HOW to read your XBOX's EEPROM and GET the HDD KEY WITHOUT removing the chip Or Modding the XBOX.pdf

2010-04-03

HOW to read your XBOX's EEPROM and…

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HOW to read your XBOX's EEPROM and GET the HDD KEY WITHOUT removing the chip Or

Modding the XBOX

1 2 3 4 ...

24 Jun 2006 @ 20:40

Unicron1

Junior Member

HOW to read your

XBOX's EEPROM and

GET the HDD KEY

WITHOUT removing the chip

Or Modding the XBOX

By UNICRON

First my story.....

Hi all, first I would like to say thanks to everyone who helped me with information and suggestions on the forums and

to Llamma for the posting of this HOW TO guide. I hope it helps a lot of people who have had the same head ach I

have about getting to the secret key to unlock the XBOX's Hard drive.

My problem started when I purchased an XBOX off EBay for a cheap price, I knew in advance it was broken but the

promise of fixing it myself was to be a challenge, and boy was it! Not that I couldn't do it after all I do have a paper

that says I know how to fix electronics, even if I can't spell very well ;)

My package arrived and I tore into it, first thing taking the Xbox apart. Hum I thought didn't look like much, boy I

thought it would be more like a computer motherboard, seeing how everyone says it's a computer basically. Well

first thing I did was clean off the old paste on the CPU that cheap thermal paste, and replace it with high quality

Arctic Silver paste. Then I checked the board out for any signs of burnt traces or other fixable problems and found

none.

My next step was to check out the XBOX to see if she would power up. I plugged it in and with the push of the button

it came on, with the flubber screen or whatever it is and booted up to a screen that said "XBOX LIVE UPDATE,

Please do not turn off the power until update is finished." Great I thought I'll just plug it up to the network and let it

do its thing, WOW this will be an easy fix. NOPE, it came up with a screen saying "XBOX LIVE cannot connect at this

time Please try again later", so I click OK to go on, after all I don't need to update XBOX live I'm not going to be on it

anyways.

I clicked OK and the screen went back to the XBOX LIVE UPDATER screen again, then it went to the cannot

connect screen with the OK button. I click it and it just looped around again and again. Well I thought this is grim, So

I called Micro... well you know who and they take four techs and 30 minutes to come up with the answer, throw it

away and buy a XBOX 360!!! WHAT!!

That’s your solution!! So I read around on the forums and find out there is some nice software (homebrew) that can

clean the hard drive and restore it to "new", so I am all up for that.

The problem I get though is all of them expect you to have Modded your XBOX or at least have the Hard Drive KEY

(PASSWORD) to use them! Well I am in a pickle now seeing how I can't MOD the XBOX cause it won't boot a CD

and only goes to that UPDATER screen. Man what to do. Then I find out the XBOX hard drive password is stored in

an EEPROM on the board. That’s when the light went on! Hey if the EEPROM isn't locked and I can read the

contents I can get the hard drive password from it myself. Then I find out that the password is encrypted. Crap I

think... but wait! I find out that there is a program that will give me the Password if I have the EEPROM.BIN file, (the

EEPROM.BIN file is just a dump of the contents of the EEPROM) - which is what I was going to do anyways so that

brings me to building the EEPROM READER.

I built the reader and read the contents of my EEPROM in my XBOX and saved it as EEPROM.BIN, what else? Then

I used the program I had found and made my first XBOX recover CD. After that I was able to easily unlock my hard

drive, and use a file browser to look around on it and fix the corrupted files on the drive (apparently someone had

installed a soft mod and then somehow screwed it up pretty good) but I was able to copy the original XBOX backup

files to the C drive. Afterward I installed the drive back into the XBOX and powered it on and it came up all happy in

the Micro... well Dash like a new XBOX!! THEN I found out the DVD drive didn't read...

So I borrowed my buddies XBOX that was modded and FTP into it and copied his C drive and some files off of E

drive then REMAKE the XBOX restore CD and wiped my drive clean and restored it with HIS XBOX hard drive files

and now I have a happily modded XBOX.... with a broken DVD drive :( but I am working on the laser fix, but that’s for

another HOW TO.... so now that your all sleeping pretty good now I guess I get to the steps to build and fix your

XBOX, and the software that I used.

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2010-04-03

HOW to read your XBOX's EEPROM and…

all the stuff not needed by us for this project.

The original device and software that goes with it can be gotten at http://www.lancos.com/prog.html... stop in and

say thanks for the program and device! You can also contact me for a link to a better built customized one.

Here is my easy to build design, it uses off the shelf parts from RADIO SHACK.

You need the following:

1 PAK (5v Zenor Diodes comes 2 to a pack). Catalog #: 276-565

>>>> 2 PAK(s) Four (4) K ohm resistors. Catalog #: 271-1321

>>>> (I had to make them using 1K resistors in series took 8 to make two 4K's)

or you can use

1 PAK 3.9K ohm Catalog #: 271-1123 (easier to use)

1 female 9 pin connector. Catalog #: 276-1428

Wire, I use the following for the jumpers from the EEPROM reader to the XBOX

Blue insulated wrapping wire (30 AWG) Catalog #. 278-503

Of course you need solder, solder iron (lo watt) so as NOT to burn off any traces!!

Here is mine....

Here are the plans to build it.

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HOW to read your XBOX's EEPROM and…

the drive or if you just want to copy the EEPROM to use on another XBOX then you will need to supply an

EXTERNAL 3.3 Volts or 5 Volts to one of two places. Meaning choose one of the following the EEPROM or the LPC

pads, shown below.

First you can connect your readers SCL and SDA and GND wires to the spots I list above or in the following

pictures, and connect your power supply (3.3V or 5V) to pin 8 of the EEPROM or the spot listed on LPC picture

above. (NOTICE: I DIDN’T use the LPC connections when I read mine but according to BUNNIE’S Book and my own

observations it should be OK to use. – maybe better for those who aren’t good solders cause the pins on the

EEPROM are VERY small!)

Take a look at the two following pictures, Mind you that if you’re XBOX DOES have power and works DO NOT ADD

A EXTERNAL POWER SUPPLY!!!!!!!!!!

Version 1.6 XBOX

No matter what XBOX you have the EEPROM is the same design Pins 1,2,3,4 will always be GND and 5,6,7,8 will be

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HOW to read your XBOX's EEPROM and…

After making your connections, wait to apply power, we need to setup the reader software next!!

I used a program called PONYPROG ( http://www.lancos.com/prog.html ) to read my EEPROM with, it is easy to use

and well written and the original EEPROM reader was what I cut down to make our EEPROM reader for this project.

Install Ponyprog on your computer, I got the old and new 2000 versions, I like the old but the new one is easier to

use so I used it in the following examples. Setup is easy just do what the pictures I have say and you should have it

installed and ready to read in about 5 Min.

SETUP…..

Now after that make sure to Calibrate!!!

Now you can apply power to your READER or XBOX, wait for an ERROR SCREEN to show up on the XBOX by

disconnecting the Hard drive (on a working XBOX) if it’s one that has no power or broken then apply your

EXTERNAL power now.

Now try to do a read…. The Icon on the far left looks like a chip with an arrow pointing to a paper.

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If you read your EEPROM it should look like this picture, notice that on the PURPLE TEXT line 4 down a bunch of

numbers 449836153119 (These aren’t real #’s!), this should be YOUR XBOX serial number on the bottom of your

XBOX!!! If you had a GOOD read. If not try again and check ALL connections and power.

Now SAVEAS your file and save it as EEPROM.BIN - MUST be this name.

Now disconnect external power- or turn off XBOX and UNPLUG. Disconnect all wires from XBOX LPC port or

EEPROM. Make SURE you know where you saved the EEPROM.BIN file to before you exit Ponyprog program.

Now you can look at your XBOX HDD password with LIVEINFO BETA 3, Search Google just put it in the same folder

as your EEPROM.BIN file and run it and click Load EEPROM and it should load up your EEPROM.BIN and give

you’re a screen like this…

RIGHT there! In the box that says Unique HDD Key is your Password to the Hard Drive.

Thanks goes out to Yoshihiro and group for this great Program. But WAIT! We aren’t totally done yet.

Now you have your Key/Password what to do with it?? Well now I am going to give you a Quick walk thru of how to

make a Backup and Restore CD for working on your Xbox in the future when you want to wipe it clean and start all

over again! (Some times we just have to wipe our drives because we put so much junk on them that we need to just

clean it all out and start over again, and I’ll show you how!!!)

SO YOU WANT TO MAKE A BACKUP/RESTORE CD HUH?

OK Here’s the

HOW TO MAKE A BACKUP/RESTORE CDROM FOR YOUR XBOX

Now that you have your precious XBOX HDD KEY what are you really going to do with it??

You may want to do some of the following things with it and I will show you the easy way to do them! Read on

Modders!

1. Unlock you HDD

2. Soft MOD your XBOX

3. Be able to make a backup of your HDD NOW even if it is modded incase…… (Yeah better do this one folks!)

4. Just poke around and see what all the fuss is about.

I really can’t say how important it is to make a backup of your XBOX hard drive and software. Your sitting there

Modding the crap out of your XBOX when all of a sudden XBOX LIVE pops up and wants to download an update,

yeah really you did read my story at the top right? Next thing you know your XBOX is stuck in update limbo and

you’re screwed! Man o man if only I had listened to UNICRON’S how to guide I’d be like ok mother …! I got your

update right here! Pop that CD in and in a few minutes your back up and running.

Really, would I write all this just to jerk you around??? And what’s so cool is how easy it is to do!!

First off if your XBOX was NEVER modded to begin with you’re going to be hurting…. I’m sorry but even with access

to the HDD it’s not easy to mod it, as far as I know at THIS time. So what do you need to do? If you have a buddy

who HAS modded his/her XBOX that’s a great starting place for us….

Your buddies XBOX…. Wow, your buddy has modded his/her XBOX and you want to do it too.

Start by FTP into his/her XBOX, I used a great program called WEBDRIVE on my XP system, it lets you set up ANY

FTP site or HTTP site or other computer as a NETWORK drive on YOUR computer!!! It works GREAT with the

XBOX, I just click on it as if it was X Drive on my system and open up whatever drive I want and copy software to the

XBOX easy!!! It has a 30 day trail and then you have to buy it but hey, It’s a lot easier than using FTP software and

you don’t even think about it NOT being a Drive on your computer cause it works so great! (PS. Send advertising

check to UNICRON at P.O. box 556…….) LOL

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