boby2pc released a new version of FindSecData, a tool to help you uncripple the HDD features on a banned Xbox 360 console.   FindSecData will extract secdata.bin and filetable of NAND dump. It uses patch-latest secdata.bin method.

What’s new/fixed (since v0.4):
* added bypassing FF version records in filesystem (v0.41)
* more accurate timestamp – used for visual purposes only (v0.41)
* added parameter to show time part of timestamp in filetables (v0.42)
* added support for large blocks (v0.5)
* block rellocation support (v0.6)
* now for 256MB and 512MB Jaspers is only needed dump of 0×600 blocks:
nandpro lpt: -r256 raw.bin AE0 600
or nandpro lpt: -r512 raw.bin AE0 600
so only about 1h dumping (v0.6)
* protection to use large block controller with small 24MB dump (v0.61)

Carranzafp/Maximus released a modified version of the Lite-On iXtreme v1.6 to work with the 83850-v2 and 93450 drives.

He Wrote: “Just finished hexediting and testing. Here are templates for Ixtreme 1.6 for 83V2 and 93450 liteon firmwares what you need to do is place your keys/serials on it and flash
use Jungleflasher or Hexedit, whatever, keep you original stored for future upgrades.

Dont ask why you got banned if you play Online with this firmware, its 1.6, also I just tested with 2 consoles so its your call the fws are based on the 83v1 ixtreme 1.6 I could have do it based on the 74 but Its the first I saw, dont think based on the 74 would make them safer anyway.”

In related news, MRA released a new and better method to dump/read those Lite-On 83850-v2 and 93450 drives:

No pin lifting or epoxy removing needed anymore! Just solder anything on the back according to this picture.
Also if you got status 0×52 instead of 0×72 with the “1,8V-method” this should do it. I already dumped 4 drives with this method without any issues.

-switch it to position 1
-power the drive
-start Dosflash –> SPI should get recognized with status 0×72
-switch to position 2
-click “read”

Unsolder anything and reconnect the lines that have been cut.

XBReboot v0.05: by phonsey and tuxuser on XBH – Has now also been released for Zephyr, Falcon and Jasper-16mb motherboards.
*Update* They are all available with the latest 8955_1 patch revision now, so each 16mb motherboard can now run XBR v0.05 8955_1! Only support for Jasper 256/512mb motherboards is still missing now.  Don’t forget to inject your own KeyVault and Config before flashing!

360 Flash Dump Tool: by MODFREAKz on XBH – Since Robinsod released the source of “360 Flash Dump Tool” and stopped developing a few people decided to continue develop this great app.
This tool will allow you to decrypt/encrypt and extract various parts of a XBOX360 flash dump and much more!!

Note: Jasper dumps are not supported in this version, largeblock is being worked on.

What’s new/fixed:
- Bugfix, regarding to CD decryption. If you have a 1920+ CD version it doesn’t decrypt CD properly. (by arnezami)
- Bugfix, if a CPU key starts with 00 then the program crashed. (by arnezami)
- Added, separate extract option for all important stuff (Security Data, Extended Key Vault, Console Revocation List, AP25 Challenge Database, Config Blocks)
- Added, console ID generation method (source from xorloser)
- Added, detection and correction of 1 wrong byte in the CPU-Key (by MODFREAKz)
- Added, XValue decryption (by Redline99)
- Added, support when raw extracting a file that it sets the Date/Time stamps as per original in Nand
- Fixed, decryption for “Console Revocation List” (Thanks to xorloser and Redline99)
- Fixed, “Kernels not extracted (CPU Key required, CD Ver == 1920)”
- Changed, full KV.bin extract and patch
- Added new OSIG types and unspoof possibility
- Added/Changed new regions
- 1BL, XEX1 and XEX2 are set as standard
- Improved exception handling
- Added Drag and Drop
- Changed Icon
- Code cleanup
- Fixed a lot of other small bugs

News has just been posted on Xbox Forums about the LIVE bannings, This wont come as a suprise but reading the post it seems that Mr Gates is getting his army ready for all out WAR on us 360 owners.

Microsoft recently banned a large number of pirates from Xbox Live, and this has raised some questions over what can get you banned, and exactly how fair and accurate the banning process is. The truth is worse than you may have suspected.

Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat – pirates should absolutely be banned from XBL. Piracy is a large drain on the gaming industry and needs to be stopped, but just how does Microsoft determine who is and who isn’t a pirate? Well, they’re not very upfront about their process for determining guilt, but it’s a safe bet that some piece of diagnostic software running in the background on every 360 is looking for the firmware modifications necessary to run pirated games. When a console has been flagged as modded, it gets banned.

That’s all well and good, but what if you genuinely didn’t mod your console? What if you bought it used and had no idea it was even modded? If you go to MS with these concerns, prepare for the possibility that you might lose any DLC you have legitimately purchased, including games, map packs, and videos. One user who claims to have been banned in error was met with the following threat from a Microsoft staffer after posting his concern on the Xbox Forums

Our investigations are very thorough. However if you PM me with your consoleID and serial number we will reverify our investigation. Your console ID is located in System Settings>Console Settings>System Info

Before replying, please be sure that you:

1. Purchased your console brand new and unopened from a reputable retailer
2. No individual has ever handled the Xbox outside your direct physical supervision.
3. You have thoroughly reviewed the information and FAQ located at http://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoleban/

Please be aware that if our reverification is correct, this could result in a permanent suspension of the Xbox LIVE accounts on this console, along with all associated licenses and gamerscore.

There are two scary facts here. The first is that MS won’t re-investigate the banning, but only re-verify it. That makes it sound like they’ll just double check to make sure this unfortunate gamer’s serial number is in fact on the banned list rather than making sure it deserves to be on that list. Even more upsetting is that the punishment for asking to have the console re-verified is the banning of the gamertag, complete with the loss of any and all DLC licenses held by that account. So let’s say you have purchased $200 worth of map packs, games on demand, and XBLA titles from the Xbox Live Marketplace before your console got banned. If you ask to have that ban re-verified, and the results are the same, Microsoft can take back all of that content that you legally purchased.

I’m afraid it gets worse. Piracy isn’t the only thing that can get an Xbox 360 banned from Xbox Live. If you have any repairs or cosmetic modifications done to your console by anyone other than Microsoft, you run the risk of getting banned if they find out about it. From the Xbox Live terms of service:

The Service may only be accessed with an original Xbox, an Xbox 360 console, a personal computer, or other device authorized by us, or by logging into your account via Xbox.com . You agree that you are using only authorized software and hardware to access the Service, that your software and hardware have not been modified in any unauthorized way (e.g., through unauthorized repairs, unauthorized upgrades, or unauthorized downloads), and that we have the right to send data , applications or other content to any software or hardware that you are using to access the Service for the express purpose of detecting an unauthorized modification.

Microsoft charges over $100 for a repair if you’re out of warranty, and you can expect to be without your console for between two and four weeks. In my area, I was able to find several repairmen, and shops that would fix a 360 for $50, and the turnaround time was less than a week in every case. Currently, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that MS is banning customers for going with the quicker, cheaper local repairman, but it is rather disheartening to know they could.

It’s great that MS can ban pirates whenever the need arises. Unfortunately the policies that allow for pirates to get the smack down also leave a lot of room for innocent gamers to get trampled on. Hopefully Microsoft will update their policies, or at least use their ban hammer responsibly.

I have reached out to Stephen Toulouse, Director of Policy and Enforcement for Xbox LIVE, for clarification on these issues, but have not received a response at the time of this writing.

[VIA]

Well it look’s like Microsoft are at it again with all the system ban’s that have been sent out in last few weeks this latest step shows that they are putting a stop to hackers once and for all…As you can read below

Datel announced that it has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, in response to Microsoft’s lockout (via Xbox 360 firmware update) of the company’s Max Memory Cards. We doubt this is the “remedy” for the lockout issue to which the company previously referred, but it’s certainly one way to address it.

“Microsoft has taken steps to render inoperable the competing Datel memory card for no visible purpose other than to have that market entirely to themselves,” Datel attorney Marty Glick explained in a press release. “They accomplished their recent update by making a system change that will not recognize or allow operation of a memory card with greater capacity than their own. We believe that with the power Microsoft enjoys in the market for Xbox accessories this conduct is unlawful.”

In the press release, Datel goes on to say that the lawsuit is intended to “restore competition” which, the company suggests, is beneficial to consumers. It’s now up to a federal court in San Francisco to determine whether the Max Memory-crippling Xbox update constitutes unlawful anti-competitive behavior on the part of Microsoft.

The last time Datel went to court, it viewed the experience from the other side. Sony filed suit against the peripheral maker over the “Lite Blue Tool,” which would have enabled users to run unsigned code on PSP hardware.

[VIA]

GodzIvan strikes again, this time with a diagram which simply write protects the NAND flash in the Xbox 360 by connecting WP to ground pin (if the flash type has different pinout, just find the datasheet to locate WP). This modification does not stop the ban from M$, but it prevents deletion of the HD installation certificates required by games which means you can still install them on the hard drive. In order to update the kernel this mod must be disabled; a simple switch solution comes to mind.” This is only a safegaurd against a ban, and only works on a unbanned 360 console, and prevents against future bans.

The fight against the 360 ban is heating up as hackers start to pull out there big guns.  k0mpresd from X-S has posted a tutorial (confirmed working), which unbans any Xbox 360 console (8955).  The method is old and known (more info below), and is quite complicated so its not “newb friendly”.

what you need:

your 8955 live console + cpu key
a 2nd unbanned console
nandpro b + flash cable
xell loader
degraded
1888 fs
robinsod’s flashtool

process:

use nandpro and dump nand from unbanned console.
flash xell and use jtag hack to obtain cpu key.
use flashtool to extract file system.

dump nand from 8955 console.
use flashtool to patch nand dump with kv.bin from unbanned console.
save patched file (patched_kv.bin).

open degraded + 1888 fs.
create 1888 downgrader image (downgrader.bin) from your patched_kv.bin file.

flash downgrader.bin to 8955 console.
attach hdd + ethernet cable and boot console.

connect to live and update to 8955 dashboard.

console is now fully working and unbanned!

More info on this method:

I see lots of sites posting today about a way to unban Xbox 360 from LIVE often linking to a thread made on our forums here.

This method has been known for a long time (since the King Kong Exploit days) and does indeed ‘work’. Basically you swap the Keyvault (or ‘KV’ in short, it stores stuff like console certificates, per-box private keys, DVD key, etc) inside the NAND with the KV from an unbanned console. While technically very different you could somewhat compare it to swapping eeprom data during the Xbox1 days.

However there’s a (really) big ‘IF’ (besides the required tech knowledge) … you need the (unique) CPU key of your banned console – without it you can’t correctly write (or encrypt if you want) the new KV data in the NAND bin of your banned console.
Now you wonder how to get the CPU-key … well by running XeLL of course!
To run XeLL u need to perform the JTAG hack (or the King Kong exploit, but that’s even more outdated) … and if you got banned the last few weeks it means you updated to the latest dashboard/kernel (else you can’t get on LIVE).
And that’s the problem… Microsoft patched the JTAG hack since kernel 849x (July 2009) … so no way to boot up XeLL (= no realistic way for you to get the CPU-key atm) and thus no way to swap the KV data in your NAND image.
And then there’s also added KV protection (hashing) on newer motherboards (Falcon+ ? and kernel 1888 won’t boot on those), but if you can’t even get your CPU-key it doesn’t matter much to do deeper into this problem.
The only way it would work is if you retrieved the CPU-key of your old banned 360 before you updated to anything over 849x. If you did that you probably know about all of this and I’m not telling you anything new
Downgrading kernel is not an option either, older kernels won’t boot as both kernel and CB fuses were burned during the various updates MS performed, and you can’t bypass that without … your CPU-key.

Hope that explains the situation a bit (tried to make it not ‘too’ technical)
On a side-note, it would probably be pretty easy for MS to detect KV-swaps (like HW-mismatches etc).
Side-note2: in case it wasn’t obvious yet those “unban isos” are fake and iXtreme LT won’t unban you (it will instead try to avoid new bans).

In other news, C4eva has announced he is working on a new firmware for the 360 which is not bannable, more info:

C4Eva announced he’s working on a new firmware on IRC:
“[c4eva] new fw in dev/test – ixtreme LT (Lite Touch) – more efficient , minimal patching , all aspects of fw indistinguisable from orig, no more bans, No ETA!”

We do not have more details atm.
As far as we know the 3 ‘test boxes’ C4Eva has running (see here) are still fine (not banned).

[VIA Xbox-Scene and Team Executer]

v1.0.2 has been officially released.

* Changes affecting all platforms:
- Added support for 4th Wave PFI/Video
- Added support for SS v2
- Added the new check for DMI corruption which the database has been using since 2009/06/14
- Added ability to at least try to verify the game data when no Xex/SS ini is available and we’re not going to AutoFix
- Added support for Avatar Awards
- Added option to select your preferred language to use when displaying strings from the Xex title resource
- Added drag & drop support for the GUI Input panel
- Added option to embed images in the HTML source code as data URIs for better portability (when using HTML output)
- Added JavaScript to HTML output that allows you to check off achievements and see the achieved text (especially useful when the how-to text is vague)
- Added a Donate button to the GUI so you can help me pay the bills and continue working on improvements
- Removed “Look for verified files in the local folder only” option from the GUI. I can’t tell you how many people have checked this box without reading it because they saw it in a tutorial or someone else told them to do it, and then they can’t figure out why abgx360 says you need to enable online functions. Please stop writing/following tutorials! Just read the Quickstart topics, the tutorial is right there.
- Checking for updates to GameNameLookup.csv is now optional (the csv was eating 50% of our bandwidth and you probably don’t need it anyway since the game name can be retrieved directly from the Xex)
- Fixed a bug where folders would be considered files when parsing the ISO filesystem on some recent games
- Fixed a bug where default.pe (a temporary file used when decompressing a compressed default.xex) wasn’t being deleted automatically
- Fixed a bug where unicode code point 160 (no-break space) would be displayed in a CLI window as ” ?” instead of ” ”
- Small changes to the way some messages are displayed (harder to miss)

* Changes affecting Windows:
- Now storing data files in the AppData folder to prevent errors related to permissions and UAC. You can open the GUI and hit Ctrl+F to find out where your StealthFiles are now stored and optionally have it opened for you. abgx360 will still check for Video ISOs in the old install directory first though, so you don’t need to move that 3rd Wave Video ISO if you have it saved there already.
- Using libcurl 7.19.6 which should hopefully fix some strange connection problems affecting a small percentage of users

* Changes affecting Linux/BSD:
- Fixed a bug on 64 bit systems which made it impossible to read PFI/Video exceptions from abgx360.dat
- Added code to the unix version of kbhit() to prevent hanging when abgx360 is launched as a background process

* Changes affecting Mac OS X:
- Fixed a bug where abgx360 would fail to launch if you supplied a filename that contained an apostrophe
- Changed the dark gray text used for things like achievement type to normal gray since it was actually showing up black (invisible on a black background)
- Removed GUI option to “Use Terminal font characters” (this refers to a Windows font which replicates CP437 characters and not Terminal.app)

* Special Note: It’s recommended to wait for iXtreme LT (Lite Touch) before you play any more backups or originals on an unbanned console flashed with custom firmware.

VIA: http://www.abgx360.net/

Just when a simple Live ban wasn’t enough, it seems Microsoft has gone the extra mile to stop piracy on the 360.

The new Xbox 360 Bans not only ban you from Live, but also block you from copying game to 360 HDD and not being able to earn achivements.

Kushan posts a lengthy and informative article on #FW@EFNet explaining the newest Microsoft ban wave.

- What does this mean for you and what can you do about it?
Firstly, and most obviously, you cannot connect to Xbox Live on this console any more. This means no more game updates (aka title updates), XBLA games, marketplace content, netflix/sky player and so on. There is no way around this, all online capabilities are now disabled PERMANENTLY.

In all likelihood, your gamertag has NOT BEEN BANNED. When your gamertag gets banned, Microsoft sends you an email detailing why, if you have not recieved this email then your profile should be ok, to a certain extent.

Hard Drive installs are now disabled on the banned console. This means any disk-based games you have will no longer play off of the hard drive. If you attempt to play a game, it will tell you that it was installed on a different 360 and needs to be deleted/installed again. When you delete the game and attempt to install it, you are given a message telling you that it is not supported. There is no way to fix this, that functionality is simply gone from the banned 360.

The hard drive itself is left untouched – you can place it in another 360, even an unbanned one, and it will still work just fine. You do NOT need to reformat it to regain any kind of functionality. Any installed games will need to be reinstalled for the console you want to play them on. This is normal behaviour and happens when swapping HDDs on unbanned/legit 360′s.

Windows Media Centre functionality is disabled. It is still possible to stream video/music content via the video library.

Your Gamertag may be corrupted. This does not mean your gamertag has been banned, you can recover it using any live-capable 360, however ANY ACHIVEMENTS YOU HAVE EARNED SINCE BEING BANNED WILL BE LOST. Your gamertag will be corrupted EVERY SINGLE TIME it is used on a banned console. This means you cannot use your banned console to play backups offline just to get achievements – it wont work, the second you put your profile back on a good 360, it will be corrupted and all progress lost. There is no way around this.

The same applies to game saves – if you access a game save on a banned 360, it too will be corrupted when accessed on a legit/unbanned 360! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! There is no way around this, either.

Your XBLA games and DLC will still be valid, however to play them on a different 360 you will need to be signed into Xbox Live. This is normal behaviour on unbanned/legit 360′s as well. They may be corrupted and have to be re-downloaded if you attempt to access them on a banned 360. You can transfer all of your downloaded content to a new 360 here: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/licensemigration/default.htm however note that you can only do it once every 12 months.

So, in summary:
Your Banned 360:
* Cannot go on Xbox Live
* Cannot install games to the HDD
* Cannot use Windows Media Centre extender
* Cannot be used to get achievements from backups without corrupting your profile

You cannot do anything about this, short of buying a new 360.

There may be more functionality disabled than mentioned here, things are still being discovered.

- So what caused my ban?
There are MANY theories as to what is causing so many consoles to get banned this time, however as of yet there is nothing concrete, just a lot of circumstantial evidence and speculation. Please do not add to this, a full investigation is under-way.

c4eva, the main guy behind iXtreme, had this to say:
<+c4eva> fw itself not detectable
<+c4eva> suspect they are going hard on warez releases and incorrect use of abgx!

He also added the following:
<+c4eva> just to let you know that im looking into the current ban wave. I am currently running several brand new xboxs on live! These xboxs are in various configs. All are running ixtreme 1.61
<+c4eva> One is running original discs, another is running on xbl (no discs) , another is running a backup from my region!
<+c4eva> until tests are completed, no eta on liteon fw!

When we know more, YOU’LL no more, so please do not ask for updates!
A full transcript is available here – http://pastebin.ca/1660777

Remember, if you really want to blame someone, blame the person that decided to modify your 360 in the first place – most likey, that would be you ;

Microsoft has confirmed with IGN that they have issued another wave of bans, banning modified consoles from Xbox Live.

Microsoft Confirms LIVE Console Ban Wave to IGN: “We have taken action against a small percentage of consoles that have been modified to play pirated game discs,” a Microsoft spokesperson told IGN. “In line with our commitment to combat piracy and support safer and more secure gameplay for the more than 20 million members of our Xbox LIVE community, we are suspending these modded consoles from Xbox LIVE.”

In other news, Jungle Flasher V0.1.67 beta (50) has been released, new features/changes:
* iXtreme 1.61 support
* 1 minor bug
* other work was planned but leak of 1.61 prompted this quick fix

[ViA IGN and JungleFlasher]

Xamp from Xbox Scene has released a patched version of Xplorer360 to work with the 250GB HDD.

The Good:
* Drag and drop content to and from (inject/extract) confirmed working on both Partitions 2 and 3.

The Bad:
* Do not use any sort of backup or restore image features with this patched version.
* Do not use this version with 20, 60, or 120 gig drives.

The Details:
* Changed the cluster chain length value to 00 08 39 at offset 0xF0C2.

Microsoft have introduced a new disc security to stop piracy on the 360 (Wave 4 protection). The game “Car-o-Rama” is known to have this new security on it, but a 3mb patch quickly strips the new security.

Last Friday Disney Pixar released a new game, Car O Rama, which boasted a new Wave 4 protection. Microsoft’s earlier attempts at protecting the Xbox 360 against piracy have all failed miserably, and it seems this one is no exception. Pirates have already created a temporary fix for the iXtreme 1.6 hack firmware, which involves you downloading a 3MB “activate.iso” file and burning it to a DVD9 disc.

This disc can then be used to load games with Wave 4 protection, which currently only include Car O Rama, but will most likely include otehr games in the future. The official NFO file for the loader states

[VIA]

Team Cygnos integrates JTAG hack into Cygnos360 v2, news from Team Cygnos:

The last couple of weeks have been very turbulent for all Xbox360 lovers. We have seen some very good developments towards homebrew and better linux. We had fought with delays caused by the manufacturing and sourcing process which we finally solved. Now, Cygnos360 V2 is on stock at several shops and on the way to others. Production is still slow but ramping up and we are shortening delivery times. We did however not spend the time waiting doing nothing. We have used the time to significantly improve the functionality and usability of Cygnos360 V2.

* Most interesting new features are:
-Integration of the JTAG hack into our firmware so that we can play the role of the microcontroller doing the JTAG inject. This is running and tested on xenon and falcon mainboards. The other versions will follow via software updates. No taking apart or re-wiring needed. (please note that we cannot (yet) read and program the 256 & 512 Mb jaspers, 16Mb Jaspers are fine)
-The Cygnos360 V2 USB board now has a vertical USB connector. That way it is much easier and cleaner to install in your Xbox360. -We have added the possibility to communicate from “Xell” to Cygnos360 V2, for example to switch kernel via software command. (hotswap)
-We have added the functionality to enable switching between kernels having different SMC versions. It is not necessary to unplug the console for kernel switching, which is the case on current homebrew nand switchers and XD card solutions.
-We have added a back-channel to the Cygnos360 V2 that enables developers to talk back from applications running on the 360 to Cygnos. This way it is possible for example to send data from within the 360 to the PC via Cygnos360 V2. (e.g. temperatures, CPU/DVD key, or other nice stuff)

* Firmware and Toolbox
A flaw in our firmware has been fixed that caused the JTAG hack to work only once every power cycle. The JTAG hack has so far been tested on Xenon and Falcon. Opus is very likely to work as well. We appreciate, if anyone could test this on a Zephyr. Please report any errors!
The new toolbox in conjunction with the firmware will display serial output from XeLL, Linux, etc. in the console window.

Output coming from the Xbox 360 is colored yellow in order to distinguish it from toolbox messages (green). Since XeLL outputs the fuse settings via serial port, there’s now a very convenient way to save these to a file.
Download the new firmware and toolbox from here

* XeLL
Since our microcontroller cannot handle serial communication at 115200 baud, we had to make a minor modification to XeLL. The modification will set the baud rate register of the Xbox 360 to 38400 baud, 8 data bits, no parity and one stop bit. This implies that you have to build a custom JTAG hack image for Cygnos360 V2 with our modified XeLL. You can download the XeLL binaries and sources from here.

* imgbuild
The free60 imgbuild tool does by default not generate a full image as required by our toolbox. We therefore modified the build script accordingly. You can download the whole package from here.
Building your own image under Windows requires the installation of a Python interpreter. The simplest way is to download and install the Cygwin base system along with the “python” and “python-crypto” packages from here [cygwin.com].
Our modified imgbuild tool does not require a full binutils/gcc toolchain to generate an image. We included a precompiled payload binary instead. The SMC config block is taken from a dump of your Xbox 360. A typical command to generate and image would look like this:
python build.py dump.bin CBxxxx.bin CDxxxx.bin xboxupd.bin smc_hacked.bin xell-1f.bin
CBxxxx.bin and CDxxxx.bin are console (Xenon, Zephyr, Falcon, Opus, Jasper) specific, as well as smc_hacked.bin. Please use the xell-1f.bin from our XeLL package.

* Manual
For all interested for more info, check out the installation manual it contains a lot of info:

http://www.cygnos360.com/Downloads/Cygnos360V2_InstallationManual_V1.01.pdf

Happy Hacking!
Team Cygnos

[VIA]

After the release of the hack for Xenon and Falcon motherboards, today we get the Free60 JTAG/SMC XeLL Hack for Zephyr (v2) motherboards!. This NAND image will boot your Zephyr Xbox360 right into XeLL (Allows you to launch Linux distros or run libxenon homebrew software).

Finally the Zephyr JTAG Hack is here
This is XELL (compiled 11.09.09) inserted into 4558 Zephyr-Kernel.
!Fixed Version! USB Support was broken

Don’t wonder about the Filesize, its correct like that. It just flashes the beginning of the NAND so your console specific data like MAC adress will stay.

Of course you should have a working backup of your NAND before you proceed.

Just flash with:
LPT
nandpro lpt: -w16 zephyr_hack_updxell.bin 0
USB
nandpro usb: -w16 zephyr_hack_updxell.bin 0

SMC-JTAG Hack Wiring
DB1F1 —|<|— J2D2.1
RFUnit 2nd row, 2nd Pin —|<|—- J2D2.2
J2D2.4 ——— J2D2.7

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

Features:
- Complete Modding Solution for Samsung/BenQ/Lite-On
- USB-Based Successor to 360 Modification Disc Project
- iXtreme v1.6 (12x) Firmware
- 0800 Mode for Samsung/BenQ/Lite-On (thanks to iXtreme v1.6)
- USB Flash/Thumb Drive Bootable!
- Supports Samsung TS-H943
- Supports BenQ VAD6038
- Supports Lite-On DG-16D2S
- Supports Previously Modded Drives
- Supports Previously Spoofed Drives
- 100% DOS Based Dumping & Flashing
- Fully Automatic Dumping & Flashing
- Step-by-Step Instructions
- Backup of all drive-related files to USB flash/thumb drive!

Changes in v1.6:
- 360 Modification Disc v1.6 discontinued in favor of USB-based version (this one)
- NTFS support dropped, backup files are now saved to USB flash/thumb drive
- NTFS-related freezing issues fixed (due to dropping of NTFS support)
- Many code fixes in regards to backup firmware files
- Bugs fixed in backup folder generation
- Overall speed/performance improved

[VIA]

A modder by the name of Bandit5317, has created the worlds smallest Xbox mod. He calls it the Xbox Micro, standing at 1 inch thick. The project took about 6 months, and the results were indeed impressive.

Basic information about this mod:
Dimensions: 23.5 x 21.65 x 2.5 cm
320 GB 2.5″ HDD
PW-200-V PSU
TSOP flashed with iND-BIOS
v1.4 motherboard

You can view the snapshots below, more pictures at the link:

[VIA Xbox-Scene Forums]

Felix Domke and Michael Steil at the Free60 Project have sent us the following email/notice today. They basically are sending a warning to Xbox 360 Hackers to not update their 360 (to the latest software version) as it blocks out the new homebrew hack they are planning to release. You can read the email below:

On Tuesday, Microsoft has released an Xbox 360 software update that overwrites the first stage bootloader 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 bootloader updates goes 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.

Team HyperX has released the newest IXtreme firmware for Liteon 83850c drives. If you still wish to keep your keys currently still only one method and that is the Foundmy/paid solution. Team HyperX is working on an alternative free solution for this. An important note for this release is that THX to not cross spoof between 7x and 8x LiteOn (rev1/rev2) drives! You can view the offical release statement below.

A new version of JungleFlasher to compliment the new firmware is due shortly.

[VIA Xbins]