This weekend, could very well be determined as a good geek weekend. A good college buddy came to visit and we started the fun with a trip to Redhook Brewery in Portsmouth where we had lunch and then took a tour of the brewing facility. When we returned safely from testing about two pints of beer, thanks to my wonderful wife and D.D. we continued the geeking by what is called, soft-modding my xbox.

There are many, many great sources out there that explain the process step-by-step in great detail, so I will not do that. Instead I will link to the instructions that Dave used successfully on his xbox, and brought to use on mine.

However, I will tell you the basic steps, and declare this has to be the true meaning of hacking. The process of softmodding is essentially making a small change to the eeprom in the xbox, backing up the original Microsoft dashboard, and installing a new version of the dashboard that will enable ftp access to the machine.

Because you need someway to get a special save game on to the xbox, you may need something to get the game from your pc to the xbox. Once the save game is on your xbox you can use it to exploit certain versions of Mech Assult (original, not platinum hits) by loading the save game. I found a version of the game at Game Stop this weekend for a whopping 2.99 so I picked it up.

By loading the save game, the Xbox reboots or crashes out (don’t know which is the case) to a version of linux, which like a wizard steps you through the process of softmodding the box. What’s great, is this mod can be turned on or off, and by starting up the xbox with a game in the drive, it appears as if it has never been installed at all.

Once the mod is installed, reboot and enjoy a new dashboard. However, just like anything out there there’s more to be done. Once ftp access is on, you can drop on the XBMC which can be used to read network shares to play videos, music and pictures. Download and install (by ftp) the new replacement for the dashboard and enjoy. IT takes a couple of hours for this process. The ftp was slow, I suspect I missed setting something up in the original ftp server that would speed things up. Its a clean tool and fun to use. Since it’s built on linux there are many scripts you can install to enhance the new OS with faster ftp and great customizations. My favorite, beyond the well built media center is the ability to add NES, SNES and N64 emulators if you wish.

EDIT: This was a completely software based hack. No need to open the case, and therefore less chance of bricking your Xbox. If you do, it’s not my fault.