Geek Speak.

v1.0 (06/10/2004)

WARNING! As always, perform this modification at your OWN RISK. We have done our best to ensure that the information in this tutorial is accurate, but we can not guarantee that it is. We will not take any responsibility for any damage to your Xbox, your computer, or yourself by performing this modification.

Well we veered off course somewhere and now we are staring straight in the face of an error 21 or an error 13. Crap. Well not to worry, since we made a backup, like we were supposed to (right?), fixing this problem should be no big deal. And if you didn't back up we may STILL be able to recover from an error 13 or an error 21, follow these instructions and we'll be back to a working XBox in no time.

This tutorial is slightly less detail oriented as it assumes that you have successfully performed the swap trick at least once and know the basics of connecting the Xbox hard disk to your computer.

1) Requirements

HARDWARE

• Xbox with Error 21 or Error 13
• Torx 20 Screwdriver
• Xbox Game of Your Choice

OPTIONAL HARDWARE

• Torx 10 and 15 Screwdriver

SOFTWARE

• Windows XP
• HDDriver
• Xbox Hard Drive Backup Created With the HDDriver

2) Opening Your Xbox

If you already know how to open your Xbox, or it is already open, feel free to skip this step and go directly to step 3.

2.1) Create a work area where you will have enough space to work comfortably with your Xbox.

2.2) Grab a cup (yes I mean a cup you drink out of). We will use this to store our screws so that we don't lose them. Grab your Xbox and unplug anything that you have plugged into it (Power, Video, or Controllers). Turn it over so that you are looking at the bottom of it. We are going to remove 6 torx size 20 screws from the bottom. Four are located under the rubber feet located in the corners of the Xbox. Two more are located under stickers closer to the middle of the Xbox. Feeling around the stickers will reveal their locations. Peel back the feet and the stickers and remove the 6 screws. Toss them in the cup so you don't lose them.

2.3) Carefully turn over the Xbox and you should be able to remove the top cover.

2.4) Some people optionally remove their hard drive from the mounting bracket but I did not find this to be a necessary step. You can do this now if you think that it will be helpful. Otherwise skip to step 3.

2.4.1) OPTIONAL: Now we will unscrew the hard drive mounting tray from the Xbox case. We will need a torx size 10 screw driver to perform this step. Looking down on the open case of your Xbox you should see 1 small screw near the center of your Xbox. This is the only screw holding the hard drive mounting tray in place. Remove this screw and place it in your cup.

2.4.2) Remove the tray from the case and unplug the IDE cable and the power cable from the back of the hard drive.

2.4.3) Now remove the 4 torx 15 mounting screws that are securing the hard drive to the mounting tray (can be done with a torx 10 but might mess up the bit) and place them in your cup. Now set the mounting tray to the side and reconnect the hard drive to the IDE and Power cables on the Xbox (NOT THE COMPTUER!).

3) Open Your Computer

If you already have your computer open, skip to step 4.

I won't go into details on this step. If you can't do this step you should take your Xbox to someone with more computer experience. Or have someone assist you with this mod.

3.1) Setup your computer so that you have your hard drive on the PRIMARY IDE channel and have the SECONDARY channel available for your Xbox hard drive. You will be plugging your Xbox hard drive into this channel later while both your Xbox and your computer are powered on. So, make sure it is long enough that it will reach your Xbox with out coming unplugged from your system board.

(Note: You can put a CD-Rom on your primary slave if you feel that you may need it during this process but that is not necessary. Your only requirements are that you can boot to Windows XP and that you can connect your Xbox hard drive later on in this tutorial.)

4) Swap Tricking an Error 21 or Error 13 Xbox

Well if we are seeing this message we have obviously gotten far enough to have successfully completed the swap trick at least once. That is good news! We know that it is possible and we know the general idea of what we are supposed to do to get it to work. The bad news is that we won't be able to do the swap trick exactly the same as we did the first time since we never get to the MS Dashboard. That's okay though as there are other ways to unlock the hard drive.

4.1) This is a step that is going to take some trial and error and is not an exact science. What we are going to try to do is get the Xbox game to unlock the Xbox hard drive so that we can do the swap trick. It is going to be harder to find the exact right moment to pull the IDE cable but with a few tries we should be able to pull it off.

Insert the Xbox game into the DVD drive of the Xbox and wait for the Xbox to start the game. After you hear some Xbox hard drive activity, try pulling the IDE cable and plugging the Xbox hard drive back into the IDE channel of the computer.

Refresh the device manager and see if your computer recognizes your Xbox hard drive. If not, swap the hard drive back to your Xbox and restart the Xbox with the Xbox game still in the drive. Repeat until you successfully perform the swap trick.

This will work, so don't worry if it does work the first time. I have done in at least 20 or 30 times, so be persistent. Eventually you'll figure out just the right moment to swap it over and then you'll be able to access your drive through the computer again.

5) Restore the Xbox Hard Drive

If we got this far we are in great shape. We can now either undo whatever we did to get the error or we can simply restore the Xbox drive from our backup if undoing our changes doesn't seem to resolve the issue. We'll focus on restoring the drive image since this is the ultimate fix to just about any problem we can conceive of.

5.1) Start the HDDriver. Click <Ok> to the informational message saying that it found your Xbox hard drive. Errors will appear but just ignore them and use the application behind the error messages. Click the backup -> restore. Then click the <Ok> button. The restore of your hard drive should begin.

5.2) After your hard drive restore has finished, shut of your Xbox. Plug the Xbox hard drive back into your Xbox. Remove your Xbox game from the DVD drive and restart your Xbox. You should be back to a fresh MS dashboard with out any of your screw ups.

6) Continue the Mod Tutorial.

You can now continue the Mod Tutorial and see if you have better luck this time. If you run into this problem again, you are now informed on how to restore your Xbox drive, and restoring it should be no big deal. Good luck!