• Xbox is turned on with no A/V cables plugged into the Xbox.
• Plug in the A/V cables
• "Finger dancing" is performed to trigger the exploit

• Backing up E:\TDATA\fffe0000\music\ST.DB if it exists
• Placing a hacked audio file at E:\TDATA\fffe0000\music\ST.DB
• Placing an appropriately signed executable at the correct location on the hard drive.

• The -habibi or -audio controversy

  • I believe the two keys are mathematically similar in enough ways that when signature checking is partially crippled, a file signed with one key may pass the crippled signature checking looking for another file. These similarities have led to a lot of confusion over whether a particular audio hack runs executables signed with the -habibi key or if it runs executables signed with the -audio key. It seems like the answer is frequently: Both. An executable signed with either key will apparently work with many of the audio hacks.
  • I recommend trying to use the -habibi key, even on the hacks that say they are designed for XBE files using the -audio key.
    • I haven't had any problems with this when using the audio hack from the post that newaudio.uue comes from, even though this hack is documented as being designed for the -audio key. Furthermore, -habibi XBE files are nicer because there are many other hacks that use XBE files signed with the -habibi key, including some hacks that may be desirable to have on the same Xbox system that uses an audio exploit, such as EEE and saved game exploits.
    • An example of a -habibi signed XBE file is XSelect 0.9 as it is distributed in its original form.
    • Only if a -habibi signed XBE file results in an Error 21 would I even think of testing actual usage of the -audio key.
  • Some examples of the wide-spread confusion on the matter:
    • XanTium has said the two keys are the same. Grospolina says they are "not the same key". (Grospolina is right: a file signed with one key in XBEDump 0.5 is a different file than if it is signed with -habibi.)
    • denky notices there is different information being given about the same hack (which he found by using XOR comparison... although I believe the hacks he refers to are in fact different as tested by FC.EXE, so this may be in example of XOR being an imperfect file comparer), where Mordenkainen referred to the hack being -habibi and Grospolina was saying to use -audio.
    • Grospolina has said that a hack uses the -audio key. denky asks if denky is to ignore Grospolina's incorrect post

How to initiate the hack: Follow the hack's directions to copy a sound track to the hard drive. (The sound track may, for some hacks, be getting copied from the hard drive. Copying from an audio CD works with some or possibly all of these hacks. (I seem to remember it not working from an audio CD with one of these hacks.)) Name the audio track something other than "<<EggsΒox>>" (as that soundtrack name is reserved for the Easter Egg). The default name of "Soundtrack 1" should work just fine. Once the "DONE" button is pressed, indicating that the user is done giving the soundtrack a name, the screen will blank for a small or large number of seconds, and will then run an executable on the hard drive.

Usage of these hacks tend to work only on original Microsoft BIOSes, and not the hacked BIOSes like Evo-X's and X2's.

When the audio hack first came out, a button sequence was in the documentation. What this button sequence did was to back out of playing the audio track, and from the previous menu start selecting the copy options. Some of these options can be selected quite rapidly, even as the new menu is enlargening to its fully expanded position on the screen. However, it is possible to input the button sequence so quickly that they do not select the menu options they are supposed to. (One person said the button sequence sometimes didn't work, and someone else posted the solution of just tapping the A button extra times at the end.) Just slow down and select the menu options correctly.

Tested Great Audio Hack

• You'll need the hack itself. To obtain it

  • , copy the text from devz3ro's post (found by clicking on the 4th post on the thread in Grospolina's signature on X-S forums). Save it as "newaudio.uue" (or whatever filename, but the directions on this page will assume you called it that.)
    • The file should be saved in ASCII Text format. This could be in as little as 692 bytes, but due to NOTEPAD.EXE's tendancy to save carraige returns as well as line feeds, the file is likely to be 700 bytes (or more if you included any extra white space).
    • You'll need a way to save a standard ASCII text file. Windows 98 Second Edition's NOTEPAD.EXE will work. Wordpad, and I believe the Windows 2K and XP versions versions of Notepad, can work however they can also save file format information and that is bad. Try to save in MS-DOS Text Mode.
    • (By surrounding the filename in quotation marks, NOTEPAD.EXE can save the file as newaudio.uue without adding a .txt extention and creating newaudio.uue.txt.)
  • Copy and paste the "CODE" section to make newaudio.uue.
  • Extract the file with Base64. Creates a file called UNKNOWN.001
  • Rename the UNKNOWN.001 file to newaudio.rar. Unrar the newaudio.rar file.

• Next you'll need to place a signed executable named "exploit" (without quotation marks) in E:\. For example, copy XSelect 0.9 to E:\exploit. Although the hack is documented as using the -audio key, I suggest the use of the -habibi key (for reasons documented where "The -habibi or -audio controversy" is defined elsewhere on this page).
• Nothing to worry about: This hack will modify itself when it is run. The first instance of a filename, "exploit", will overwrite the second instance of a filename, "linux.x". Some other bytes may get changed with usage: bytes 0x19C, 0x19E, 0x33C, and 0x33E (right after the null-terminated filename strings) tend exist between different copies of the hack, likely based on how many times it has been used (especially how many times it has been used incorrectly by copying the blank track).

Unknown

From the Live 2.0 Compatible hack post

Self-corrupting Swapless Audio Hack

• Runs e:\linux.XBE
• Versions include:
  • Grospolina's post which has text that can be made into a swapless.uue file which will extract audio_hack_habibi.zip
  • Swap-Less Audio Exploit -audio was originally found on Grospolina's forum post for Swap-Less Audio Exploit -audio which had text which could be saved as a "swapless.uue" file, and would then extract audio_hack.zip (which is byte for byte the same as the commonly distributed audio_sl_audio-key.zip file).
  • Grosplina's post was based on Swap-Less Audio Exploit which is often called sl_audio.zip, originally found on a-b's forum post. This version was documented as only running Linux.

Audio CD Hack

• Possibly more compatible? I once had this work on an Xbox that one of the hard-drive-to-hard-drive copying hacks did not work on. (I do not know why, and I do not have access to the Xbox anymore. I somewhat suspect that the ST.DB file may have been misplaced (put in E:\tdata\fffe0000\ instead of E:\tdata\fffe0000\music\), but I doubt it because I seem to remember seeing a message more like "You have reached the maximum of 100 soundtracks".
  • But the audio hack worked on the machine. Whoa, if the 100 soundtrack message is because of too new of a dashboard, does this mean the CD Audio copying track works and has been largely overlooked by the Xbox Hacking Community on X-S?
• Requires an Audio CD. Copy an audio soundtrack to the hard drive.
• Obtaining: Get from this site or:
  • /XBOX/exploits/audio_track_exploit/audio_track_exploit.zip Original Audio Exploit
  • Follow Adso58's directions so it can run a -habibi executable.
    • Unzip the ST.DB file from /XBOX/exploits/audio_track_exploit/audio_track_exploit.zip
    • It seems I may have skipped the following steps, and therefore I currently think they may not be necessary:
      • Unzip the linux.xbe file from /XBOX/exploits/audio_track_exploit/audio_track_exploit.zip
      • Copy linux.xbe to the Xbox hard drive's E:\ directory.
      • Copy ST.DB to E:\TDATA\fffe0000\music\ST.DB
      • Perform a copy of an audio CD track. This will trigger the audio hack, which will be a bit unsuccessful (it won't boot Linux), but will modify ST.DB
      • Copy the ST.DB file from the Xbox's hard drive.
      • (The copies of linux.xbe and ST.DB that are on the Xbox's hard drive do not, at this point, need to be kept.)
      • Use the ST.DB file you copied from the hard drive in order to follow the rest of the instructions (hex edit this file).
    • Load ST.DB into a hex editor and change the bytes at 0xFF
      • The old bytes should be (in hexadecimal format): 05 14 00 00 00 89 85 72 01 00 00
      • The new bytes that you should change them to should be: 81 76 FF 14 01 00 10 90 90 90 90
• This has been found or reported to work on Xboxes running Dashboard 4920 and Kernels 3944, 4034, and 4817. "all ORIGINAL bioses *should* work".