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How to softmod your xbox into a media center (XBMC) for free

Category: Hacks, Exploits, Bugs...
By on 2008-11-02 | Digg it!

Note: This may or may not be legal where you are located. Check your copyright laws before attempting this. I do not take any responsibility for how this information is used nor damages to anybody's property based on it.


NOTE: I've noticed a lot of other places not only ripping this content and hot linking to files/images here. Give credit where it's due.

 Here is a video of the things you will be able to do once you are done with this guide.

This guide will show you how to softmod your xbox with no additional software or hardware besides your xbox, and a desktop computer.

Here is what you will need:

  • Original Xbox
  • A music CD (anything, seriously)
  • A desktop computer with an IDE cable (most computers have this)
  • A blank CD
  • Torx 20 screwdriver (basically anything to get your xbox open)

After you are completed with this, you will have XMBC installed, which is a neat software package that turns it into a neat media center, here are some of the features:

  • Play DVD Movies from the DVD drive
  • Play Movies over the network or from the local xbox hard drive
  • Play Music over th network or from the local xbox hard drive
  • Browse Youtube
  • Load up software such as Emulators like the playstation one.
  • and more!

Are you excited? I sure as hell was when I did this.

If you need an xbox, don't be afraid to check your local craigslist. There is someone outthere willing to sell you one for under $50 for sure. I got mine for $20 but I had to drive an hour to get it. It ended up being 3 hours cause my ex couldn't follow mapquest -_- it was fun thoug. That's another story.

Here is a list of the software you will need:


UPDATE: If you cannot access the xbox in anyway and you get an error screen. You can STILL unlock the hard drive by hot swapping the hard drive during the first few seconds of bootup, really hard to do. Have to do it right before the light turns red.

Now on to the guide.

STEP ONE: Find what version your xbox is.

To do this, power up your xbox, go to Settings then System Info. At the bottom of the scrolling text you should see something like this.

If you do not see those 2 lines starting with K and D. Then you have the original dashboard, that's okay. In your case you have Kernel 3944. If you do have the 2 lines shown above. Look at the 4-digits in the K line. Those are the kernel version, in the picture it's 5101. Remember this number.

STEP TWO: Copy a Music File into your xbox

While your xbox is still on, grab a Music CD, anything seriously, if you don't have a Music CD some Playstation One Games have a Music Track in them. Now copy that onto the hard drive, the option is there when you are playing it. Once it's done copying, you can turn off your xbox.

NOTE: In the next steps you will bring your xbox to your desktop if you have no way of hooking up your xbox to a TV near there, try to remember how to play a music track from bootup. If I remember right it's Green, down green, Green, Green, Green. That selects the Music Option, selects a saved soundtrack, selects the song, starts playing it, then pauses it. Try to remember the sequence and practice it if you can't hook up a TV near your computer.

STEP THREE: Prepare the Software

  • Extract xboxhdm_v1.9.zip into a folder or your desktop
  • Open up ndure-3.1.exe
  • Click Next
  • Select everyhing but the Kernel Selection. Then in Kernel Selection select the number you sound in Step One.
    WARNING: With The original xbox firmware, do not add UDDAE. On mine, it did not allow it to boot past the microsoft logo, so I had to re-mod it.
  • When the wizard prompts you where to save to, choose the xboxhdm\linux folder you unpacked.
  • Copy the ndure file you downloaded earlier to \xboxhdm\linux\ndure. Overwrite it if it exists.
  • Go to the main xboxhdm folder and double click make-iso-win.bat and wait for it to do its thing. When its done you should have a new linux.iso file in you xboxhdm folder. If you installed Iso recorder earlier all you need to do is just double click it and burn. If not, use whatever other software you use to burn the ISO.

Step Four: Take apart your xbox!

 

  • Turn it upside down
  • Lift the rubber feet up to remove 4 screws.
  • Take out the other 2 hidden screws under the stickers
  • Lift up the cover (you should now see the second picture)
  • Remove the screw in between the hard drive and the dvd-drive
  • Lift the plastic shell that holds the hard drive

Step Five: Unlock your xbox!

  • Open up your computer
  • Find the primary IDE cable (labeled so on the motherboard)
  • Setup the middle of the IDE cable (slave) to the cd-rom.
  • Bootup your computer with the CD you burned in. Make sure that your bios is set to boot off the cd. You should get this:
  • At this point, boot up your xbox and play the soundtrack. You need the video cable in even if it's not hooked up to anything.
  • Now this is what is called hotswapping, while the HDD on the xbox is still running, unhook the IDE cable (the big grey one) that is attached to it and hook your computer's IDE cable to it. It should look something like this.

    (Doesn't have to be as messy, but same idea)
  • Now press 1, ignore any complaints about resolution
  • When it's done loading linux and you get to a command prompt type "xbrowser" (if you get any errors about hda failing, start over, the hot swapping failed. It's either a weak link, or you did it too slow)
  • Once you are in xbrowser you should see something like this.
  • Choose ndure folder, hit enter and select ndure on the next screen too.
  • Choose option 1 to install ndure. It will make a backup of your xbox files, and start doing its thing. It takes a while without giving much indication, go make yourself a quick meal.
  • Once it's done, unhook your xbox from the computer and put everything back how it was.
  • Hook your xbox up to the TV, after the logo you should see something like this.
  • Congrats, you've done the hardest part!

 Final Step: Load up the media center

  • Hook up your xbox to your network, wirelessly, make sure it has an IP on the bottom left.
  • Extract XBMC into a folder
  • Fire up the FTP Client, connect to it using the IP listed, and user/pass | xbox/xbox and port 21

If you want to install XBMC as an app in UnleashX copy the entire contents of the XMBC folder you unpacked earlier to e:\apps

If you want the Xbox to boot straight to XMBC (preferred by most) just copy the entire contents of the XMBC folder to e:\dash (good idea to back up the files there in case something goes wrong) choosing yes to any overwrite prompts.

After all the files have been transfered, reboot your xbox and you should see this!

Congrats! You have one of the cheapest and best media centers out there!

I'll be posting more articles later on how to make your xbox wireless, and setup neat scripts on it.

Cheers and enjoy!

 

Thanks to SuperCell for images and this guide.