I’ve had a JTAG’d Xbox since December 2009. It came with an Infectus v2 chip for easy nand flashing. A while ago, A bad flash was written and the Infectus tools didn’t detect the chip anymore. I had to send it out to a guy I knew to perform a known fix. It was successful, and he placed a reset switch in case it happened again.

I thought I was set. I was wrong.

About 2 weeks ago, I was going to test out some USB FATX stuff. I was still on XBR at the time so I decided to upgrade to FreeBoot. A patch intended to be used by Dash Launch was accidentally put in. Resulting in a 2 red ring bootup. It was still detected by the Infectus tools, so I flashed a correct image. Still the same problem. So I decided to flash my backup just to see if everything was ok.

I still got the 2 red rings. I was like >_>. So I flipped the reset switch and it didn’t help in this case. I contacted the repair guy and he ran some tests. Apparently, the Infectus is known to eventually stop erasing the nand properly. So when it erases, data was left behind and it was merged with data that was written, resulting in a bad bootup.

I sent it to the guy again. He said he would just replace the Infectus with a Cygnos rev C. I thought it was fine, so I forked over the requested $50 for the chip. Soon after, he said the installation wasn’t working. We think it is because the rev C is a prototype and isn’t fully compatible with a Falcon console, which is what I have. I didn’t really have time to waste with this repair, so I told him to order the new rev F. For another $60. It came and the initial install was still unsuccessful.

That brings us to yesterday at the time of writing this. The repair guy is still fiddling around with the solder points and he has been getting different errors. So he thinks he is getting closer. I haven’t heard from him today yet.

Even if it shipped today, it wouldn’t make it in time for my vacation.

In desperation, I contacted a good friend of mine who lives in the same state as I do. I asked if I could rent one. He agreed and went to pick up a new Jasper at a store, JTAG it, and somehow get it to me.

That brings us to today. I can’t pick it up because it is too far away and he can’t get it to a post office in time.

So I just scrapped that idea. But I appreciated his help and offer immensely.

I now won’t have an Xbox that can run unisigned code until who knows when. But I know for sure it won’t be before school starts.

How does this have relevance to FATXplorer?

I have a spare 500gb HDD I have been use for testing. I wanted to make sure it still worked on the Xbox after some writes. But now I can’t test it, which will probably delay the initial release candidate.

There is also a chance that my 360 out for repair won’t work again. If that happens.. thats is about $500 down the drain.

And then I will really be in trouble. I hope it won’t come to that.

I really don’t want to have to buy another one. The people who mod MW2 have made the prices skyrocket and the people who want to use it for research, like myself, now have to pay ridiculous prices for these things.