Successful Home v3.2 soft-modded xbox Native G: install

AK 47 · Post by **AK 47** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 1:04 am

....Subject^

Post by **ShALLaX** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 12:41 am

Okay?

AK 47 · Post by **AK 47** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 3:02 pm

Sorry I wasn't more detailed there. But I just notice a lot of people wondering how to do a native G: drive install and/or if its possible to install it with a soft mod. I just wanted to open this thread for questions if someone need it. Also I might write a tutorial on installing it that way to help you guys out.

cory1492 · Post by **cory1492** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 9:13 pm

I would definitely be interested in doing a native install, but my disk (using default partitions) does not have any G drive.

I think it would be interesting to take the last 10gigs of the "f" partition (however big it may be) and make that the area for the reiserfs and swap as "G" - especially if removing the need for loopbacks makes the OS alot more speedy.l

Of course this would probably be tiresomely difficult (especially since I have no real clue how to go about doing this) for someone like me to do, but perhaps there is a somewhat simple way? Perhaps using your info on doing a native G drive install and some fiddling around with XBPartitioner could make this work?

Just a sec, I gotta refill my pipe with more dreams. LOL

EDIT: after doing a little more reading on the subject I see alot of restrictions are place on the xbox by the bios as to where the partitions reside, perhaps it would be in my best interests to leave this idea alone OR look into how the "G patched" bios does this...

v_lestat · Post by **v_lestat** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:15 am

even with a G patched bios gentoox dont even see your G drive.
why ? dont know but it cant see mine nor does it see the x y z drives.

AK 47 · Post by **AK 47** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:22 am

Ok here is the deal for creating a native G drive install.

First off you got to understand the concept that each partition is split by a set number of blocks. Those partition have to be either completely cleared or not touched for them to work. If you do tamper with it by changing the block size on a partition through fdisk, which is the program used in gentoox for formating, you have a chance of deleting the partition table.

Now to create a partition by removing the G: drive you do this. Boot from the gentoox CD. Note you have to do this either SSH or a keyboard and mouse on the xbox, not the xbox controller. The when it loads hit CTRL + C. The type in VI /etc/gentooxinstaller in on the terminal. Scroll down until you see this.

FDISKSWAP=/tmp/fdisk.swap
FDISKROOT=/tmp/fdisk.root
DEVICE="/dev/hda"
#START=15657985

###
# Start block for the end of the standard 8GB hdd
###
START=15657985
SWAPSIZE="+256M"

Change START=15657985 to START=26843545. This is where it will look for the beginning (start) to the rest of the drive to create the partition, knowing that it is already zeroed out. All I did is change START= from F: drive to G:

Next go to this line.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda seek=15633072 bs=512 count=1 > /dev/null 2>&1 fdisk $DEVICE < /tmp/make.fdisk > /dev/null 2>&1

Change seek=15633072 to seek=26843545. This line tells that it will remove all data from the seek number, which was the F: drive now G:, to the end of the drive. If you do not change the seek your F: will be formated though the partition will still be able to be reformatted through 3rd party xbox programs to fatx, but the G: drive will be formated to Native linux still.

Finally run run sh /etc/gentooxinstaller, do not restart, since its on a cd it will not save previous configuration and will formate F: next run through. After that I don't need to explain more because you will be running the normal tutorial from there.

Hope this helps you all
a.k.,

Post by **ShALLaX** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 2:27 am

You dont need to do any of this anymore. Instead, install to E:, then load up Resctoox. Run "pico /bin/native" then search for "Start="... there is a little paragraph explaining what to do. After you have done what it says, save the file, then run "sh /bin/native" and it should do it all for you. You may actually need to change the seek in the "dd" line as stated in the above post --- I think I overlooked that one!

To the guy talking about partitioning F... totally impossible - how would the Xbox know where to stop writing? It wouldnt... it would just overwrite linux when F: became full.

cory1492 · Post by **cory1492** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 3:00 am

Oy, I dont want to "partition" f, I want to make F smaller and add in a G drive. It makes sense to me because the bios addresses the partitions by blocks, so if the block count were customized so the xbox knows there is a G drive (including where it starts, which would be just after the end of the F drive), why couldnt it be customized to see the F drive as smaller and the G drive as whatever is left? And then use that block address in the above to make a G Native partition that was by default part of the origional setup for the "f" drive.

Of course, perhape the F drive is "whatever is left until 137GB"
and the E drive is "whatever is available after the stock E drive up to 137GB"
That being the case then the hardware is being "fooled" into knowing where the partitions live...

edit: Shallax is it possible to use the above info to have a second drive connected to the xbox (say perhaps a 10gig one) on a switch so that I can use/switch off to the entire stock drive as a native install?(I know the switch works already) Seems like that may be the way to go over seeking some form of software trick to mess with the partition tables

AK 47 · Post by **AK 47** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 2:42 pm

All I can say to anwser your question is this, http://www.xbox-scene.com/software/soft ... pABMLqjgHc
If you can manage to find a way to shrink the size of your F: partition through this program, then you can use the G: drive method and just change the number to where your new F: drive ends (remember to convert HEX to DEC for the new number to put in your script)

And if you have modchip you can use the whole hard drive for gentoox, just load the Xormwell onto the chip and boot from that.

cory1492 · Post by **cory1492** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 12:13 pm

Thanks AK

dikdust · Post by **dikdust** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 1:26 pm

Uhm Now that I have g: native with gentoox (about 25Gb) I can't mount no more f: partition. Is there a way to do it ?

AK 47 · Post by **AK 47** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 2:45 pm

Edit /ect/fstab

stvmac11 · Post by **stvmac11** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:59 am

So where do you find /ect/gentooxinstaller or /bin/native used with resctoox

dikdust · Post by **dikdust** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 9:37 am

AK 47 wrote:Edit /ect/fstab

Xbox temp # df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda2 25G 5.5G 19G 23% /
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2
25G 5.5G 19G 23% /
/dev/hda50 4.8G 426M 4.4G 9% /mnt/fatx/e
/dev/hda50 4.8G 426M 4.4G 9% /mnt/fatx/temp/hda50
/dev/hda51 500M 162M 339M 33% /mnt/fatx/temp/hda51
/dev/hda52 750M 0 750M 0% /mnt/fatx/temp/hda52
/dev/hda53 750M 0 750M 0% /mnt/fatx/temp/hda53
/dev/hda54 750M 832K 750M 1% /mnt/fatx/temp/hda54
/dev/hda56 25G 18G 7.6G 70% /mnt/fatx/temp/hda56
/dev/hda2 25G 5.5G 19G 23% /mnt/fatx/temp/hda2

I think I have mounted everything (excluding swapspace and dvd-rom)
From avalaunch f: (about 137Gb) is correctly accessible and with correct data .. Another point is that in hda56 I have strange data that don't mean nothing to me

Xbox hda56 #ls -l
[..]
ls: : No such file or directory
ls: : No such file or directory
ls: ook-bold-i-normal--18-180-75-75-p-111-iso8859-9: No such file or directory
ls: century schoolbook-bold-i-normal--18-180-75-75-p-111-iso10646-1: No such file or directory
total 0
[..]

stvmac11 wrote:So where do you find /ect/gentooxinstaller or /bin/native used with resctoox

I haven't modified /etc/gentooxinstaller only /bin/native of resctoox 1.4 like explained above

stvmac11 · Post by **stvmac11** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 10:42 pm

I tried it and when when I type "pico /bin/native" it says that pico isn't a command, I can't modify the file to do native install on G?