What to write to an Xbox hard drive

You'll want to write whatever is useful. There are different pieces of software linked to on various pages of the site. Just when I thought I had made the most useful package of software to put on a memory unit, complete with simple installation of the preferred-by-myself hacks by using Evolution-X copy scripts, changes were made to the Xbox which altered the usefulness of my package. So I never released it. Any not-updated list of what software is good to write to an Xbox is subject to becoming out of date.

Some ideas are included below.

Saved games

Simple rule for success: Copy the folders with eight hexadecimal filenames to the top of a memory unit or to U: or E:\UDATA\. Do not copy them to a UDATA\ directory under a memory unit. The rest of this section is likely excess information.

Structure

A very sensible first thing for soft modders to do is to prepare a hacked saved game designed to exploit a commercial game's handling of user saved game data. Users of mod-chips may find this less critical and want to move onto a later section. (I would suggest writing a hacked saved game or three at a later time.)

First, ye'll need to download the saved game package and extract the archive with sub-folders being kept in tact. This may create some files such as:

gameid.ini
A completely unnecessary file, as far as files-on-an-Xbox are concerned. I'm thinking this may be related to using a MegaXKey.
readme.txt, evox.ini, RAMDISK, and other files which might or might not be found in sub-directories.
These may or may not be required. For example, readme.txt contains information, but in most if not all cases, it is not needed for the bundled program to run. evox.ini has useful configuration data for Evolution-X RemoteX. RAMDISK is a file which is required by the Linux-loading DEFAULT.XBE found in a package designed to load Linux. For such files, you may be able to get away with not copying them to the Xbox.
Files read by the Microsoft dashboard
Files include:
TitleImage.xbx
Icon file, stored in a directory of eight hexadecimal digits. Identifies a game.
TitleImage.xbx
A graphic representing a game that has some saved data. Stored in a directory of eight hexadecimal digits.
TitleMeta.xbx
Title of the game which uses the saved game. Stored in a directory of eight hexadecimal digits.
SaveImage.xbx
Icon of an individual saved game. This can be stored in a directory of twelve hexidecimal digits that itself is stored under a directory that is eight hexadecimal digits. This will allow each individual save to have its own icon (possibly a screenshot related to the saved game). Another option is to have this file stored in a directory of eight hexademical digits, in which case the icon will be used for all the game saves stored in twelve hexademical sub-directories that are stored under the eight hexadecimal digit directory and which do not also have a file called SaveImage.xbx.
SaveMeta.xbx
Title of the saved game. Stored in a directory of twelve hexadecimal digits.
xbsavegame.dat
Unknown. It seems that copying this from the 007 AUF hacked saved game works universally.
(unknown)
Prevents the dashboard from copying the file. (I'm not sure if this is a standard file.) DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball uses this.
Other files

The actual data meant to be used by the commercial game will be in some files that go in a directory of twelve hexadecimal digits which is stored under a directory of eight hexadecimal digits which is stored in the top folder of a memory unit or the top folder of the logical user data drive (U:) which is the same thing as E:\UDATA\.

These files can pretty much be anything. No real restrictions. The Xbox will copy any files and subdirectories that are in the folder which is made up of twelve hexidecimal digits and stored in the other folder made up of eight hexidecimal digits.

Where the files go

The saved data is stored in a folder with twelve hexadecimal digits (like 62D648EBF155), which typically is recognized by the commercial game as being one single, separate saved game. This folder with twelve hexademical digits gets copied to a folder if eight hexadecimal digits (like 4d530017). This folder of eight digits corresponds to a game's hex ID, and so identifies a particular game.

All files, except for the very few specific ones that the dashboard looks for, need to be two subdirectories deep in order for Microsoft's official dashboard to copy. So if you have a file like H:\4d530017\62D648EBF155\MASave.sav then the Xbox will copy that. However if you have a file like H:\4d530017\GreatApp.XBE than that won't be copied.

Files on a memory unit should be stored in a location like "H:\4d530017\62D648EBF155\Default.XBE". Microsoft's official dashboard can then copy such a file to the U:, so the file becomes "U:\4d530017\62D648EBF155\Default.XBE". However, many programs only use the drive letters of common hard drive physical partitions, and possibly memory units, and will not recognize some of the drive letters like "U:" which are just simply less commonly used in the Xbox hacking world.

This doesn't cause too much problems because "U:\" basically acts like a pointer to "E:\UDATA\". So, when copying "H:\4d530017\62D648EBF155\Default.XBE" to the hard drive the data is also getting stored at "E:\UDATA\4d530017\62D648EBF155\Default.XBE". In fact, because so few applications properly support U: (due to a lack of necessity), most people who write saved games to a hard drive with an FTP server will just upload files to E:\UDATA\.

Some saved games are packaged with all the saved games stored under a UDATA subdirectory. Clearly these are meant to be copied to the E:\. Do not try storing saved data in a memory unit's UDATA folder, such as "H:\UDATA\4d530017\62D648EBF155\Default.XBE". Microsoft's official dashboard will not recognize it. Also, do not try to store data in U:\UDATA\, because that just turns into E:\UDATA\UDATA\ and Microsoft's official dashboard is not going to look there.

What to write

Here are some great tools to write to the hard drive:

The following things are great things to put on an Xbox hard drive:

Some software that is meant to be executed
Choose one or more of:
Hacks