Xbox 360 Hacks - News, Hacks, Cracks, Mods.

A video has surfaced on YouTube of someone doing a disc swap on an xbox 360 that has it’s top casing removed. The video is poor quality but doesn’t appear to have any edits or moments of the camera pointing somewhere else. What do you think? Is this the real deal?

Update: xbox-scene has posted some further features and developments with the kiosk demo disc:

* Our users report you can change the .wmv files by other ones and they’ll play on the 360 (without Windows MediaCenter PC)! Example changing ‘/videos/pgr3.wmv’ file with another wmv-hd video will allow to play your wmv-hd video by booting the disc and going to games>pgr3>play video.
* PI’s nfo file says: “datafiles on this disc isn’t signed in any way”. PI is right here, but many people don’t understand this correctly. They mean datafiles like wmv, png, … aren’t signed. XEX/EXE files are still signed. The reason these executables run on recordable media is no ‘hacking’, it’s simply because Microsoft set the ‘mediaflag’ so it can run from DVD+-R too. Nothing is changed in the XEX files on the disc, so the signatures (in XEX header) are still valid.
* You can’t use this disc to boot retail discs/games (like by placing them in the /demos/ dir) as those are set by Microsoft so you can only run them from DVDXBOX(360) media (and might have a DVD physical structure check too?).
* Everything is playable, also the game demos (each has its own XEX/EXE file)
* If you add/remove files on this demo disc it’ll still boot (as long as you don’t remove essential stuff like /default.XEX of course), so this demo disc has no integrity test of the DVD.
* I’ll also boot from other media like CD-R (like putting 1 game demo on a CD-R).

Here are some other interesting details from Arakon on the xboxhacker.net forums:
* It’s a simple ISO file you can read it with any ISO extractor. You can also browse the burned DVD in explorer.
* The Live Arcade games are infact standard flash games (atleast Hexic is). You can run Hexic in a browser that has the flash plugin installed. So the default.xex in the hexic dir might not be more then a flashplayer. He tried replacing the hexic flash file with another swf file, but the Xbox crashed (black screen) on that. If working … it could be interesting for some homebrew flash games :)
* The playable demos are not accessible if the Xbox 360 launguage is set to German (it probably only works if set to english).
* There are more videos and pictures on the disc than those accessible via the Xbox 360 interface.

Team PI has released a self-booting ISO image of the kiosk demo disc - your Xbox360 will actually boot this from a DVD-R! It’s been tested and confirmed working. A quote from the nfo over at console-new.org.

*** YES YOU CAN BURN THIS ISO AND PLAY IT IN YOUR XBOX-360 ***
Microsoft left us with this blanket statement:
“Xbox 360 retail kiosks have started arriving at retailers.
Due to the nature of the distribution process, not all kiosks
are hitting simultaneously, but are continuing to pop up in
retailers across the country in the coming weeks.
The kiosks are designed for a retail environment and feature
game samples, game trailers and product information.”
Team Pi leaves you with this Pillow statement:
“It seems Microsoft was in such a hurry to get this stuff out
that they forgot to set the media protection on this disc.
This leaves hackers with the posibility to hack around with
this disc that load from a normal DVDR5 backup! - Team Pi

Great news! Look forward to future advancements from this discovery!

Is this real?! I’d simply assume it’s fake - the video demonstrates the Xbox360 being hacked using some PSP homebrew. Check it out and judge for yourself.

Xbox360 Hacked Video

Thanks to Jason for the email.

digg this!

carman from our forums has brought this to our attention - apparently a modchip for the 360 is coming soon - within a month, according to this article posted over at spong.

From what we have been able to gather, the first mod-chips for the 360 will be available within a month. Speaking to us under terms of anonymity, one source close to the research and development of some well known current-generation chips said, “We’ve been seeing partial success from some corners [in China] though nothing that could go on sale yet.” This paints a dark picture of the console industry and the aggressive blight it suffers. “Everyone is working on a full-functioning ‘do everything’ chip that will take apart the 360 and let users do what they will, though we expect a first-generation bypass device that will allow back-ups within weeks. The first on the market is likely to be complex and might not be particularly good, though that’s just a stopgap before real chips become available.”

A hoax? Guess we’ll find out within the month!

JSR - from the MaxConsole forums - seems to have discovered a method allowing you to perform a dump of your Xbox360 games to your PC. Below is the quoted procedure:

As being said, here is the procedure:

In order to include/ understand the goal of the ‘ hotswap’ method, it is necessary to include/ understand how a reader CD/ DVD functions: At the time of the insertion of a disc, the reader reads the FAKE (Table Of Contents) which describes in particular the size occupied by the data on the media.

This size is expressed in sectors, each sector making 2048 bytes. The reader will not read again any more than fake, unless we’re ejecting the disc, but this is what we want to avoid. Indeed, what prevents us from copying a XBOX DVD towards its hard disk is the fact that this DVD contains a fake header, which describes only the first session (the DVD video, the only visible thing when you to try to read the DVD with another reader than the XBOX), which makes only some MB (approximately 100000 sectors). Our goal is to copy a maximum of sector from the DVD, that is to say a maximum of 9Go approximately, that represents 4500000 sectors. You thus should insert a DVD containing the maximum of data: A DVD video often makes between 7 and 9 GB, a good film of 2 hours should be appropriate. It should then be replaced by the XBOX game to be copied without opening the drawer (if not the reader will read again the FAKE). And that is when it becomes complicated: To replace the DVD without opening the drawer it is necessary to have access to the top of the reader, that is to say to have disencumbered it of its metal hull. I will not explain this point, I am sure that you will know how to make or how to find the method. Once the DVD is open, start by inserting a DVD videoo, let Windows read the FAKE content and wait until the DVD stops turning. Then, without opening the drawer, replace the video DVD by the XBOX DVD. The reader won’t realize it and will read as many sectors as the FAKE of the video DVD has. I made all my tests with a DVD of 7,7 GB, for approximately 3850000 sectors, I advise you to use at least that.

Now let’s pass to the creation of the ISO file. Ben says it is rather simple, if the DVD doesn’t contain defective sectors, which must be a physical protection which will make it possible for the XBOX to make the difference between an original DVD and a DVD-R. The problem of these sectors is not the loss of data, because they do not contain any, but rather time that your burning software will need to bypass these defective sectors. For example with Alcohol 120%, the management of the defective sectors is really very slow, I think that it would take several days to make the ISO. Personally I used CloneCD 5.2.6.1, which passes the defective sectors quickly, I made the ISO in 30 minutes.

Attention, if you use this software, in the window of choice of the file targets it is necessary to choose the type ‘ Image’, and put a file name which ends in ISO and especially not by DVD here, at the end of 30 minutes you will have your image, which you will be able to use with nothing, because the softwares currently cannot open it. I have already coded a software for that, I will soon put it up for download with its sources. It makes it possible to open the Iso and extract one or more files (or all of course).

You can also mount the ISO with daemon- style tools, but you will only see the DVD video track … (inevitably very well copied, even the FAKE is there). I suggest you to create the ISO image of in RAW mode, because it is a binary copy of the disc without any kind of alterations. Have fun, take care with your hardware and media, and do not distribute these files - all this is for educational purpose only.

And one more time: The tutorial cannot be used for burning and playing these images, they won’t work in your XBOX !

Unfortunately, at the current moment, you’re unable to play these dumped games on your Xbox360 console. But keep checking Xbox360 Hacks for future revelations.

source: MaxConsole

Two GUI front-ends for the PI Game Dump Extractor (posted below) have been released.

This tool simply allows you to extract the data from .360 images, which have now been circulating the net. Remember, currently there’s no way to play these games on your Xbox360 console.

Download the tools below:

Download Sonia’s GUI
Download Halobox’s GUI

Xbox-Scene has the inside scoop on Xbox 360 ISO’s hitting the net. You can’t do anything with them at this time but it’s a start. PI is the name of the group and they have released an ISO extractor to go along with it.

So you’ve seen all our raw dumps? but what can you use them for?
Nothing in their current form, yet! - But here we go with a nice extractor tool so that you can extract the dumps and check out the files, we even decided to release the source code, so that you can figure out the filesystem and make even nicer tools and clean up our horrible looking code, cause we are lazy and old!
Usage: extract360.exe gamename.360 [wildcard]…
For example: extract360.exe pi-nfsmw.360
Sit back and relax, and enjoy, these xbox360 games are quite large!

And a note to the tech guys: Yes, once you get past the protections and down to the raw bits on the disc, its just the standard xboxdvdfs, however the offset and layer breakpoint are different!

I read another interesting article at xbox-scene. This time round, some folks over at modcontrol.com have tried various ‘trial and error’ tests on the Xbox360, in attempt to purposely trigger error codes by removing hardware and other components from the console.

We at Modcontrol.com and our sponsor Gamestore24.de decided to do some “trial and error” with the Xbox360.

Since there have been pictures of the inside of the system, the controller and the remote already, we’re going to show the memory card here.
There possibly will be a 128 MB version of it, since the PCB layout points to being “upgradable” (there’s an extra spot for a flashchip). We didn’t have the matching chip available to try, but if this is possible, it would be a cheap way to upgrade your 64MB memory unit to 128 MB.

Also, we attempted to trigger some errors and error codes in the 360 on purpose, without success. All the important error codes seem to be ignored by the 360.
We attempted the following:
* Start without DVDROM
* Start without Powerbutton assembly attached

We also tried the following just for kicks, with no error messages by the system:
* No Eject button (it’s not really attached anyways, the actual button is on the MB)
* No fans
* No memory unit
* No HDD
* No Controllers

The result was always the same: the system booted up fine. We started it with the remote, which is all you need to run the system, even with everything but the mainboard and power supply removed.

Removing the AV cord will result in the entire ring of light flashing red.

We had hoped to trigger and find out error codes with our testing, but with no result.

Attaching a normal SATA HDD to the connector of the original HDD didn’t work either, using an external power supply since the internal one was too weak to power a 3.5″ HDD)

Replacing the DVDROM with another SATA HDD also didn’t work, as expected, it didn’t get detected.

Seems like Microsoft may have beefed up on their security a bit. :)

More to come in the future! :)

An interesting article over at xbox-scene.com - a fellow by the name of CrackerJack (cjack) has performed a few experiments on both the Xbox360 core and premium consoles.

He noticed that while his core system has the EEPROM chip near the CPU, his premium Xbox 360 does not have this chip. However it does not seem to be core/premium related as my (XanTium’s) premium Xbox 360 has this eeprom chip. On the images below you can see cjack’s premium 360 without eeprom on the left and mine with eeprom on the right.

Some other interesting stuff he tried:

* He desoldered the TSOP of his 2 consoles and inverted them. The TSOP of Premium soldered in the Core console did not work. The ‘ring of light’ blinked red … black screen. He resoldered both TSOPs in correct consoles … and everything worked fine again.

* He also desoldered the eeprom from his Core Xbox 360 and, a bit unexpectedly, the console worked fine without the eeprom chip! Dashboard version and Kernel versions (backup version too) were the same then when there was the eeprom. Everything worked fine, games boot without problems, Xbox LIVE worked too…

* He checked the DVD player labels: they are almost the same but 2 different ROM versions:
-Core: DVD PLAYER model: GDR3120L (X800475-008), Rom version: 0046DH
-Premium: DVD PLAYER model: GDR3120L (X800475-009), Rom version: 0047DJ

He tried to swap the DVD players too and … the games wouldn’t boot. The Xbox 360 gave the same error screen then when you put the DVD in a PC DVD-ROM: “To play this disc, put it in an xbox 360 console”. CrackerJack thinks that the Xbox 360 might have some kind of signature of the DVD player or that the ROM versions are not compatible.

Interesting nonetheless.

GamersReport have performed a simple mod allowing you to use any headset with the Xbox360 Live adaptor.

Quote below:

Many of you have been complaining that the headset that comes with the Xbox360 is inferior to all other headsets out there. You can plug any new headset into the Xbox360 jack, but you will loose mute and volume functionality. Well we are here to tell you how to fix that with a simple mod.

All headsets have four wires, two for the mic and 2 for the speaker. The bare and the white wire are for the mic usually, and the blue and the red are for the speaker. Now, any headset you want to use should show these wires when you strip off the jack at the end. Once you figure out which is which, unscrew the Xbox360 Live headset adapter using the 2 screws on the back. You should see something similar to the diagram below.

After this, it is simply a matter of un-soldering the wires from the original Xbox360 headset, threading the new headset wires through the plastic peice in the XBox360 headset adapter, and soldering them into place where the original wires you removed were. Pretty simple, and now you can use any headset at all with the XBox360.