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

FrostyTheSnowman released a new revision of his 360 Modification USB Drive.

What’s new/fixed in v1.6 Revision 4:
* Added support for Lite-On DG-16D2S Revision 83850C
* Added new ‘FrostyTheSnowman’ logo (A Logo, Wow!!)
* Replaced FirmTool (by Caster420) with LiteTool (by Klutsh) for Lite-On drives
* Removed DummyGen for Lite-On drives (no longer required thanks to LiteTool, thanks Klutsh!)
* Replaced ‘USB Drive Format Tool’ with ‘Bootable USB Drive Creator Tool’ (custom-made for me by Team Modfreakz)
* Typo fixed in HTML code (thanks yaywoop!)
* Replaced HIMEM.SYS with FDXXMS.SYS (better memory management)
* Updated the ‘Creating Your 360 Modification USB Drive’ tutorial
* Added a small note in the menu about not using spaces in the ‘directory name’ due to MS-DOS limitation (thanks Guentha!)

Download the usual way.

The title ’bout says it all…

Despite Microsoft’s attempts to improve manufacturing quality, the Xbox 360 was recently accused of still having an alarmingly high failure rate by a Game Informer survey. Some 54.2 percent of 5,000 subscribers to the magazine said they had at least one Xbox 360 fail, with 41.2 percent saying they had at least two hardware failures.

“I can tell you the consoles we’re making today have lower-heat chips and better cooling, and we’re seeing fantastic quality in those consoles today,” Greenberg (Xbox Live and Xbox 360 director) told GameSpot today. “That said, I know people have had issues with systems which were bought earlier in the life cycle and that’s part of the reason why we implemented our unprecedented three-year warranty for anyone who gets the three red-ring flashing light error or the E74 error.”

He continued, “So I think we’ve made it clear we stand by the quality of our product and we will make it right by fixing the problem at no extra cost to you. But at the same time, we’ve been working hard to make improvements in the products we’re currently making, so I really feel like most of this is well behind us.”

(1 Spelling Error corrected)

We are pleased to release our latest addon hardware for the Xbox 360. The Xecuter xDrive 360!

Features:
* 2nd 360 Drive for all version of XBOX 360.
* Easy to install, no power adapter.
* Fully supports Hitachi, Samsung, Benq & Liteon.
* Switch between your internal untouched DVD Drive and your external modified DVD Drive.
* Easy external upgrade of xDrive 360 using the CK3
* Extend the life of your internal DVD Drive.

Prices and shipping dates to follow?

Klutsh released liteTool v0.1:
(Grammar and spelling corrected)

About liteTool:
liteTool is 16-Bit console application designed to copy Key & Serial information from a DosFlash 1.8 generated Dummy.bin for Lite-On 74850C & 83850C Drives.
- Works iXtreme 1.6.
- Cross version Spoofing is not supported.

NOTE: Filenames are not fixed but must conform to the 8.3 DOS standard.
THIS PROGRAM HAS NOT BEEN EXTENSIVELY TESTED.  A CHECK HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED TO PREVENT ERRORS, BUT THERE IS NO GUARANTEE.

http://www.klutsh.com

This is a quick u-Tube video with a test setup, but it clearly shows the console directly boots into Xell. Doesn’t look too spectacular, but people who know what this means will know it is!

This person used a Cygnos v2 chip, and made it permanent hardware add-on, though not required; and flashed the hack on the cygnos NAND; the original NAND was untouched.  The 360 can now boot either the hack or the  NXE dash (with a switch to select Stock or Cygnos FLASH).  A virgin xbox360 was for that. IT contained no No DVD hack, nothing. Just flashed it onto the Cygnos NAND and bingo.

Free60 says there is NO HARDWARE required for this Mod, and is somewhat true; however, if you want to switch between your OE flash and Modded flash, then you would need to add the Cygnos hardware.  The JTAG hack itself, is only three resistors soldered to the bus, no chip or hardware is left on the motherboard once you flash your onboard  NAND, which is why they say no hardware is required for the hack to run.  If you do not add hardware, like the Cygnos, then you will always boot to the hack.

No one has verified having full access to the motherboard hardware, namely the GPU’s hardware acceleration features. In order for any real development to begin, like emulation, you must have full access to all the hardware that the Hypervisor prevents access to, but this is a start.

On Tuesday, Microsoft has released an Xbox 360 software update that overwrites the first stage boot-loader of the system. Although there have been numerous software updates for Microsoft’s gaming console in the past, this is the first one to overwrite the vital boot block. Any failure while updating this will break the Xbox 360 beyond repair. Statistics from other systems have shown that about one in a thousand boot-loader updates go wrong, and unless Microsoft has a novel solution to this problem, this puts tens of thousands of Xboxes at risk.

It seems that this update is being done to fix a vulnerability already known to the Free60 Project. This vulnerability has been successfully exploited to run arbitrary code, and a complete end user compatible hack has been in development for some time and is planned to be released on free60.org shortly. It will allow users to take back control of their Xboxes and run arbitrary code like homebrew applications, or Linux right after turning on the console; and, without the need of a modchip, finally opening up the Xbox 360 to a level of hacking as the original Xbox.

Because of the dangerousness of the update and the homebrew lockout, the Free60 Project advises all Xbox 360 users to not update their systems to the latest software version. The Project website at http://free60.org/ will provide the latest information on this ongoing topic, including the final hack software.

Free60 (www.free60.org) is a project that aims to enable Xbox 360 users to run homebrew applications and operating systems like Linux on their consoles. The effort is headed by Felix Domke and Michael Steil, who have a background in dbox2, Xbox and GameCube hacking, and who have spoken at various conferences about their findings. Two years ago, Free60 released a hack that allowed arbitrary code execution using a game (“King Kong Hack”) as well as an adapted version of Linux, but this possibility has been disabled by Microsoft in subsequent updates of the Xbox 360 software.

Felix and Michael have repeatedly argued that game console manufacturers should open up their platforms to Linux and homebrew, similar to what Sony has done with the PlayStation 3.

Seacrest @ abgx360.net writes:

I just wanted to get a look at the super advanced crypto that goes into 83850c but apparently Geremia is not sharing source code for FreeKey… so one thing led to another and i ended up writing this little app while deciphering the (actually quite disappointing) algorithm. Enjoy!

This is mainly provided for curious people and I can NOT guarantee that the keys it gives you are correct (but it seems to work properly). Please don’t ask me for help with this application unless you are working on integrating this functionality into JungleFlasher :)

Download it here
(Sign up for membership to download)

Love,
Seacrest

Schtrom released new version of DosFlash has been released.
What’s new/fixed:
* now supports LiteOn PLDS DG-16D2S 83850C V2 Geremia/Maximus LiteOn FreeKey method
* huge firmware read/write speed increase, especially if run from a floppy disk
* updated IDE/SATA motherboard chipset list
* new IDE/SATA detection for Windows and DOS
* DosFlash.typ embedded in executable file
* LiteOn V1 drive key is now extracted 10 times and compared against each other, after the extraction a summary is displayed sorted by the most common matches
* LiteOn V2 drive key is extracted 2 times and compared
* new BenQ unlock keys added to unlock all known BenQ drive firmwares
* command line parameter “EnableDrives” removed, DosFlash asks the user on application close if he wants to enable the drives or not, during the tests it seems that IDE drives have problems with the enable, SATA drives seem to work fine
* new 64-bit DosFlash edition added called DosFlash64, because some driver functions don’t work as expected in the 32 bit compatibility mode on Windows x64
* Beta state removed
* ready and tested on Windows7 X86 and x64

Geremia/Maximus FreeKey method with DosFlash16
We have added one cmd line parameter for DosFlash16 in manual mode. The COM port is simply ignored and can have any value for the V2 drives.
Use the following command line to extract your free key from 83850C:
- DosFlash LITEON K 0970 1 inquiry.bin identify.bin key.bin dummy.bin enckey.bin

IXtreme FW for Liteon 83850c drives! (The original post was laced with spelling and grammar errors, they are corrected).

It is the third anniversary for the xbox360 drive hack FW and; despite all attempts Team HyperX is still here, helping with the flashing of FW, after several ban waves, and several drives including the mighty LITEON. So, HyperX says thanks go to all who are involved, and here’s to the next three years!

The moment the only way to get your key data is through that “foundmy.com” method; HyperX has no alternative solution. Even though you have to pay, they say “Props to foundmy for providing a solution.” However, team HyperX will keep working to find a alternative, FREE solution!

Team HyperX will confirm that reports of successful purchases from people who used “foundmy.com”, have not seen any issues relating to the processing of key’s.

Also, it is currently recommended by THX to NOT cross spoof between 7x and 8x LiteOn (rev1/rev2) drives!

A version of JungleFlasher shouldl be released in the next 24 hours to support the new ixtreme.