This started out as Xplorer360 crashing and wiping the E drive. The drive is unlocked, using hotswap to get error code 12, and xboxhdm shows no access errors when initializing. Selecting option 1 to rebuild from scratch is producing the error that there is no partition table on the drive, which is odd to me considering that that is exactly why i'm using this utility. I have another modded xbox. Can I unlock that drive, connect to pc, hotswap the broken drive in on another IDE connector and use xboxhdm to clone? What are my options?
if the drive is unlocked, then it is not linked to the xbox it came out anymore. for hotswapping it is crucial that you always connect the hd back in your xbox before powering down. if you power your xbox down while the unlocked hard drive is not connected back to your xbox, then the hard drive stays unlocked and you will get an error 5 the next time you boot up. in that case you need the eeprom.bin to relock it back to your xbox again! so i assume that you either have your eeprom.bin saved, or that you correctly connected the hd back before powering the xbox down. if you have the eeprom.bin, my suggestion is to format the hd: so just do a format of the harddrive (use a zero write utility) under windows, then rebuild your drive with the hdm tutorial again. and lock it with the eeprom you hopefully saved and backed up. if you did not save your eeprom file, then you have a big problem. build the eeprom reader or get a modchip. that are then your only options.
Allow me to clarify, the drive is unlocked during the hotswap process not permanently. Also, that the drive has to be connected to the xbox before powering down is a myth (there are so many in this particular hack). I know this from my own personal experiences. The drive relocks automatically when power is lost, unless you intentionally disable the feature. I have never seen error 5 and have powered down more than one xbox hd without reconnecting. I would have backed up the eeprom.bin if I had gotten far enough to install a hack to make the backup. Unfortunately, the E drive was deleted before I could. Also, I've been down the eeprom reader route, constructed one, connected it(tried both lpc header and pins 5,6), and could never pull a read. I got as far as determining that it had to be some sort of configuration error on the pc side. I had a friend of mine that's a graduate from ITT Tech in component level repair go over the scematics and my reader and he passed it as correctly built and connected. Decided to cut my losses and buy another xbox, which that attempt went perfectly. I don't see what a zero write will do, there are no partitions to write zeros to. Don't get me wrong here dennisv9, I very much appreciate your help. Has anyone here experienced this error with xboxhdm before? Why would a program designed to write the partitions to a new hard drive state that it can't read the partition table, I mean of course it can't it hasn't been written yet. Anyone with experience cloning with xboxhdm? Can someone tell me how to manually set up the partition table?
i see you have tried all the usual fixes and it all failed. with the eeprom reader, for me i have to give it a few times before it works. it works on v1.0-v1.6 xboxes! i know it for sure, since i recovered an eeprom a few weeks ago on a v1.6 box (and many on older ones). I needed to give it a few tries, and i needed to use the actual eeprom itself to connect (the lpc header never gave me a eeprom read!). i once had a hard drive (stock one) that couldn't be read with the hdm tutorial. i used a zero write utility under windows, after which the hdm utility would recognize and was able to format and create the partition tables. but i believe you are much more into this stuff then i am, and i guess you all know this / tried it. i believe this is as far as my insights go, good luck and i hope you get it to work! btw. i never knew that from the hotswapping that it locks automatically regardless of connecting back. i had one error 5 once, due to a bad hotswap (hence the fact that i have an eeprom reader....). but maybe i did something else wrong. from that point on no hotswapping for me anymore, just read the eeprom with the reader and use hdm to rebuild. never failed me once with at least 20 xboxes.
Yeah i'm sure the eeprom reader does work, far too many success stories for it not to. I actually need to go back to the project and figure out where the problem is, the day may eventually come when I will need it. Now accessing the drive under windows is an area that i'm not familiar with, what is the exact process that you achieved this? I got the pc to boot I think maybe twice without showing an error with the drive by pause\breaking right after the auto detect and then connecting the hot swapped drive, but the results weren't consistent. Also, even with no error the drive still doesn't show in device manager. Xplorer 360 was able to access the drive but how do I configure so that the zero write application will? Do I need to disable auto detect and enter the specifications for the drive manually? Do I need to do the same in windows, manually adding the drive? That you had a similar experience with hdm not recognizing the drive and you fixed it with a zero write cannot be ignored, I must try this. You may very well have the solution that I need.
with the hdm i got the table partition error. since the drive was unlocked (failed hotswap), windows and my bios recognizes it normally (which it didn´t in the locked state before the failed hotswap!). i just booted the hiren boot cd, that has tons of windows/dos based applications (atapwd.exe, hd utilities etc.). just pick any utility to give it a low level format/ zero fill/write application (i used the western digital diagnoses (dosbased)tool that is on the hiren boot cd and can also be downloaded from the wd website. there is an option to give it a zero write /zero fill). after that, i was able to use hdm tutorial to rebuild my hdd, since it completely blanked the drive. this fixed the table partition error for me, after that i then locked it with the eeprom.bin key (without it, i would only get an error 5). you can give that i try, but be sure your method of locking it afterwards works. for me after a failed hotswap (powered down before connecting the hd back) i directly got an error 5 after powering the xbos up (for that reason i had to build the eeprom reader since i wasn´t able to lock it otherwise). zero write/fill will completely blank your harddrive (write zeros). good luck getting your xbox to work, i´m out of further ideas. have you looked into the chimp cloning tutorial? maybe you can use that to clone the ´broken´ harddrive in your other modded xbox and then put it back in your xbox. i believe it is the same in essence, if you use the hdm tutorial to put the files on the harddrive and lock it by any means, or use the chimp tutorial that is able to clone one xbox hd to another xbox hd. you can run chimp directly from your xbox, so you don´t need a computer. just look the chimp tutorial up, maybe it will work for you. i never used it, since the hdm never failed for me so i can´t be of any assistance for you. but here is the tutorial, you can always give it a try http://www.xbox-hq.com/html/xbox-tutorials-260.html
using slayer disc and another modded xbox fixed my problem when i wiped partition 4 with xplorer360. just started the disc in the working modded xbox then unplug the cables from the hard drive and plugged them in the bad hard drive then choose something like "rebuild to factory settings" and that was it .
Excellent idea sergiovv, I don't know why I hadn't considered that. Completely eliminates the pc in the equation. On the broken xbox, I'm assuming that you hot swapped to unlock the drive? dennisv9, now that I think about it I believe when I had problems getting the pc to recognize the drive was before I had learned the foolproof way to hot swap. Question though, would hdm not recognize the drive at all or did it give you the "no partition table" error when you tried to rebuild from scratch?
to be honest i dont remember if i did the hot swap first . but i soon as i rebuild it to factory seetings i checked it with xplorer360 an partition 4 was recovered and then i put it back to the xbox and ms dashboard was back.
Well sergiovv, your method worked, mostly. It repartitioned the drive, allowing me to install the ndure hack, and restoring use of the xbox. C drive is there but I am unable to write to it, and there aren't any stock files in it. I would assume that it wasn't formatted properly. I will return to hdm and use the rebuild C option, should finish repairing the drive. Thank you very much.
now that you say that i remember when i went to the already rebuilded ms dash i could not play any game and neither copy the sid and splinter files was saying 0 blocks available and i did what you just say "rebuild c partition".
some options in hdm are grayed out, if it is locked you cannot choose to rebuild etc. etc. but glad to hear you got it to work.
