Xbox Technical Question (Solved!)

I recently was given an Xbox that no longer works. I didn't pay anything for it so I had no problem with the fact that it didn't work and I thought I might be able to fix it and get it up and running so that I could use it as a media center.

Before I got the system, I was told it was the DVD drive that might have been the problem so I was pretty excited because I figured it wouldn't be too hard to work around at first. Unfortunately the problem is a lot worse.

It seem this Xbox glitched somehow and now when you turn it on the system comes up with an error code 6. After some research, I found out that this means the system can't unlock the drive in order to use it. This kind of error is usually most common with systems that people have tried to mod but apparently can also happen randomly to systems that have never had any tampering done with them.

Knowing what the problem was I went about trying to figure out if there was a way I could fix the problem. Unfortunately in an attempt to help prevent easy modding the security measures Microsoft put in place to try and prevent it from happening makes fixing the problem next to impossible without modding the system using one of those mod chips.

The only other way I could try and fix the system would be to open a working xbox and using it's motherboard and hard drive combo to correct the problem by unplugging the ide cable from the working xbox and plugging it into the broken xbox hard drive while it was on. Obviously there is some risk involved there and I could probably end up screwing up another system which I don't own so I would rather not try.

So my question is, has anyone else had this problem and short of getting a mod chip is there anything else I can do to try and correct the problem without having to spend any money which I am very short on right now.

I'm not sure I could be of any help other than to refer you to the masters of this type of stuff. Unless you have already been here. http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php

So after posting on the site I found myself thinking that I should just do some searching on the net again to see if I missed anything the first time around. I checked Edwin's link and it took me back to a site I was familiar with and unfortunately found nothing new. So I did some more google searches (repairing xbox hard drives was the search I used) and got brought back to here. I had been to Llamma's site but had never seen that page and there seemed to be some really recent updates I had not yet seen. So I checked out the information they had on the hard drive I had in my xbox and sure enough I was able to wipe out the hard drive, using a bootable floppy and my pc, which also unlocked the drive. I put the drive back into the Xbox and used one of those mod cd's available on the net to rebuild the drive. If I wanted to I could even have it set the HD back to factory so that I could use Xbox Live!

I now have a fully working xbox! Seeing as the system is on the way out and I am more interested in it as a media player I am going to keep the system softmodded and use it as a file player. I can't even describe how excited this whole thing has made me. I thought I was never going to be able to use it without spending more money than I cared to.

Best part is, it didn't cost me a dime!

That's great news. The Xbox Media Center is just about the most fabulous piece of software written for the system, and for my purposes it puts the features built into the 360 to shame (of course, I don't have Windows XP Media Center Edition, or even a Windows box in general; if I did, I suppose I might be signing a slightly different tune here).

zeroKFE wrote:

That's great news. The Xbox Media Center is just about the most fabulous piece of software written for the system, and for my purposes it puts the features built into the 360 to shame (of course, I don't have Windows XP Media Center Edition, or even a Windows box in general; if I did, I suppose I might be signing a slightly different tune here).

No you wouldn't. XBMC is truly amazing.

Yeah Certis has the whole Xbox media center package working at home with his 360 and it really is not as good as the XBMC player you can use on the xbox's. That thing is fantastic!

Just getting the system to work after struggling with it for several hours a week ago and than a couple of more hours today has put me on such a high. I literally can't believe I managed to make it all work.

Right now I am all over XBMC, but when DirecTV works with Windows Media Center (coming real soon now, hooray!), then I will be all over the Windows Media Center functionality.

Gaald, i get error code 16 when i tried to put my xbox drive back in. What exactly were your steps? I'm trying to get this xbox running too. Thanks for you help.

Well you might be able to get the system up and running by burning a slayers evox DVD. You can get info on the files in question here. I believe you can also burn it onto a CD-ROM. Once you have the DVD or CD-ROM put it into the Xbox shut it off and use the start button to power it back up (not the eject button). The system should boot from the disc in the drive instead of the hard drive and from there you can reformat the system back to spec or soft modded.

All of the links posted in this thread have a lot of information on fixing broken xbox's. I used the links provided to fix my problem as well.

I hope this works out!

EDIT: I should point out that if you mod your xbox in anyway and try to get on live you will be banned pretty quickly and the system itself will no longer be allowed to connect to xbox live. So be careful with what you are doing. You can read up on this sort of thing by using the links I and others have posted on this thread.

Wow, I thought i almost had it, but then i got an error code 6. I found out how to lock the hard drive but then i got an error code 5. I have one working softmodded xbox and 3 non-working xboxs with hard drive problems. I'll keep trying but if anyone can think of anything else please let me know. Thanks fellas!!!

Error Code 5 and 6 have to do with locked and unlocked hard drives. One of the things I was told do was make a back up of the eprom chip so that I had the ability to lock and unlock the hard drive on the xbox using some programs which again can be found on the websites that have been linked in this thread. Each xbox has a special code for each motherboard/hard drive combination. Good luck.