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

source: xboxhacker

Looks like Thespecialist was able to successfully boot a backed up DVD on an original Xbox without any modchip or softmod – just using custom hacked firmware for the 8050L dvd-rom drive. The great news is the GDR3120 drive (in the Xbox360) runs a similar firmware version. This may open up a few possibilities!

Update: As we expected here at xbox360 hacks, Microsoft has beefened up their security and the Kiosk demo disc no longer boots! This has been confirmed over at xbox-scene. Below is the quote from their site:

*UPDATE* Not listed in the ‘improvements’, but it looks like Microsoft also tightened the security as they blocked the Kiosk Disc (a DVD with demo games sent to shops to run in their Kiosk/Demo Xbox 360 and that was found to be signed to also boot from recordable media) from booting so we can no longer experiment with the unsigned data (like music, videos, bf, swf, … files) on that disc. Several people have confirmed today on our forums that you’ll get an “unrecognized disc” error when inserting the disc in an updated Xbox 360.

As previously mentioned around the Internet, Microsoft’s Xbox Team has released a mandatory update for the Xbox360 Dashboard; fixing many problems users commonly experienced. Unfortunately there’s no new features available in this update. Below are the changes:

• Improvements to the Xbox Guide.
• Improved logic around deciding if saved games should be deleted and offer the option to only delete the profile and to leave all save data.
• Users reporting blank Friends List on the Xbox 360 dash after muting a friend while playing a game in Backwards Compatibility mode.
• Improved synching of games played to Web and in console.
• Network settings: keyboard does now allow entry of – (dash) character in the keyboard.

This free update is now available on Xbox Live!

source: teamxbox

This is from xor37h, over at the xboxhacker forums. It’s rather interesting:

JADE Game Engine .bin file pack-tool v1.0 by xor37h/hitmen
using LZO real-time data compression library (v2.02, Oct 17 2005).

Usage: jadepack [-option] infile outfile

Examples:
jadepack -c ff801b17.dec ff801b17.bin
jadepack -d ff801b17.bin ff801b17.dec

Switches:
-c compress
-d decompress

With this tool you can decompress and recompress the extracted .bin files from the extracted KingKongTheGame_clean.bf bigfile on the 360 kiosk disc.

It should work on other packed .bin files using the JADE game engine.

depacking -> repacking will not produce a 1:1 identical file due to the fact that the lzo algorithm gives different compressed output depending on library version used aswell as the machine it is running on.

depacking -> repacking -> depacking will produce a 1:1 identical file.

Also have no fear as the lzo manual states that even the latest miniLZO is backwards compatible.

I have been unable to find the exact version of minilzo the Ubisoft guys used, since they removed version and date strings from the library they used, allthough I suspect they might be using an old version 1.06.

I decided to use version 2.02 as its backwards compatible and works on 64-bit processors.

The file size of the repacked file will often (but not always) be the same.

I have already tested the following:

1. extract KingKongTheGame_clean.bf
2. unpack a .bin file.
3. change some strings
4. repack the .binfile
5. rebuild KingKongTheGame_clean.bf
6. load it up on a 360 and see the changes without any problems.

Special thanks to groepaz/hitmen for porting and testing on linux.

notice:
jadepack uses miniLZO v2.02 (c) Markus Franz Xaver Johannes Oberhumer

Download JADE Game Engine .bin file pack-tool v1.0

mperfect.net has a kickass guide with illustrated instructions on how to stream DivX Movies to your Xbox 360 using Windows Media Connect. The article is quite lengthy and the author really get’s into detail with images to show you everything he is talking about. Here is a quote from the opening paragraph:

this article shows how to stream DivX (and XviD) movies to an XBox 360 using a Media Center. for the picky people, it doesn’t actually stream DivX … it converts to WMV on the fly to stream. the core process for accomplishing this is taken from a thread found on the XBox forums : Playing DivX movies without having to Re-encode, through media centre. this works fine, but has the disadvantage that you have to manually set up the encoding process on your Media Center and then move over to the XBox 360 to watch it. so all this article really does is provide an MCE interface so you can control everything from your XBox 360 being used as an MCE Extender. i.e. its for lazy people. it was also an excuse for me to write a ListMaker AddIn for MCE … which i hadn’t done yet. not to mention my MCE setup doesnt have a TV Tuner and only has 32 megs of video RAM, so i cannot play video on it at all :(

have to say that the limited edition remote absolutely sucks. bought the Universal Remote and its pretty crappy too, but with backlit keys and more buttons. my old MCE remote can work with the X360 too, and it seems to work slightly better. the wireless controllers are much more reliable. i’m thinking that MS should make a remote that uses the same tech as the wireless controllers.

Rymez2K, from the xboxhacker.net forums, has figured out a clever way to use your existing [modded] Xbox saves on your Xbox360 console. The procedure is relatively technical so you will require some computer know-how before proceeding.

Below are the quoted steps:

Loaded original FIFA 2004 Game in my xbox 1
Created a profile/save.
Went into Edit Profile and changed the Profile Name, First Name, Last Name, And MyTeam.

FTPed across the following directories on UDATA\4541003b and TDATA\4541003b to a directory on my PC.

Then loaded up linux PC (Which has the new FATX support.)
dd out the second partition 0×130EB0000 to the end to a file (Approx 14Gb)
dd if=/dev/sda of=Partition1.dd skip=4995776 bs=1024

then mounted this image using the loopback device
mount Partition1.dd /mnt/xbox -t fatx -o loop

Next I copied the UDATA and TDATA direcories over the current ones which are at \Compatibility\Xbox1

Unmounted the image and dd the image back to the hard drive.
dd if=Partition1.dd of=/dev/sda seek=4995776 bs=1024

Then loaded up FIFA on my 360 and I could load the profile I had saved earlier on my original xbox.

GamersReports are reporting on a simple method to download the Xbox Live! Market Place demos from different regions.

Below are the quoted steps from their arcticle:

Fight Night Round 3 hit the marketplace today for demo download, but alas, it seems the French have not been included for some reason. Now, this may seem unfair, but we have a nice little workaround for you, or for anyone who wants to download a foreign demo. Let’s jump right in, it is simple as pie.

First off you should go to the passport site : http://www.passport.com/. Make sure you are not logged in, and click on the “create hotmail account” link. Now, here is the important part, the site will ask you where you are from, select either Japan, the US, or Europe. Remember, this is the country where the demo is available, not where you really live! You will require some information regarding those countries so Microsoft will allow you ro register the e-mail address.

Here is the info we used:

United States
Postal Code: 10012
State: New York, City New York City
Phone Number: 1-866-530-1234

Japan
Postal Code: 150-2345
Province: Tokyo-to
Phone Number: 3201-3331

Germany
Postal Code: 54292
City: Trier
Phone Number: 065112345

You can use any valid address and phone number from the country where the demo is available.

Once you have filled out the info and applied for the Hotmail account, activate it and turn on your Xbox360. Press the guide button and choose “switch profile” (X Button). Now create a new profile, and a new Xbox Live Account, make it a Silver account instead of a Gold (so you dont have to pay). Next you will require the phone number mentioned above to use your passport. You could theoretically take care of all the passport stuff on the Xbox, but it will go much faster on PC with a keyboard.

Well, that is about it folks! Pretty sweet huh? The cool thing is that you can disable (they actually are disabled from the start if you have already a gold membership installed on your box) the auto sign for the foreign accounts, hence leaving your primary “Real” account hassle-free. Enjoy the demos!

For those of you feeling adventurous in your quests to resolve any power supply issues, an article on hackaday has found a way to use a standard ATX computer power supply with the 360.

Hardocp has created instructions on how to create a water cooled Xbox 360. The instructions are quite well done with images to help you along the way. This may currently be the ultimate solution to a stable Xbox 360.