What do I need to flash my xbox 360?

whatsamsn

Having recently modded my Wii (thanks to the guys on here for helping me in the thread i previously posted) I am looking to now flash my xbox 360. Bought in July 2010. Its definitely not j-taggable. And its a lite on drive as I can see a yellow wire.


So what would I need to flash it?
I hear stuff about having a probe and a flashing kit. But totally in the dark about either guys. I tried searching around but havent found any
direct information that will show the basics.

Thanks guys.

TouchingVirus

There are several models of Liteon and a new way of flashing has emerged too.

The old way involves an SATA card (usually the VIA6421 one), a CK3 Pro and a probe addon (There is a probe v1, v2 and v3). The CK3 powered the dvd drive and the probe, the probe when placed on the right spot at the right time interrupted some stuff on the drive's logic board and then the key you needed was output to the sata cable and read by Jungleflasher.

The 74850C used the probe v1. The 83850C v1 used the probe v1. The 83850C v2 doesn't need a probe and the 93450C needs a probe v2, but also some cutting/soldering on the logic board before the probe v2 works. The probe v2 works as a probe v1 too.

Then there came the Slim drives, and it's taken a while to sort these out and the guys aren't fully there yet. However, out of the research came the probe v3, fully compatible with all the drives the v2 and v1 were required for but with the addition of no soldering required for the 93xxx drives

And then came the new kid on the block, the Xecutor X360USB. There are issues with some SATA cards people are using to flash their drive from random hanging mid-flash to needing to install unsigned drivers to get Jungleflasher to work with their card, drives not being detected and people with laptops who want to do mobile flashing having to try lots of ways around making this work. Enter the X360USB. It is essentially a SATA to USB controller. Plug the SATA cable of the drive in one side of the device, take the USB from the other side of the device and put it into your machine. Voila, magic black box of wizardry that will detect your drive and is foolproof. The drivers for the X360USB are signed, so there's no tricking around with your OS to get them working. It's obviously perfect for laptops and other things. Even better, the firmware on the device is upgradeable, so you can get new features (e.g. enabling flashing to Slim drives). It is currently one of the only devices that enables JungleFlasher to flash Slim drives - the VIA 6421, hitherto the golden SATA chipset for flashing is no longer king because it can't do this stuff.

Of course the X360USB is just a replacement for the SATA card/controller - you still need some way to power the drive e.g. a CK3 pro, the Xbox 360 console itself - though the console flags when you power on the console with no DVD drive SATA cable connected, this factors into Xbox Live bannings but you're not flashing to go on live, right?


If you want my recommendation - get somebody to flash your drive for you unless you want to try make a business out of it. Once you have your DVD key you just need a SATA card to flash the drive with the latest firmware; hook it up to the PC through your €5 VIA6421 card, use the console to power the drive (because you won't be going on Live with your cracked firmware ) and flash away.

Reamer Fanny

Quick tip to add to this, keep a backup of any drives you flash Microsoft are releasing a new dashboard soon which will overwrite the custom firmware on the drive, restoring it to stock and the DVD key can't be dumped again using current methods but you can easily overwrite it if you have the original firmware with key to restore the functionality

cubix

Hoping to do this myself with my xbox slim 9504 drive. Can anyone tell me what the pro's/con's between these two are as i am planning using my laptop to flash, thanks.


Xecuter X360USB Pro

360 Lizard

TouchingVirus

cubix wrote: »

Hoping to do this myself with my xbox slim 9504 drive. Can anyone tell me what the pro's/con's between these two are as i am planning using my laptop to flash, thanks.

Xecuter X360USB Pro

360 Lizard

Personally I would go with Xecutor, c4eva is the disassembler/tech wizard working on the firmware and he's employed by Xecutor so they'll probably be the first with updates. You can bet that any new functions that need to be introduced to write to Slim drives will reach the X360USB first too. Into the bargain, I've heard the X360USB is one quality piece of kit that can do a little more than the 360 Lizard (e.g. flash WD hard drives into official MS ones etc) so yeah, that'd be my suggestion.