Final Questions B4 I Take The Leap!!!

[gooty]

1) Xtreme bootmaker has made the bootable floppy using "xtrem42a.bin" and hopefully my correct SATA card details, and I can now boot from it using the PC (couldnt get USB device to boot as bios is too old).

Q1: how do u power the connectivity kit on/off when required?
Is it as basic as unplugging the molex from your pc that goes into the connectivity kit card (if so, why didnt they put a switch on it?)



2) instructions for flashing say...
a) Boot from your prepared drive.
b) attach and power on 360, plug in sata
c) run "mtkflash r /m orig.bin" to read the firmware.
d) choose the drive from the options listed, firmware will be backed up.

Q2: Is it safe just doing these first steps of copying the firmware? I cant brick the console at this stage?



Also.....

would i be right in thinking if I use the 3.3 firmware, it'll stop my m25 from becoming an m28? If so, what disadvantages are there between having 3.3 instead of 4.2 on my 360?

[danman]

With MS25 timing isn't an issue so leave it plugged in. If MS28 sure just unhook to molex.
The connectivity kit is generally for Hitachi not Samsung so I guess the On/OFF wasn't envisaged.

I doubt very much you can brick your drive during the read stage (unless you fug up or short your connectivity kit...... tip put something on the back of the kit covering the solder blobs on the board so it doesn't touch you case).

The V4.* revisions added the ability to speed/slow boot via inserting an original so *.*a revision = fast boot *.*b slow boot. As it is MS28 core as well it's presumed to be more robust in so far as MS couldn't overwrite it.

Be brave, if all goes well and the read part works O.K you're good to go. Take your time and i would whole heartedly sugest you read back your orig.bin and your combines new flash with a hex editor or firmware toolbox to verify the keys are the same before you re-flash your drive.

Other than that go for it......
By the way did the driver I uploaded work O.K or did you get there elsewhere?

[gooty]

cheers for reply.

the drivers loaded but i guess I wont know if they work yet.
funily enough, the pucker ones arrived in the post 2day. Would have liked the bonus USB2 to have worked on the card, but the drivers that came 2day were 98 ones.

interested in what u said "With MS25 timing isn't an issue so leave it plugged in". can u elaborate?

[mp3boy]

The ms28s need specific timing to get the flashing to work successfully. The ms25s work however quickly/slowly you run the flashing program.

Once you've got a working backup with the correct key, even if you trash the firmware it can still be restored.