Hotswapping your way to Xbox 360 backups ?

[Zeus]

JSR let us know that "On the french forum where was posted first the method for game dumping (by JSR and Gael360), some guy (Sliders58) tried to boot a backup with hotswap method (the original xbox360 dvd of a game and his backup) on xbox360 and it's apparantly working". The method is very difficult to do and we can not guarntee its validity by any means :-).

Here is what we got from a choppy French to English translation...


I makes my dump thanks to our friends gael360 and JSR that I remerci with the passage
to have divided technical leure (sa it is truth dump )
- I engrave the Iso thus obtained with nero while notching finalized Cd.
- during engraving, I open my console.
- I open my reader of the (il console is necessary gotten a small plate to you which maintenance Cd pendan the reading.
I will metrai you a photograph as well as video of my exploie lol if you it desiré).
- I demare with my original, then I swap with my backup attention the original and backup DOI being
the same title.

this technique as I said to you is not that summary mais I think that with small modif a harware
and of the firmware of the reader one will pourai arrived moreover concré something.
my goal is not the backup I will not matarderai on this point.

aujourdui my goal of is launched a executable not signed in the console.
I go dumper Cd of demo and has to modify the Iso for y meter there a executable
not signed the place of a executable of one of the demo of Cd has.
veiled!

PS: for those which finds that these test its useless, s' it like last your way to you, and vené
not to pourir topic thank you .


News Source: <A href="http://gueux-forum.net/index.php?showtopic=88355&st=0" target="_blank">gueux-forum.net</a> (All in French)

Thanks to JSR for the notification.

And remember please don't 'shoot' the messenger crew!

[tipsylenny]

Wow! I hardly understood how the stuff works but if this is true then i'm about to go get myself a 360........ yes! a store close to me still has some core 360s left :) :eek:

[kickinass]

very interesting, anyone here with a 360 that can confirm such an exploit?

[Entomber]

This is just the begining if this works.

[wiggim]

For some reason I don't think this would work all too great and with a few software patches it can be defeated my MS (Think swaploit on the original PSX). On the other hand if it works, expect someone to develop a chip that will bypass the DVD tray open/close and always make it look like its closed - and correct the TOC/bootloader sectors so one game will load all games.

The guy says right in there, it has to be the same game with the same title. so if you want to load your back of PGR3, you have to boot with PGR3 and swap it out for the backup - meaning the only protection on the games is during the boot process - no checks once they are loaded.

Did anyone try to piggyback the 360 yet with a standard DVD-ROM and a backup in that? used to do it in xboxes with bad drives that gave dirty disc errors a lot. Put the backup in the DVD-ROM and connect the data cable from the original DVD drive in the xbox to it. Put an original in the xbox dvd rom so the xbox sees there is a game in there. When it goes to load it will try to load off the DVD-ROM drive instead of the xbox dvd drive.

This hasn't been tested - but if you got a DVD9 of a game, a spare dvd drive and the right adapters give it a shot and see where it gets you. The DVD-ROM will not read originals, but maybe if you purchased a modded PC drive for the orignial xbox (samsung 616T) as the discs look to be the same structure, and the original xbox must read something besides the fake TOC on 360 games because it gives an error screen rather than trying to launch a movie.

[Vintage]

It does not work, that why he stops and does not press start to play the game, it read the disc and it cannot read it so it just stops.

[timekillr]

After having read the whole thread on gueux, it seems it does work, as people on there (including Gael30, who posted the dump method) are saying it does work, but only for the same game.

ie. you backup PGR3, you hotswap your ORIGINAL copy of PGR3 with your backup. Seems it only works with the same game.

Also another interesting thing is that he mentions if he boots the original, swaps with his backup, then goes back to the dashboard, he can still boot the backup: the 360 doesn't recheck signature validity if you do not eject the drive.

[Roamin]

Here is a more accurate translation of the text (although nothing differs if you were able to decode the terrible english translation done earlier!)

Well i dumped my game using gael360 and JSR's technique (which i thank for sharing their technique, that's a real dump :D)
I burned the obtained ISO with Nero , (finalizing CD)
Here's their original dumping method : http://gueux-forum.net/index.php?showtopic=85594
During the burn , i opened up my xbox360 [tutorial]: http://x360.gueux.be/modules/tutos/index.php?id=1
I opened the xbox 360's drive (once opened, you will need a plate to hold down the cd while it reads,I will post pictures and a video of my exploit (lol!) if you wish.)
I boot with the orignial, then i swap with my backup. NOTE: the original and the backup must be the same title!

well ,the technique , as i'm saying is only basic. But i think that with some hardware modification and modification to the dvd's firmware we could come up with something more concrete. My goal is not to run back-ups , so i won't spend time on this.

Today my goal is to run an unsigned executable in the console. I will dump a demo cd, and modify the iso and place an unsigned executable instead of the executable of a demo.

PS: For those who think these tests are useless , please walk by and don't stop and complain in this topic. Thanx

PS2: Here is the picture of the "plate" i mentionned earlier : http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/3315/dvdsuport2ld.jpg

[crono]

sounds good

Mebay need to swap forever to boot a game,but at least it will play backups.
now indeed a chip whitch mess around whit dvd dedection,and mebay a patcher for backupgames(for your original swap game)

[Vintage]

lets see if mircosoft put some protections on there games now then to prevent the swop trick.

[crono]

there enough games still to buy and you can use any game to boot now witch i think evryone that have a xbox have at least one game(or 5 like me)
Just a difrent patch for eatch game.but could get messy in future yea if the did something to the games to prefent swapping,if that is posible.

[wiggim]

someone boot a backup and try live.. :) I imagine you will see some sort of loader before long, this is how the PSX and DC came about. All someone has to do now is edit the game data so they can load unsigned code and that should work.. or lock the xbox into a safe.. either way I wonder if Live off the backup works.. When you power down it loses the TOC data from the disc, so when you power back up you get an error correct?

Hmm, 2.5 years of reasearch, and after 3 months someone can play (proof of concept) a game off a DVD-RW.

[shakoor_h]

:D lol. "engraving my iso". what are you using to engrave your iso, hammer and chisel :D :D .

This is kinda pointless isn't it (at the moment anyway) cos the whole point of a backup is so that you can keep the original safe, but this way if your original gets scratched you can't play your backup anyway.

[wiggim]

:D lol. "engraving my iso". what are you using to engrave your iso, hammer and chisel :D :D .

This is kinda pointless isn't it (at the moment anyway) cos the whole point of a backup is so that you can keep the original safe, but this way if your original gets scratched you can't play your backup anyway.

Actually you should be able to nibble most of the outside of the DVD away, as long as the TOC and bootsector/security checks of the game is in good shape it will load the backup.

[GameJerk]

Damn, looks like i'm gonna have to go out and buy another 360 soon. I want to have a virgin box for live, and one for backups. :) I thought I had at least a year before I had to get one.

[pcoltas]

so at the moment you have to dismantle 360 first to be able to swap discs or was the dismantling not actually necessary? Ive not seen the video (anyone got a link to it?) so I dont know

thanks

[crono]

Only for now,if there's a chip(witch is verry easy to make) to foul the sensor for the dvd detection you dont need to take the dvd-rom apart.

[Fasman]

Youll probebly find that if you play with the TOC youll get it to boot other games :P

[Vintage]

With the old neo 4 on my ps2, i need to have a game with a TOC bigger then i one i am playing, GTA 3 is massive and that boots all my games. I think it should be the same for this.

[crono]

swap magic have its own toc refresh system,but you need a real or somehow real made disc for that,or swap 2 times :-s(if you want it do to whit software)

[icalledit]

Put your money where your mouths are. I can't beleive if they were the first group of hackers to find the xbox360. the product that sold out all over the country why can't they take 30 minutes pick up a camera and show some proof? It sounds entirely fishy of you who said you have accomplished it.

PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTHS ARE AND BECOME KINGS!!!

Here's some important notes when showin it works and becoming uber 1337 around the scene.

Make sure your television and your Xbox360 are the only things next to each other. Clearly show that the xbox360 your using is hooked up directly to your tv and there is no second xbox360 that's actually running a commercial game or any other bullcrap. Show everybody as much as you can that this is legit. You want to make sure that you have a second man working the camera as you swap. If you make a mistake with the recording of the video make damn sure that people are gonna call it and call you fake and your 5 minutes of fame never will exist.

Also make sure that you upload it to http://www.putfile.com and encode your video in windows media player format or divx

GOOD LUCK AND GOD BLESS.

[crono]

I think i already said it,but it would be cool if you could swap it like sega saturn(not as psx) that way you could boot a backup whit its originel toc :-)

[Magiske]

The xbox360 only boots signed code. Included in the signatur is the media check.
The only thing you gain by swapping is to allow a dvd-r media to run. The "boot code/file" have allready been executed. Thats why you can run of a copied dvd. The only thing I can se you might gain by doing a swap is to patch/hack some of the unsigned datafiles on the dvd-r..
Trying to get it to run another dvd-r's executable will just start authentication and it will fail since the media check will tell it's not a dvdrom.


/M

[Brown2Hornet]

what about this -

say you've got a jap console

would it be possible to boot from a jap disc then swap to u.s. disc?

(as in the case of fifa, which the game is in japanese)

or vice versa?

just a thought...