Introduction

Top TWO things to back up

Hard drive key

Especially users of soft-mods. If worse comes to worst, having this information may be necessary prevent the need to purchase something (either a mod chip or a hard drive with the Xbox operating system, not sold separately from an Xbox) in order to fix whatever problem went from worse to worst.

EEPROM

Especially needed by anybody who flashes a BIOS (writes to the TSOP), for reasons that anyone planning to flash a BIOS should probbaly become familiar with before performing such an action.

Definitely back up these two important things which I do believe are unique to each Xbox and therefore absolutely can NOT be obtained elsewhere on the Internet.

Don't be cocky and consider backups unimportant. Some of this is small and easy to back-up.

Backing Up is very important on the Xbox

When hacking an Xbox, mistakes are easy to make. Many people have managed to repair their Xbox using techniques that were only as quick, and in some cases as cheap and as possible, as they did only because they backed up information from their Xbox.

This belief is widely held by the experts, both those who have had troubles and the others who have simply heard time and time again of those who have had troubles. For example, the first two things listed on BenJeremy's Things You Must Know About The Xbox has to do with... backing up! I often do not back up data on my computer, but after seeing enough horror stories I was compelled to back up as soon as I could.

"

• The first thing you should do, after modding an Xbox, is BACK UP THE HARD DRIVE!!!
  
  
• The next thing you should do is BACK UP THE EEPROM!!!
  
  "

Backing up is a process. On an unmodded Xbox and using official Microsoft-endorsed equipment, the only thing that can be backed up are saved games of games that do not place restrictions against copying in the saved data. After some hacking, access will be gained to other very important things (like the hard drive key) that should be backed up, and some data which isn't as important to have a backup of (like partition size information). Because backing up can be done in stages, there are multiple times when backing up is recommended.

This page lists the things which are good to back up, listed roughly in the order that things can be backed up, and this page also describes why the data is useful so that a reader can understand the usefulness and/or importance of backing up the data sooner rather than later.

When hacking an Xbox, especially when soft-modding an Xbox, it is easy to make a mistake. I myself, in messing with some hacks, have many times made my Xbox unable to run unsigned code. I have made a couple of other people's Xboxes unable to boot the dashboard. Fortunately I advised them of the risk involved and they told me to proceed, and even more fortunately I was able to repair the problem.

What to back up

Some of this may depend a bit on:

Ease

Some stuff is smaller, and therefore easier, to back up. Fortunately this includes some of the most critical things to back up, such as the Hard Drive Key, the EEPROM, and the less important sound track index which may have taken some time to make.

Time

Are you in a hurry to complete the project of soft modding at somebody else's house?

Ability

Backing up the partition images may require quite a bit of knowhow.

Uniqueness/Value of data

Saved games that took a long time to make are likely more highly valued than saved games or a sound track index where there was not a bunch of time making it.

On my Xbox, I backed up everything. On other people's Xboxes, I may E-Mail them the hard drive key, and instruct them to grab the EEPROM when they are at home, but I let them back up the rest once they get home. I do act carefully to not destroy other people's data, but I'm not that concerned over someone else's saved game to be downloading all their saved games to my computer and offering to transfer them over the Internet to their computer. They are welcome to just transfer it to their computer once they get home.

Here is a general list of things that should/could be backed up, listed roughly in the order that a person can back these things up as they go through the soft-modding process.

• User Data
  • Saved Games
    • (these can be backed up using Microsoft-approved methods, unless the game developer has placed restrictions on saved game copying)
    • Copy any saved game before adding a hacked saved game which may be incompatible with a legitimate saved game. For example, a calculation can show there is a 1 in 281,474,976,710,656 chance (that's 281 trillion) that a hacked saved game would overwrite an already-existing saved game, although since the hard drive location isn't likely determined by pure randomness the odds specified may be inaccurate (it could be more likely, or for some hacked saved games this issue might be an impossibility).
    • Backing up a specific saved game may be in some ways easier/nicer to do after UnleashX can be run, as newer UnleashX versions have a saved game manager which shows a game's icon, title, and what directory on the hard drive the data is in. Therefore, the adventurous and daring may want to wait until they run UnleashX before backing these up.
  • Sound track index
    • Located at: F:\TDATA\fffe0000\music\ST.DB
    • Apparently there is not currently a way to re-build this short of re-copying all the songs using Microsoft's official dashboard, although a sound-track index rebuilding tool (direct download link) may be able to do everything except the soundtrack names?
    • If one installs the stable audio hack, the original sound track index would be overwritten, and so it's good to back this up first.
  • Sound tracks
    • I have to imagine these can be backed up, although I'm not sure how easy it is to restore sound tracks. I think it can be done though, as I believe the sound tracks are WMV files, and also this sound-track index rebuilding tool may help.
• Title Data
  • Not nearly as important as later items like the hard drive key, but this is something that you can download before using unsigned code to write anything to the hard drive. The super cautious among us will want to grab this, and every other file on the Xbox hard drive, as soon as possible. Unlike some other files, this stands a chance of being somewhat customized to an Xbox.
  • DOA3 Costumes
  • I suspect that downloadable content from the "Xbox Live!" service, such as the Ninja Gaiden Hurricane Pack vol 1, would be Title Data.
    • Suspected to be title data: Ninja Gaiden Hurricane Pack vol 1
    • Suspected to be title data: downloaded MechAssault maps and mechs
• Hard Drive Key
  • Depending on what software you use to obtain this, obtaining the hard drive key may require having the key be written as a file to the hard drive, as is done by Evolution-X RemoteX, or this may be displayed on the screen so that one can just read and copy the information down, as is done in UnleashX.
• EEPROM
  • Evolution-X RemoteX can save this to the hard drive.
  • I believe this can be obtained by the dangerously-powerful Config Magic FINAL program but I haven't, as of this writing, used that program yet.
• Other (useless) hard drive contents

  • Actually, the content most liable to be erased is content stored on the X:, Y:, and Z: drives, and so those should be backed up as a top priority if there is anything desired from there. However, it is highly unlikely that those drives will actually have anything needed. Games generally store data on these drives for speed purposes, and the data on the drive may also be stored on the game's disc or may be something the game can spend some time recalculating in order to re-create from scratch. It seems any game is allowed to use any and all of the space on those hard drives, and as such any game is allowed to delete any of the data on those drives. Knowing that an Xbox could be turned off at any time and another game inserted, and that the other game may delete all of the data, no sensible Xbox game programmer would store any valued data on those drives. Accessing this data is how some hackers started creating map editors for Halo. People have edited Halo maps by modifying the files on these drives, but an Xbox which hasn't previously been hacked is not likely to have any valued data on these drives.

    If there are some Halo maps created by hackin' hard drive cache partition data files or any other unique, desired information on those drives, such files should be among the first things to be saved because it is the data most likely to be erased on any Xbox which is used for gaming (which would be most Xboxes).

  • C:
    • The contents of the C: include Microsoft's official dashboard, and may have some "Xbox Live!" files (considered a part of newer dashboard releases). I suspect that some of the trimmed-down version of Windows 2000 which is the Xbox's operating system may be stored on the hard drive, and if so it is likely/certainly on the C:.
  • Other data on a hard drive
    • Not likely to exist on an unhacked Xbox, but if the Xbox was hacked before then there may be programs and other such files, particularily in the root drive of C:\ (C:\EvoxDash.XBE and related support files), in the locations where hacks put things (perhaps c:\f0nts (with a zero in the directory name) to back up things for c:\fonts where UDE2 needs files at), any location on E: other than E:\UDATA\ and E:\TDATA\, and any partition beyond E: which isn't X:, Y:, or Z:.
• Entire hard drive image
  • Storing the entire hard drive's raw contents, including the partition structures and all data on a partition, including the file system structures on each partition, is the most one can really back up on a hard drive. Linux users can do this with a command called "dd", and I'm not so sure how to restore using this data. For ease of use later if this stuff is needed, be sure to store the hard drive key and EEPROM keys somewhere other than just in a partition image. No, I do not know offhand an easy way to do this. I did this with my hard drive using a friend's help to use the Linux dd command, and I do believe the backup worked, although restoring would be a bit dangerous and risky. Since restoring has so far been unnecessary on my Xbox, haven't really tested the backup.
  • It is my understanding that unused space on the Xbox hard drive, or at very least the space on the C: and E: partitions on a brand new Xbox hard drive with no user-saved data on it, contains non-repeating and quite possibly random data, and therefore does not compress well.

• Important Things
• EEPROM
• HDD Key
• Data on the hard drive that you created, that you care about not losing
  • Saved Games
  • Sound Tracks
  • Any other data you know you put on an Xbox (such as any downloaded content, extra costumers for Dead Or Alive 3 characters, etc.)

• Data on a memory unit that you created, that you care about not losing.

  This should be easily doable later, even if you misconfigure your Xbox's hard drive so the Xbox won't start and end up buying a new Xbox to replace the one carelessly broken.

• Less critical things

  Rather unimportant things that it would always be nice to have a backup copy of, but they may be more time consuming so these things would be a lesser priority)

• All data on C:

  (In case you accidentally update your dashboard, and want a way to downgrade it to the way it was when you installed your system)

• Any other data on E:

  Namely this will grab the following things (that aren't cared so much about, because any of these which are cared about should have been backed up earlier)

  • Saved games
  • Sound tracks
  • Any other data you know you put on an Xbox (such as any downloaded content, extra costumers for Dead Or Alive 3 characters, etc.)
  • Homebrew applications

  • Anything desired on any non-cache hard drives not already mentioned.

    Drive C: holds the Microsoft Operating System, and is best left rarely-modified. Drive E: holds user data, such as saved games. Earlier directions suggested modifying things. Drives X:, Y:, and Z: hold temporary information, and anything placed there by a game should be able to be deleted without concern (any Xbox game, it seems, has the right to delete X:, Y:, and Z: at any time). Xboxes do not come with any other paritions (a.k.a. drive letters) on the hard drive, but if you used homebrew software earlier and made an F: or a G:, you may want to back up its contents now.

  • Very unimportant things

    Things which you'll probably never need, and it may be more difficult to obtain this data and also difficult to use this data to restore anything (you can't obtain or effectively use this data over an FTP server)

  • File structure (i.e. partition image)
  • Partitions and partition structure (i.e. hard drive image)