Ok first I am making this guide to try and answer everybodys questions on the 360.
getting the 360 to play backup games:
there are 2 ways I currently know on how to do. One is to buy a modchip. The other is to flash the 360 drive with hacked firmware. I would definatley reccomend flashing the drive because it is in my opinion the easiest and cheapest way of getting the 360 to play backup games.
Modchips: order them online and get a proffesional to install as an oops while soldering may cost you $400. after you do this reffer to the backup section on how to make a compatible backup.
Flahing with hacked firmware: first a few things that are required are a tox 10 screwdriver bit, a small flathead screw driver. These are the required objects for all 360's your personal dvd drive in your 360 may require a few other things.
Opening the 360: to flash your drive and play back up games you must open your 360 and void your warranty. For instructions on how to open the 360 go on youtube and type in open xbox 360.. After you take off the plastic and top metal casing you can see your dvd drive.
Identifying your dvd driveThere are now 3 types of drives on the market. The hitachi, Benq, and Samsung. Currently the samsung and hitachi's can both be flashed. The Benq cannot be flashed there is a way where you can swith the drive and spoof it i think but that will not be covered in this guide.
Hitachi"s If you have a hitachi drive you will see ver:blank where the blank is where your drive version is. There are currently a few diffent hitachi drives. the 46, 47, 59, 78, and 79 versions. If you have a 46, 47, or 59 drive you can flash these with a cheap usb to sata device. The 78 and 79 currently need a pci sata card or onboard sata. I research your on board sata to see if it is compatible with your drive. If you don't have a onboard sata you have to buy a pci sata card. The via 6431L is the card to get. I used it to flash many drives without fail.
46/47/59 drives: these are the preffered drives over the other two hitachi drives. I flashed my 59 with a $3 usb to sata cable. to flash your drive you must use xbins to get the required files. type xbins in google and do a search on how to use it. Then you must navigate to xbox 360\firmware/hacked firmware/hitachi-lg gdr..\then download ixtreme 1.2 rev2 to the root of your local drive in windows. Mine is C: so i'm going to use that as an example. rename your download folder as ixtreme. Now you have to get your drive recognized in windows. I have always used the slax method so download the slax 2 disc and burn it to a cd. Make sure your settings on your computer is to boot from cd before hardrive. insert slax 2 in your pc drive. then turn off your pc. connect the 360 drive to the computer by removing the black sata cable then connecting your drive to the pc with your adapter or sata port. Then power on your xbox 360 and pc at the same time. Make sure your computer boots from slax and then let slax do it's thing with a bunch of words and stuff then wait till it says type watever to poweroff or reboot. then open your disc tray and remove your slax cd. Next press the power button on the front of your pc. then with your 360 still on power the pc back on and keep pressing the open and close button on your 360 drive while windows is booting. To make sure your drive is detected look in my computer and see that a new drive is there right click it and hit eject with the 360 drive closed if it opens your good. okay now navigate to the folder you downloaded by going to start/run/cmd enter then type cd C:\ then enter where c is the drive you saved your folder to. then type cd ixtreme enter then type flashix.bat X #### where x is what the letter of your xbox dvd drive is that windows gave it and where the numbers are put your favorite number four times. then if everything goes as planned it will say done or succsessful then power both your 360 and computer down. you have then successfuly flashed your 360 drive now pop in a backup 360 game to see that your discs are now protected. If you ever need to restore your original firmware do everything the same except instead of typing Flashix.bat.... type Restore.bat enter. and your 360 will be exactaly as it was.
hitachi 78fk:
These drives are a slightly bigger pain then the other hitachi drives. these drives can only use the slax method of getting your drive detected and can only use a pci card or onboard sata to flash. Sorry no usb to sata cables for you. Also flashing is a bit different. follow the 46/47/59 instructions for using slax to get your drive detected and how to use xbins. Instead of going to hacked firmware however go to firmware tools then download firmware toolbox 40 to your desktop then start the program. select tools direct direct drive dump. click raw dump firmware as then it should say load a disc for 20 seconds then click okay. then click eject put any original 360 game or dvd in the disc tray then hit load and the disc will spin. if the drive keeps opeing this is normal just hit the close button tiwce then again while the drive is closing that will keep it closed then after 20 sec. click rawdump firmware as then name it whatever and keep the file in a safe spot. it should be like 8 seconds the bar on the bottom will go by then click okay on checksum thing then okay on open. Then on drive key copy this and save it in a notepad or word file then save this aswell. then click tools smart hack patcher it will say make sure it is an originall blah blah hit okay. then save this as hacked in the same folder as the other two. then hit yes to open that file. then click direct drive flash then differential flash then hit okay then start flashing then when all is done and good shut down computer and 360 and your all good to go to play backups.
Backing up games: there is also two methods of backing up your original games. the first and by far the easiest is to buy a sh-d162C drive flashed with kreon firmware. Or you can use the wxripper method with any ordinary pc drive.
Kreon drive: download xbox backup creator just type it in google or search around xbins for it then put your game in the kreon drive then hit tools unlock drive then hit read complete backup then hit start then burn it with clone cd or imgburn on a verbatim disc. If using img burn make sure you go into options then write tab and the layer brake should be 1913760 for all xbox 360 games.
The wxripper method this is more challenging and i have alread posted a tutorial on this so I will give you the link HERE and for the stealth files you have to inject you can get them HERE there you have it perfectly stealh backups that are compatible with ixtreme
Bannings: unfortunatley microsoft doesn't like us backing up our games and has decided to ban us in the middle of may. 07 thats okay because thanks to many people they answered microsofts bans by making a new firmware to prevent bannings well for now. so in this guide i will only show you how to flash your drive with ixtreme so your will hopefully enjoy xbox live for a long long time.
well i'm off to bed for now i'll try to update this tommorrow if you have anything i should insert or any questions just post it and i'll do my best.
wow I really wish I had this guide yesterday after almost having a heart attack while flashing. I'm set now, and everything works perfect. Good job on the guide tho. Now that I've seen these usb to sata cables I might rethink returning my desktop pc, but it was a steal of a deal. Awesome thread really clear.
Originally posted by sniper78:wow I really wish I had this guide yesterday after almost having a heart attack while flashing. I'm set now, and everything works perfect. Good job on the guide tho. Now that I've seen these usb to sata cables I might rethink returning my desktop pc, but it was a steal of a deal. Awesome thread really clear.
lol, i bet
it's gonna be a good tut though, keep workin at it
Okay thanks everybody for the support I was just so confused reading hundreds of forums and never getting answers to many of my questions so I thought i could contribut back to the scene.
