Xbox 360 Softmod
Rode Neagle
After copying the two save files, the Splinter Cell checkpoint game save (5553000c) and the softmod installer save (21585554), to the HDD, reboot/power cycle the console before running the game and loading the game save that starts the softmod installer.
Have you had any succes with this? Used the techniques described above on an XBox this morning and it went fine, but running it on another one now, even with the troubleshooting steps mentioned above, I'm still getting just a black screen, red light and nothing else.
Hey hi, i just softmodded my xbox and had the same black screen issue. The solution for me was: After rebooting into the dashboard, go under video settings and change mode from 16:9 wide screen to normal.
After copying the two softmod game save folders, one for the game to exploit it and the softmod installer folder itself, to the Xbox's hard drive before booting the game and trying to install it, power cycle the console.
I'm a new member of the forum and I have been playing around with the OG XBOx for a couple of years now. I never owned an XBOX before so my knowledge of the history is relatively limited. I do enjoy the versatility of the original XBOX, and I am amazed by the huge community and custom stuff that exists out there.
With the hard modded Xbox you can easily clone the HDD and fit it to a newly hard modded Xbox and if you need/what to add more the 4 or 5 games at once the HDD can be connected to a PC then use FATXplorer to copy the files. Using FATXplorer you can easily fill a 2tb in 24 hours try that with FTP.
Thanks. As I said I'm relatively new to this hobby...I visited the flea market to search for old electronics needing repair, and I bought an old box for something like 5 Euros! I had no idea what to do with it, and that's how I ended up learning about the mods. To me, the softmod seemed the better option, and to be honest I had not investigated the TSOP that much. I don't want to deal with modchips due to the many options and the time I want to allocate to this activity.
The greatest danger to a softmod comes from the uneducated fiddling with the C and E drives not anything inherent with softmodding. Indeed all the most recent softmods address this issue trying to make the installation as bullet proof as possible.
The fact is if you let other people, particularly small people , use your softmodded Xbox they will stuff it up eventually. The solution is simple use the softmodded retail HDD as backup and store it safely along with its eeprom backed up to PC too. Consider that replacing the HDD with a bigger one is an essential part of the softmod process not as some later afterthought.
TSOPs bother me. I've done one, I intend to do another but it is the least safe process of the lot. If you or circumstances beyond your control mess up the TSOP flash that's it. Its nigh on impossible fix and the only way you'll get to use the Xbox again is by fitting a chip. Since, ideally, you need a soldering iron and all the other associated paraphernalia to TSOP IMHO you'd be better off chipping he machine instead.
But as indicated chipping is not a simple or cheap process. Apart rom the soldering iron etc a magnifying aid is almost mandatory for all but those lucky ones with 20/20 vision. The tools you need plus the chip will cost you as much as another Xbox or more. Then there's the actual soldering to consider - it is not an easy job if you haven't done this kind of fine soldering work before.
I like softmod. Simple and easy, very little or no risk to mess up. Since i have usb sata + ide combo adapter i have no problems locking and unlocking drive. i only see benefit of tsop or modchip if you want hardware mods like ram upgrade, and hdd not to be locked.
For my needs softmod is perfect. I have tried hardmod, but pain in the ass to configure properly the way i want. TSOP is easy to mess up, if not familiar. And you have to make custom bios if you want to have quick in game reset, because for compatibility reasons most bios use full reset (some games freezes xbox when IGR is used).
When you say DVD drives dying are the biggest threat, are you saying that doing a softmod requires a DVD drive? My first mod I plan on just wanting to use a larger HDD so that I can hold the entire xbox library(or at least most of it) to reduce the need of having hard copies.
You can prepare a softmod HDD using Xbox HDD Maker or on another chipped Xbox (my preferred method) but you still need the eeprom from the Xbox concerned to lock its HDD. You can't get that, at least not easily, unless you've softmodded the Xbox first............which requires a working DVD drive.
There is also the problem that if your DVD drive dies completely on a softmodded machine it won't boot anymore. There is a DVD drive check and unless the Xbox detects it you'll get an error screen. One of the increasingly important reasons for choosing the hardmod option is to be able to use a BIOS which does not include the DVD drive check.
The XBox's Achilles heel is the DVD drive and along with others I was predicting this problem on other Xbox forums a decade ago. Having lost three DVD drives over the last year, admittedly all from secondhand Xboxes, that prediction appears to be coming true. Minimizing DVD drive use now should be a priority however you mod the console.
The other way to hardmod is to temporary fit a modchip and then lock a HDD that has a softmod installed then remove the chip and boot to the soft mod and TSOP flash, You have to remember to unlock that drive for the next time you need it.
For a TSOP bridge you don't even need a iron. Just a little bit wire and some scotch tape or conductive paint or a pancil. and if you don't have any of it, you can to with just 10 cm kynar wire. When you look at the traces " R7D10" you have a hole before and after the bridge point (stick some wire in it) and "R7D1" has a hole after the bridge piont where you can fit one end of the wire in. The only "tricky" part is to hold the other end of the wire to the little resisor (you could also use a tiny peace of alufoil for this point, you just need a steady hand. SO TSOP is possible without spending one cent (except for the needed game dvd). For a 1.0 or 1.1 it's the same but, since one point is under the board you need at least some tape.
I've tried it using just some Kynar wire and tape and I even considered super gluing a minute bridging wire in place but thought better of it. Other cheaper methods are indeed possible but that's not my main concern about TSOPs. It is the significant potential to render the Xbox unusable unless you fit a chip.
In any case you still need to open up the Xbox (Torx screw drivers needed likely = new cost) to TSOP and except perhaps for the conductive paint method some form of hands free magnification too unless you have very good eyesight. Working flash drive and original game disc aside, which you may already have, softmodding is safest, easiest and likely cheapest method.
It also allows you to keep the Xbox in physical retail state which is something I know some other users are concerned about. I have a softmodded LE Green PAL Xbox I've specifically kept otherwise virgin. I do not want to sell it but if I did the value would be less if it had been opened, chipped or TSOPed.
Just like the no-softmod TSOP method getting to the installer dashboard means you can FTP and get the eeprom off it and use that with XBHDM or lock a softmod prepared HDD created on chipped Xbox. I've done the latter myself a couple of times using AID's One Click Softmod install and locked it using Chimp 261812.
I have applied quite a few soft-mods on systems, and none have failed so far. I thought that this was the easiest method to mod an xobx, and relatively straight forward. I will admit that I thought it was the only mod method that is reversible, but from what I read now, TSOP is also reversible.
Retail BIOS for the Xbox are available to download so a TSOP can be reverted back if necessary. I've not done it myself but when you backup your softmod eeprom using the EvoX tool it also includes the original BIOS.bin too. I assume that could be or even should be used but I'm not a BIOS expert at all so you'd need one of the guys here who are to confirm that.
Chipping too is reversible; if all you've done is fit a pin header rather than solder it in permanently a chip can just be removed and the D0 desoldered and that's it. You'd need to have a locked retail MS dash installed HDD for it to boot but short of opening up the Xbox and looking it would be back in original state.
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