Xbox 360 Exploit

**danhans115** · 08-17-2009

I dont know how many of our members find this interesting - but its something Ive been wating for since the console was released.

A week ago two people who are at the forefront of getting a linux distro running on the 360 stated that a hack was soon to be released and that the latest 'Summer 09' xbox 360 update will alter the bootloader in the console and block this hack. See below

Xbox-Scene News: Free60: Dangerous Xbox360 Update Killing to-be released Homebrew Hack

Then on saturday some partial details have been released regarding getting unsigned code running on the 360.

Xbox-Scene News: Tmbinc releases imgbuild for Homebrew JTAG hack

Technical details are here SourceForge.net Repository - [free60] View of /imgbuild/hack.txt

This doesnt aid piracy on the console, as the drive flashes have been going for years - it means that things like homebrew games, emulators, media players, linux etc can be allowed to run - but unlike the PS3 linux feature, it will allow access to all three cores of the processor and the all 360's RAM - as well as accelerated graphics

Anyone who is familar with the old xbox, it had a great homebrew following - as well as the fantastic xbox media centre which turned the console into a great media player.

More news regarding the needed equipment is coming in dribs and drabs - but Il will be trying it so ill get some pics up as it progresses.

Dan

**danhans115** · 08-17-2009

Here we have snes9x running on the 360. This is not under linux but straight on the hardware..

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBDYbRxYax4"]YouTube - Snes9x 360[/ame]

**scottie2065** · 08-17-2009

i didnt think homebrew was possible on 360, i had an old xbox crystal, i put a Xenium ICE chip in it and 100gb HDD, it was the shiznit at the time. but XBOX games cannot be copied? is there not a special code unique to each disc?

**danhans115** · 08-17-2009

Homebrew has been sort of possible for a few years with a very old version of the dashboard on the original 360's. Most never survived the RRoD and those that were repaired were updated by MS. It used a bug in the King Kong game to boot linux. But this hack did not work on any consoles but the original, non-HDMI xenon consoles.

Every 360 game has a sector at the start of the disc, which is in an area of the disc DVD writers cannot address or write to. The modified DVD firmware relocates this sector to the end of the disc and loads it from there. DVD writers can write it then - thats what all these extreme firmwares do. That swhy you often see the SS.bin files etc - its a form of hashing. This has been going on since mid 2006.

The only way you can copy an original 360 game is by using either an orignal xbox360 DVD and some software or certain models of samsung DVD's can be flashed with a custom firmware which allows it.

But homebrew is much more interesting.

I still have my old v1.4 xbox with a SmartXX modchip, 200gb HDD and LCD screen, its an excellent media player.

The holes in the original xbox meant that microsoft tried to make sure they got it right this time - and they did a pretty good job so far.

**danhans115** · 12-01-2009

Oh yes,, its just like the good old days. Someone has come up with a patched kernel so you can run unsigned code, use any hard disk and much more..

You can run homebrew XEX's on the dashboard just like the devkits and also dual boot into xell so you can run linux. You will be able to run your games striaght off the hard disk, none of this patching and getting SS / DMI patches and all that.

See here :- Xbox-Scene News: XBReboot v0.05 - OnBoard NAND XDK Homebrew Solution

No modchip required, couple of wires, an old PC with a paralell port and a bit of patience is all thats required.

Hurrah! Might actually be able to do something useful on this. I hope the Linux guys get some accelerated video drivers on the go so I can run xbmc on it.

Just like the good old days