about hacking the xbox’s BIOS and writing your own. (Hacking, in this case, refers to the idea of uncovering the structure of how they went about designing and implementing the console so it can be exploited. Since Mr. Bill isn’t going to just give away their design, this is the only option. The line between learning about the system and breaking the law is very blurry nowadays, unfortunately.) Luckily for us there are geniuses out there that have already hacked the BIOS and written new ones. All we have to do is replace the current BIOS with the new ones. How do we do this? Well, there are a few options. We could just flash the current BIOS with the new one. But this is fairly tricky. A more popular alternative is to buy another BIOS chip (the infamous “modchip”) and “put it in front of” the original BIOS chip, so to speak. That way when the computer goes to look for the BIOS, it is fooled into looking at our replacement modchip, which has a BIOS on it. Installing the new BIOS chip is probably the hardest part of the whole project. If you pursue this, you will undoubtedly be haunted by “d0.” You will know what this is… My advice is to not let it get to you!
I’ve Got the BIOS Replaced, Now What?
Now that you have the modchip in, a BIOS installed, and the xbox boots up normally, you have begun to unleash the xbox’s potential. At this point the sky is the limit.
Replacing the Dashboard
One popular and powerful route from here is to replace the dashboard (remember, the “mini-OS” on the xbox). By far the most popular replacement dashboard is the Evolution-X dashboard.
Replacing the dashboard allows you to easily run programs that you can install on the HDD, backup games onto the HDD and play them from there, and even replace the original 8-10 GB HDD with a much larger one. You can also network your xbox with your PC. has more information on how to do this. You can even have several HDDs installed that you can switch between. You can imagine the possibilities. For instance, you might want to take your xbox to a friend’s house, but you don’t want to lug all the game discs. You can replace the dashboard without networking your xbox to your PC.
Replacing the HDD
Why replace (or swap) the HDD? More room for stuff. This procedure is not that hard, actually. Just buy a good, beefy HDD, Some ppl make a big deal about 7200 RPM being too hot, but I have never seen a problem or felt excessive heat.
There is a lot involved with this procedure, but it is not too complicated. Again, in accordance with this generalized guide, these steps are just an outline to the procedure.
1. Make sure you have a BIOS that has what is known as the HDD swap feature.
2. Make sure you have the latest Evox dashboard installed on your xbox already.
3. Backup the original C: and E: drives onto your PC’s HDD. This will involve networking to your PC, so make sure you know how to do that.
4. Create an Evox boot disc with evox.ini set up to format the drive. Burn it onto a CD-RW or a DVD-RW or whatever your xbox will accept. (Refer to the section on burning xbox discs.)
5. Open up the console again (you should already know how to do this because you should have already have a working modchip installed).
6. Unplug the original HDD and replace it with the new one.
7. Put the xbox back together.
8. Boot the disc you made. It will start Evox, and there will be a menu option to set up the drive (if you have the correct settings in the evox.ini file). Format it.
9. Copy the C: and E: drives from your PC’s HDD back to your new HDD.
10. Take the disc out, boot the xbox again.
11. Keep the original HDD just in case. Besides, you can’t use it for anything else anyway.
12. You’re done. The extra space is all on F: (and G: for +137gb drives if you chose for a LBA48 F+G/67 bios) now.
Burning XBOX Discs:
The xbox is very picky about what it will execute. Even when the BIOS has been replaced, the hardware is still quite picky. Games can range from 500MB-4gigs+. You will have to use a DVD burner to make discs for the XBOX.
The simplest way to burn a game is to get the rigth parts. Get a 1-2-1 burner. This means that it ignores right protection and just copies ones and zeros over to the new DVD. Two companies that come to mind are Plextor and Lite-on.
The disc must have a default.xbe file at it’s root in order to be booted. An XBE file is xbox’s version of an EXE file, or an executable binary file.
This is just a basic Burning info, if you are going to be getting into it more you WILL NEED to read up more especially burner specific items and bugs. Also know that no matter what people tell you, some games CAN NOT be burned.
Other Info
All of the major functions can be performed by a self-executing program called “slayer”, It will walk you through swapping HD’s and burning your BIOS to the new chip set. The bios that you put on there will most likely be a modified Microsoft BIOS, this is not in the slightest bit legal. When the chip arrives it will contain the “Cromwell” BIOS. That is an open source BIOS, but serves little function on an Xbox.
****I will not tell you where to get the Slayer program because it is illegal to own, it contains protected Microsoft information.******
An xbox is basically a personal computer (a PC). It shares many characteristics and functionalities with a personal computer. It was purposely designed this way. The system you are using to read this guide is probably composed of the following:
1. A motherboard
2. A CPU
3. Main memory
4. A hard disk
5. A display adapter/Video Card.
6. A network interface card (a NIC or a network card)
7. A sound card
8. A CD-ROM drive or a DVD-ROM (read only memory
9. Other input/output (I/O) devices such as a keyboard, a mouse, speakers, and a monitor which allow human interaction.
To load something generally means to bring something from the HDD, the network, or the CD/DVD-ROM to the main memory so the CPU can work with it.
That’s just the hardware. Your PC probably also has a lot of software, the most important being the operating system (the OS). Most of you are probably using Mr. Bill’s Windows, although there are alternatives such as Unix, Linux, etc… The OS takes care of just about everything. It decides how to manage the memory, how to format and maintain the hard drive, how to manage all the other devices listed above, and the list goes on. The main idea is that nothing of interest can happen without an operating system, such as loading and executing programs. So how does the computer know what to do before the operating system is loaded? After all, the OS is a program! How can it be loaded to memory if there’s nothing to manage the devices involved? That is where the BIOS comes in.
A BIOS is a Basic Input/Output System. It is a very small amount of software basically designed to tell your computer how to load the OS. This is a very simplistic view. The term CMOS might come to mind for some of you. The BIOS is sometimes referred to as the CMOS because of the type of chip it is sometimes stored on, but let’s just stick with the term BIOS.
When you boot your computer (interestingly, this term comes from the idea of the computer picking itself up by it’s bootstraps), the first thing that happens is it tests itself at a low level. It checks that the memory is okay, everything is powered, the disks are connected, the keyboard is connected, etc., this is called a Power On Self Test (POST). If any part of this test fails, you will usually get a beeping signal from the crappy little speaker in the computer case indicating that something is wrong, and the system will halt. This will probably happen to you on your xbox at some point. If it passes the POST, it looks to the BIOS to figure out what to do. Once the BIOS tells it how to load the OS, it does that, and bing-bang-boom you’re in Windows (unless you use Win9x, in which case it’s much longer than bing-bang-boom). Usually when you press the <del> key during the POST, you can change some of the BIOS settings (processor speed is a popular one, referred to as overclocking, which is a different subject altogether).
The BIOS is stored on a non-volatile chip, which means when you turn off your computer, the data is still there. It is a ROM (read only memory), which means it can’t be changed. But these days ROM is sort of a misnomer, because it can be changed. That is what flashing refers to. To flash the BIOS means to overwrite the current data on the chip with other data. This is what we’re most interested in!
How Does an XBOX Work?
So how does this all relate to your xbox? Well, like I said, your xbox is very much like a personal computer. It has a processor, a DVD-ROM drive, a display adapter, a sound adapter, a hard disk drive, and most importantly a BIOS. Not bad for $200, eh? When you turn on your xbox, it does its own little POST, goes to the BIOS, plays that flubber animation thing, and looks to the DVD-ROM for an authentic xbox game or a DVD movie. If it does find one of those things, it will boot up the game; or, if it’s a DVD movie, it will play it (if you have Microsoft’s little DVD playback kit installed, which is a dongle that connects to one of the controller ports that unlocks the DVD-ROM drive). If it doesn’t find either of these (it’s very picky), then it boots up it’s own little OS referred to as the dashboard. This is that green screen with the three menu options like “Settings”, “Music”, and “Memory,” or something like that. We want to replace the BIOS so it’s not so picky about what it will execute.
Replacing the BIOS
Most of you probably wouldn’t have a clue how to go about hacking the xbox’s BIOS and writing your own. (Hacking, in this case, refers to the idea of uncovering the structure of how they went about designing and implementing the console so it can be exploited. Since Mr. Bill isn’t going to just give away their design, this is the only option. The line between learning about the system and breaking the law is very blurry nowadays, unfortunately.) Luckily for us there are geniuses out there that have already hacked the BIOS and written new ones. All we have to do is replace the current BIOS with the new ones. How do we do this? Well, there are a few options. We could just flash the current BIOS with the new one. But this is fairly tricky. A more popular alternative is to buy another BIOS chip (the infamous “modchip”) and “put it in front of” the original BIOS chip, so to speak. That way when the computer goes to look for the BIOS, it is fooled into looking at our replacement modchip, which has a BIOS on it. Installing the new BIOS chip is probably the hardest part of the whole project. If you pursue this, you will undoubtedly be haunted by “d0.” You will know what this is… My advice is to not let it get to you!
I’ve Got the BIOS Replaced, Now What?
Now that you have the modchip in, a BIOS installed, and the xbox boots up normally, you have begun to unleash the xbox’s potential. At this point the sky is the limit.
Replacing the Dashboard
One popular and powerful route from here is to replace the dashboard (remember, the “mini-OS” on the xbox). By far the most popular replacement dashboard is the Evolution-X dashboard.
Replacing the dashboard allows you to easily run programs that you can install on the HDD, backup games onto the HDD and play them from there, and even replace the original 8-10 GB HDD with a much larger one. You can also network your xbox with your PC. has more information on how to do this. You can even have several HDDs installed that you can switch between. You can imagine the possibilities. For instance, you might want to take your xbox to a friend’s house, but you don’t want to lug all the game discs. You can replace the dashboard without networking your xbox to your PC.
Replacing the HDD
Why replace (or swap) the HDD? More room for stuff. This procedure is not that hard, actually. Just buy a good, beefy HDD, Some ppl make a big deal about 7200 RPM being too hot, but I have never seen a problem or felt excessive heat.
There is a lot involved with this procedure, but it is not too complicated. Again, in accordance with this generalized guide, these steps are just an outline to the procedure.
1. Make sure you have a BIOS that has what is known as the HDD swap feature.
2. Make sure you have the latest Evox dashboard installed on your xbox already.
3. Backup the original C: and E: drives onto your PC’s HDD. This will involve networking to your PC, so make sure you know how to do that.
4. Create an Evox boot disc with evox.ini set up to format the drive. Burn it onto a CD-RW or a DVD-RW or whatever your xbox will accept. (Refer to the section on burning xbox discs.)
5. Open up the console again (you should already know how to do this because you should have already have a working modchip installed).
6. Unplug the original HDD and replace it with the new one.
7. Put the xbox back together.
8. Boot the disc you made. It will start Evox, and there will be a menu option to set up the drive (if you have the correct settings in the evox.ini file). Format it.
9. Copy the C: and E: drives from your PC’s HDD back to your new HDD.
10. Take the disc out, boot the xbox again.
11. Keep the original HDD just in case. Besides, you can’t use it for anything else anyway.
12. You’re done. The extra space is all on F: (and G: for +137gb drives if you chose for a LBA48 F+G/67 bios) now.
Burning XBOX Discs:
The xbox is very picky about what it will execute. Even when the BIOS has been replaced, the hardware is still quite picky. Games can range from 500MB-4gigs+. You will have to use a DVD burner to make discs for the XBOX.
The simplest way to burn a game is to get the rigth parts. Get a 1-2-1 burner. This means that it ignores right protection and just copies ones and zeros over to the new DVD. Two companies that come to mind are Plextor and Lite-on.
The disc must have a default.xbe file at it’s root in order to be booted. An XBE file is xbox’s version of an EXE file, or an executable binary file.
This is just a basic Burning info, if you are going to be getting into it more you WILL NEED to read up more especially burner specific items and bugs. Also know that no matter what people tell you, some games CAN NOT be burned.
Other Info
All of the major functions can be performed by a self-executing program called “slayer”, It will walk you through swapping HD’s and burning your BIOS to the new chip set. The bios that you put on there will most likely be a modified Microsoft BIOS, this is not in the slightest bit legal. When the chip arrives it will contain the “Cromwell” BIOS. That is an open source BIOS, but serves little function on an Xbox.
****I will not tell you where to get the Slayer program because it is illegal to own, it contains protected Microsoft information.******
11-16-2004, 04:32 AM
#7
3.0 BAR
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 5,042
Re:Modding an X-box
Basically with a modded xbox you can load games onto the HD and play them directly from there, that way you never have to purchase a game and then have it go obsolete in 2 weeks.
Online play is possible but mostly useless because it is a bit of work to get it ready for online play. Microsoft will read that you avhe a mod chip or a modified HD and ban you from their servers. There are all kinds of servers though made up of ppl with modded boxes, so online play is still available.
Once you get yours modded you will never go back to PS2. The graphics are better and the games are almost free. Nothing can compare to that.
You can also run emulators on your box. Like a computer the xbox can run emulations of Super NES, Nintendo, N64, Playstation, and many other consoles. Before DVD based consoles games were miniscule. The entire library of every console fits on 5 disks. You could technically even run PS2 games on the xbox because the processing and video abilities of the xbox can handel it, but there have only been a few ventures into doing it, it is just too much work when you can buy a PS2.
There is also the problem of DVD reading. microsoft uses multiple types of DVD drives in the xbox. Some are better at reading burned DVD's. Search the internet for a listing of the "good" drives. You can also midify the "bad" drives to work well.
Online play is possible but mostly useless because it is a bit of work to get it ready for online play. Microsoft will read that you avhe a mod chip or a modified HD and ban you from their servers. There are all kinds of servers though made up of ppl with modded boxes, so online play is still available.
Once you get yours modded you will never go back to PS2. The graphics are better and the games are almost free. Nothing can compare to that.
You can also run emulators on your box. Like a computer the xbox can run emulations of Super NES, Nintendo, N64, Playstation, and many other consoles. Before DVD based consoles games were miniscule. The entire library of every console fits on 5 disks. You could technically even run PS2 games on the xbox because the processing and video abilities of the xbox can handel it, but there have only been a few ventures into doing it, it is just too much work when you can buy a PS2.
There is also the problem of DVD reading. microsoft uses multiple types of DVD drives in the xbox. Some are better at reading burned DVD's. Search the internet for a listing of the "good" drives. You can also midify the "bad" drives to work well.
11-16-2004, 08:21 AM
#9
1.5 BAR
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 681
Re:Modding an X-box
dude its not that hard, basically solder in a mod chip, flash the chip, stick in a dvd with slayers on it, and then format and install the software, bang your done... the newer xboxs require more soldering, but its still not that hard
11-16-2004, 08:30 AM
#10
3.0 BAR
Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 11,058
Re:Modding an X-box
Originally Posted by stingray
dude its not that hard, basically solder in a mod chip, flash the chip, stick in a dvd with slayers on it, and then format and install the software, bang your done... the newer xboxs require more soldering, but its still not that hard
