Despite the upcoming wall of text it is actually very simple. JTAG is a different game entirely and will not be mentioned after this sentence finishes, it does afford some niceties when flashing DVD drives though.
Introduction.
As of a couple of months ago there is now a couple of new 360 flashing toolkits (Maximus 360Lizard and X360USB PRO being their names) that are all standalone hardware give or take some purely software work on the PC. These cost about the price of two or three new games though and the old methods using PCs are considerably cheaper and not really that difficult so that is what will be covered here.
There is a good chance your first flashing experience will see you working your way through a profanisaurus for an hour or two and maybe the next one as well but at this point I can flash a 360 from sitting on my table to fully reassembled in about 10 minutes if I rush it (20 if I take my time) and flash the actual drive if it is sitting on my table in about 4
BackgroundI am not going to cover removing the 360 case. The only minor speciality tool you need is a torx10 if memory serves (normal torx- only the controllers have security torx)- you can buy a set of torx bits/security screwdrivers for pocket change these days though and I generally suggest anybody that might fix electronics has a set.
If it has already been flashed it is probably easier especially if you are on regular ixtreme (LT removed these niceties) as you can get your keys just by asking the drive with jungleflasher (the main flashing tool people use- you can download that from
http://www.jungleflasher.net/downloads.html but firmwares and any other tools will have to go by the usual methods (get easy xbins or find a site that carries things, 1.6NS if you are using that did not end up on xbins but it should not be too hard to track down). If you already have the keys it is even easier.
You can do it on later versions of windows and if you have a later drive model DOS still works but by and large we suggest XP for this gig as you can twist it to your own ends quite easily.
Short version the 360 drives are by and large fussy things when it comes to flashing so you need a compatible sata chipset for your drives. Different drive revisions can be less fussy with the hitachi being the only one you can brick when flashing but it is a $15 PCI card so many will spare themselves the headache.
Some later NVIDIA boards are compatible (I forget the exact model numbers but the guides at
http://www.jungleflasher.net/downloads.html will have them and I do not know if the newer ones are good as well) but for most the go to chipset is VIA 6421. You can grab them in loads of places still although it is getting that little bit more tricky as the years drag on (it was already thinking about getting old when people started flashing 360s).
http://www.dinodirect.com/pci-sata-card-vi...bl-sata4-r.html being a quick search for one.
Laptop versions (using the PCMCIA slot) do exist but we tend to advise against them if you can help it- if you have an old garaged machine or can find one for a couple of hours that can run XP and has a PCI slot for the card it is good enough for this.
You need some way to power the 360 drive but if you do not want to make (
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa189/y...p/360/sch-1.jpg - you just want the power lead pinout- the voltages are found from a PC power supply
http://pinouts.ru/Power/BigPower_pinout.shtml ) or buy (
http://www.ozmodchips.com/maximus-360-xtra...ctor-p-186.html ) one you can use the 360 as long as you connect the metal case to your PC case (the 360 does not have a ground so it might (it probably will not but the sake of 5 cents of tin foil or a crocodile clip.....) happen that there is a big voltage difference between the 360 and PC- all of which will travel back up the sata cable).
Onto the potentially annoying part-
the keys for the DVD drive.
The keys are the only thing stopping flashing 360 DVD drives from being trivial. The recent slim work aside 90% of the trouble with new drive versions is finding a way to get keys from them. Before LT though once you flashed the drive the keys would be given up at the request of a program, as part of the renewed effort towards stealth LT does not have this function (you are always told to save the keys/dumps for later use anyway but if you went to a person to flash it they might not have given you the keys- they should have but but hey).
If you had to go from scratch it gets more tricky- every drive before the first liteon can be flashed with sata alone but after that some models required extra hardware. These days there is a method called pogo ma thoin (and about 5000 variations and tweaks for it- there was actually a contest to make such things) that takes care of everything else that is not a slim drive (and maybe some stuff there as well).
Liteon drives come in 4 flavours- all the same hardware just different internal firmwares with different bugs used to get keys.
7 series- originally required a probe. You can buy one as an addon to the drive powering tools mentioned above, I already linked a homebrew method and you can also use some mobile phone cables which are in effect USB to serial cables.
8v1- can be done with just a compatible sata chipset
8v2
9 series
There is some debate as to whether 8v2 and 9 are one and the same just a different sticker. These originally required a fairly in depth hack called the MRA hack but nowadays we have pogo ma thoin. If you are so inclined these later methods work on all earlier revisions as well.
Sidenote- LT for liteon drives was based on these later firmwares so if you have that and no keys for it then it is MRA or more likely pogo ma thoin time even if it was not one of these revisions originally. There was a hacked version that made it so you could regain the keys with a 7 series probe but you probably do not have that (it was not advised and it was never official).
Flashing
If you have the keys you can just build a new firmware with jungleflasher or your chosen tool (firmtool was my go to method for a while).
Once you have the keys in your chosen firmware you can just flash it (power the drive with tray half open (the guides cover this) it can be tricky if you are using a 360 and the 360's eject button*). If you eject it I like to keep the first plastic injection marks after the drive sides turn parallel about in line with the edge of the drive) without any special measures.
*after you wipe the drive firmware and power cycle the eject feature will no longer work. You should not have to close the drive but if you do there is a manual eject bar inside it you can use to set the drive in place)
I think that just about covers it all.
