Xbox repair via mod chip

[DrNick]

Recently I bought a copy of GTA: San Andreas for the xbox only to have my xbox harddrive die on me 2 days later. I've discovered that I will need to chip my xbox in order to replace the drive due to coding on the motherboard and original drive.

I was wondering if anyone on the forums knows someone who has purchased an xbox mod chip recently and where they ordered it from so I might do the same. I'm also unsure as to the legality of such a purchase due to a ruling in July of last year pertaining to a case of a man selling PS2 mod chips in the UK.

[roadrunner_0]

don't ask me how the hell they got it made illegal, but it is indeed illegal to own a chipped machine now, so get it repaired properly

[skiddy]

Because for the chip to work, the original code within the xbox had to be reverse engineered, thus making the chip itself a breach of copyright - owning the chip is the offence, not the chipped box itself. Take the chip out, destroy it and you are no longer breaking the law. xBox doesn't work though...

[cubass2]

I installed one of these about a year ago now along with a 120gb hard disk.

http://www.kanection.co.uk/product.php/261/27/

Just in case you don't know, once chipped you'll be able to play backup games from DVD (dependent on how fussy your DVD drive is), stream all manner of audio and video including shoutcast streams, divx/xvid/ogg/mkv/swf/mov/mpeg/whatever across a network negating the neeed to actually burn anything you download before watching it on your TV or even upload ISO's of your backed up games directly to the hard disk on your xbox via FTP.

There are many guides available to mod chipping your xbox and depending on which model you have it should be a fairly simple process thanks to solderless adaptors and such. I should mention that the process can seem a little daunting at first if you've had no experiece flashing BIOS, burning ISO9660 compliant DVD/CDRW and using FTP.

Here's a complete installation guide for chip only as an overview of the process

http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/x...eader-evox.php

If you're going to have a go at it you'll need to bookmark http://www.xbox-scene.com/tutorials.php?p=#0 and do plenty of reading before you start. It's really not that difficult if you've got a small amount of patience and half a brain (I did mine).

By no means should you take this as an advert to buy and install the chip I linked to above, there are loads of new chips out currently and you've a lot of reading ahead of you to decide which chip to stick in it (if you're going to do it yourself).

Oh and as has been mentioned, don't actually do any of the above because since Oct 2003 it's been illegal to circumvent protection systems thanks to the UK enacting the European copyright directive and if you get caught you'll be thrown in the jail.

Then again you could maybe take it to the computer fair at Bowlers in Manchester on a Saturday or one of the countless other places that mod for a fee and are stupid enough to take all the risk so you don't have to.

[roadrunner_0]

Originally Posted by skiddy

Because for the chip to work, the original code within the xbox had to be reverse engineered, thus making the chip itself a breach of copyright - owning the chip is the offence, not the chipped box itself. Take the chip out, destroy it and you are no longer breaking the law. xBox doesn't work though...

it doesn't just apply to xbox's though, you aren't allowed to chip ps2's either

[djbass]

Originally Posted by cubass2

I installed one of these about a year ago now along with a 120gb hard disk.

http://www.kanection.co.uk/product.php/261/27/

Just in case you don't know, once chipped you'll be able to play backup games from DVD (dependent on how fussy your DVD drive is), stream all manner of audio and video including shoutcast streams, divx/xvid/ogg/mkv/swf/mov/mpeg/whatever across a network negating the neeed to actually burn anything you download before watching it on your TV or even upload ISO's of your backed up games directly to the hard disk on your xbox via FTP.

There are many guides available to mod chipping your xbox and depending on which model you have it should be a fairly simple process thanks to solderless adaptors and such. I should mention that the process can seem a little daunting at first if you've had no experiece flashing BIOS, burning ISO9660 compliant DVD/CDRW and using FTP.

Here's a complete installation guide for chip only as an overview of the process

http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/x...eader-evox.php

If you're going to have a go at it you'll need to bookmark http://www.xbox-scene.com/tutorials.php?p=#0 and do plenty of reading before you start. It's really not that difficult if you've got a small amount of patience and half a brain (I did mine).

By no means should you take this as an advert to buy and install the chip I linked to above, there are loads of new chips out currently and you've a lot of reading ahead of you to decide which chip to stick in it (if you're going to do it yourself).

Oh and as has been mentioned, don't actually do any of the above because since Oct 2003 it's been illegal to circumvent protection systems thanks to the UK enacting the European copyright directive and if you get caught you'll be thrown in the jail.

Then again you could maybe take it to the computer fair at Bowlers in Manchester on a Saturday or one of the countless other places that mod for a fee and are stupid enough to take all the risk so you don't have to.

please oh please tell me you did not put a piece of shit xenium in your box, if your going to do it at least go the x3, hell if you really can't afford the coin for one just get anything other than the xenium.

but yes, it is relatively simple and with the solderless adaptors for most chips these days it just got simpler.

http://www.baldbouncer.co.uk/

also the reason you can not replace the drive is because it is locked to your xbox, and the official microsoft one wont operate unmodified with an unlocked one. If you were really worried about the whole legality issue you could maybe find someone with the expertise to install a new drive into your box and lock it so you can operate with the new drive minus the need for a chip.

Originally Posted by skiddy

Because for the chip to work, the original code within the xbox had to be reverse engineered, thus making the chip itself a breach of copyright - owning the chip is the offence, not the chipped box itself. Take the chip out, destroy it and you are no longer breaking the law. xBox doesn't work though...

that doesn't make sense. it's not illegal to reverse engineer something, nor is it illegal to use this knowledge gained to build another product, only if they've ripped the technology directly is it illegal. in addition to this, the mod chips themselves do not by design cirumvent any copy protection nor use copyrighted technology in their design. The ones shipped by vendors (reputable ones anyway) come with a linux based bios/firmware that contains no copyrighted code, nor do they cirumvent the copy protections, so therefore can't be considered illegal. It only becomes a legality issue once you load onto that chip a different bios/firmware that does use parts of the coprighted code and do infact circumvent the copy protections.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by djbass

that doesn't make sense. it's not illegal to reverse engineer something, nor is it illegal to use this knowledge gained to build another product, only if they've ripped the technology directly is it illegal.

As I understand it, regardless of what type of chip you're using (even if it's one you invented yourself without ever looking at an XBOX) it's now illegal to sell or market it (or install it in your own XBOX for that matter) in the UK - if said chip allows you bypass other copyright restrictions.

As the BBC Article quoted earlier said, this has been rejected by judges in Italy and Spain but upheld here.

[G.K Zhukov]

I find it very immoral that people use such chips. Microsoft is a poor company, struggling to make profit. Bill Gates is living in a small one room flat with his whole familiy. Steve Balmer have problems paying of his car loan.

Every time you install a chip, a Microsoft employee and his/her family has to go to bed hungry!

[cubass2]

Originally Posted by djbass

please oh please tell me you did not put a piece of shit xenium in your box, if your going to do it at least go the x3, hell if you really can't afford the coin for one just get anything other than the xenium.

What's the big deal? The x3 wasn't even being manufactured as far as I'm aware when I bought mine. If it was painless to install, only cost me a few quid and does everything I expected it to how is it a bad choice of chip?

[djbass]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

As I understand it, regardless of what type of chip you're using (even if it's one you invented yourself without ever looking at an XBOX) it's now illegal to sell or market it (or install it in your own XBOX for that matter) in the UK - if said chip allows you bypass other copyright restrictions.

of course, read what I said in the other half of that paragraph, if the chip bypasses copy protection code, then it's illegal because it infringes on the copyright, but the chips in their default configuration don't bypass this and therefore don't fall into this catergory.

So installing a chip to repair a broken xbox, as long as it's run with a third party bios that does not contain copyrighted code and does not bypass copy protection it's not illegal. This aside he doesn't even have to use the third party bios or chip anyway after he's replaced the drive. He only needs it initally to format & partition the new drive, then lock it. After that he can happily run the original bios only or even remove the chip altogether and his box will run fine, so the mod chip essentially in this context is only being used as a diagnostic/repair tool as any technician might use some other piece of hardware to repair a PC.

[1-X]

I wonder where the law stands on my PS2 (not on the open disc tray I hope )

It isn't chipped. It's never been opened. The warranty seals are all in place. There's a hard drive in it, attached to the official sony hd/network adapter. The program to run games from the hard drive is in a little boot file on the memory card. If it ever breaks, I can just remove the HD and memory card and to the repair shop, it's just a normal PS2.

[djbass]

Originally Posted by cubass2

What's the big deal? The x3 wasn't even being manufactured as far as I'm aware when I bought mine. If it was painless to install, only cost me a few quid and does everything I expected it to how is it a bad choice of chip?

the manufacturers are arseholes, and don't deserve a penny of your coin.

[djbass]

Originally Posted by 1-X

I wonder where the law stands on my PS2 (not on the open disc tray I hope )

It isn't chipped. It's never been opened. The warranty seals are all in place. There's a hard drive in it, attached to the official sony hd/network adapter. The program to run games from the hard drive is in a little boot file on the memory card. If it ever breaks, I can just remove the HD and memory card and to the repair shop, it's just a normal PS2.

It depends on how the software works, and whether it circumvents and copyrighted code to make the hdloader run/operate.

Running the games from HDD is not illegal if you own original copies, how you have implemented the technology and whether it's been in the form of a software or hardware modification temporary or permanent is irrelevant.

There are ways simularly of implementing a softmod to the xbox to run code without making a single change to the hardware or affecting warranty, but it's just more of a pain in the arse. It also depends on what you wish to get out of it. I chipped my box mainly so I could run unsigned code (homebrew apps), not so I could play games illegally.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by djbass

of course, read what I said in the other half of that paragraph, if the chip bypasses copy protection code, then it's illegal because it infringes on the copyright, but the chips in their default configuration don't bypass this and therefore don't fall into this catergory.

Again, I am no lawyer but it seems the law (certainly in the United States and perhaps the EU too) is going in the direction that if it a chip _allows_ in the broadest possible sense copyright bypass then they will fall victim. It's kind of the P2P debate : It's silly to say that Kazzaa "allows" copyright infringement (unless we're going to say newsreaders or FTP clients allow the same) but if there is even a whiff of marketing in that direction they're in trouble (again, according to recent coverage of court cases).

I agree with your discussion on fair use, but it seems that even that is under attack by changes in the law. In the past the basic rule was : You have permission to make backups (of any kind) of software (etc) you have legally purchased. This was counted as fair use. However, the supplier had the right to make this difficult (Macrovision, CD protection, etc). So it was kind of a constant struggle. The new laws seem to make it illegal to bypass copyright protections even if it is only to exercise fair use rights. The DMCA certainly seems to indicate this.

edit : http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/28/005233 and stories similar to this seem to indicate that "hacking" is on shaky legal ground in general.

[1-X]

Originally Posted by djbass

It depends on how the software works, and whether it circumvents and copyrighted code to make the hdloader run/operate.

There is a flaw in the PS1 compatibility driver. When the PS2 tries to boot a PS1 game, it checks the memory card for a file with the same ID as the disk. We put a file there with a matching ID that boots the hard drive menu. It's an original sony disk that triggers this, a sony memory card, a sony network adapter... no 3rd party electronics.

Originally Posted by djbass

Running the games from HDD is not illegal if you own original copies

That was the original intention, and the first thing I did. However the temptation of advance release dates for other regions and plain old human nature means mr.internet and his friend mr.torrent have become the supplier of choice. I delete most of the stuff I put on it illegally, not because of some moral code but because most games really are crap.