outofwork

Once again I will display my ignorance about the details of this. I can't find dashlaunch to update the settings for launch.ini. Can I assume that the last time I did an update for the console that dashlaunch it's possible that it did not get installed and something else created the launch.ini file telling launch to boot into FSD? I am currently at dash 2.0.16547.0 Is it also safe to assume that if that in fact did happen that I can simply install dashlaunch and go through the process of changing it to boot into Aurora? I feel really stupid about asking all these questions but my rationailzation <BSEG> is that I rarely do anything with the console except either just prior to my grandsons coming over or every few months when I want to install some new games. So, I really don't do much with the console except for maybe a couple of times in a year.

You know that old saying about being snake bit? Seems that this week I may be the poster child for that expression. Earlier today I booted into FSD, executed Aurora, retrieved covers for over 600 games, etc. Everything going along just fine...finally. 30 minutes ago I turn the console back on and it will not boot into FSD. What happens is that either the XBox 360 logo stays on the screen forever or it boots directly into the normal MS dashboard. I know that this is a paranoid question but is it at all possible that Aurora could have reset something that has caused this? If not, it's one helluva coincidence. The only thing that I did at all was put an updated launch.ini in the root directory on the external drive so I could copy it over to HDD after it booted up. Please tell me that I'm not royally screwed here. I have powered the console off and back on three times and twice it booted into the MS dashboard and once it just hung displaying the Xbox logo. I did notice that when it boots into the MS dashboard that my alias is being automatically logged on. It seems that if I disconnect the external drive before I power up the console it will boot into FSD as before. Is it at all possible that the bootup is reading the updated launch.ini, which says to boot aurora.xex off of HDD, which of course I haven't copied it there yet, off of the root of the external drive and not finding aurora.xex where launch.ini says it is that it just reverts back to the standard MS dashboard? It seems that I may be learning a lot about the details of how all this works because of all the problems that I have had this week. I am going to move the modified launch.ini out of the root directory into a directory on the external drive to see if that is what the problem is. This is weird as hell. I'll be damned. That's what it was. I moved the modified launch.ini into a directory on the external drive and now it boots into FSD as it should. In some cases that could be to your advantage if it looks to the external drive first.

Many thanks. I got the answers to some of my questions already by reading through all of the Aurora topics.

As you indicated Aurora is very slick. I am impressed with the amount of work that had to have gone into Aurora. A few questions as always: 1) Is there a text editor that is available so I can edit files without having to go back to the PC to edit files? 2) Do I simply copy Aurora to HDD, put it in a new folder and create a path statement for launch.ini that would look like this: hdd:\Aurora\aurora.xex Can I assume that when I press the Home button that the game will exit and reload Aurora? 3) Here is the launch.ini for FSD: [QuickLaunchButtons] Default = hdd:\FreeStyle\default.xex [settings] nxemini = true pingpatch = true Do I need a similar structure for Aurora? If so, what settings if any are necessary? FYI, I do not plan on running any games on-line via Aurora. 4) Did Dashlaunch create the launch.ini for FSD based on the options chosen? Do I need to run Dashlaunch and have it create a new launch.ini for Aurora? 5) Is XexMenu 1.1 from 2010 the most current version? Apologies for all the questions. I checked the tutorials but might have missed the setup details. Also, a year ago or so I contributed some money to Team FSD via Paypal can I assume that option is still available for the Aurora team? Thanks, outofwork

I didn't realize that Aurora was a complete replacement for FSD. After all the problems since the drive failed I am definitely leaning that way. Time to dig in for the details on Aurora and how to set it up. Is there a tutorial for those of us who are on the periphery so-to-speak? The video is very cool. Can I assume that Dashlaunch needs to be modified so it boots directly into Aurora instead of FSD? I'm not sure how it actually works so I am guessing as you can probably tell.

The saga continues... after I deleted the database entries the rescan for XEX and XBLA got covers for about 600+ games which it should have. However, what happened is that when I try to run a regular game the covers don't match up with the NAME bar as you move through the covers. When I select the game to run based on the NAME that appears in the rectangular silver bar and not the cover picture it takes forever to load. When I load the same game via the FSD File Manager it loads very quickly. I thought that powering the console off and then back on might resolve the problem but it didn't. I don't see any option to resync the covers and the games.

Once again apologies for being a continuing PITA BUT (pun intended) right after I had run Aurora and gone back into FSD's Fie Manager most of the entries under Drive List have disappeared. The only ones that remain are Game, HDD1 and USB0. Am I becoming paranoid, am I seeing things or did Aurora do something that eliminates access to these other "Drives" via FSD's File Manager? Thanks, outofwork

Interestingly enough FSD's File Manager would not allow me to delete those two files. It said that it failed when I tried to delete them. But, Aurora did allow me to delete those files. Two questions about Aurora... 1) I initially thought that it was primarily a file manager and an application that runs under the auspices of FSD. Is that correct? 2) When I execute Aurora it starts backing up files. Where is it backing those files up to? I just need to fiddle with it a bit to find out everything that it can do. The real appeal to me for Aurora is that it appears to give me the ability to back up all the files and folders on HDD1.

I successfully restored all my XBLA and XEX games. However, even though I set the paths and the scan levels it is only seeing a very few games in each and the covers repeat for a few games over and over. I vaguely recall that if I delete the database files and do a manual scan that everything will come back as normal. But, I want to make sure that I only delete the right files. The two that I believe that I should delete are in the following path - hdd1:\freestyle\data\databases\ and those files are content.db and settings.db. Would someone please confirm that? Thanks, outofwork

Status update - I had a 2 TB external that I had been using for Windows 7 backups among other things. I had to use the 2 TB drive because I am using Windows Backup for one type of backup and Ghost for the second backup and Windows 7 can't handle anything above 2 TBs and Windows 7 was never fixed. The drive was almost full but I moved everything to the 3 TB drive, emptied the 2 TB drive, set it up as FAT32 and VOILA the console sees it right away. So, perhaps my earlier speculation about the protocol handshaking/device recognition was on the right track. There must be something in that handshaking that says "I am 3 TBs" and the console says FAT32 can't address 3 TBs even if the first partition is 2 TBs. There must be a definitive answer somewhere but at least I will be back in business after I restore almost 1.7 TBs to the "new" 2 TB drive. Now I need to buy a couple of new 2 TB drives at a Black Friday sale. Thanks for the help and suggestions.

I am probably going to bite the bullet and buy a new 2 TB external drive. Am I correct in assuming that it must be a USB 2.0 interface and not one that is USB 3/USB 2 compatible? For some reason it appears that the 3 TB drive that I have partitioned to 2 TBs as the first partition will simply not work. I wonder if it because this 3 TB drive is USB3/USB2 compatible and console can't follow the handshaking protocol that might be initially different for a USB3/USB2 drive?

Just for the hell of it I tried to get the MS Dashboard function to format the 3 TB drive that I set up the first partition as 2 TB. I think that it would only set up a 32 GB partition but I just wanted to see if it could write to the drive. It can't. I get back an error message that says an error occurred performing the function or something very similar. What a PITA. For the life of me I can't remember exactly how I set this up a couple of years ago when I initially got the RGH console. I had no trouble and it worked perfectly. I need to start writing things down.

I know that I am grasping for straws here but I wonder if the fact that the 3 TB drive is USB 3.0 is the problem? I know that USB 3.0 is supposed to be completely compatible with USB 2.0.

Yes, I did FAT32 and you wouldn't believe how difficult it was to find something that would actually format a 2 TB drive. Windows 7 will definitely only format 32 GBs, not the entire 2 TBs. I used a program called Macrorit. I wish to hell that I could remember how I set the drive up three years ago.

Update - Interestingly enough when I go to the MS Dashboard it recognizes the external drive only when I plug it in or unplug it. By recognize I mean that a message appears indicating that "Detected Storage Device Change Refreshing Mounted Drives" but the drive does not appear as external storage. It appears to me that there is something on the drive itself that is creating the problem. Either the fact that it is a 3 TB drive, the fact that it is partitioned with a 2 TB partition being the first partition (MBR, Primary partition and Active) and the remaining 1 TB exists as unallocated space or something else. I am determined to figure out what is causing this.

No I haven't tried that but it's a good idea. I'd still like to know why the console can't see the new external drive. I must be missing something. I'd almost bet that if I had a new 2 TB drive it would work fine. Given that I believe that FSD runs on top of the MS dashboard that FSD depends on MS to recognize the fact that there is an external drive attached and FSD simply accesses the drive through a standard interface. There must be something occurring when the console first boots up and "sees" the fact that an external drive is attached and then something isn't correct and there isn't any recognition or access. Thanks, outofwork

It's MBR and yes, it is the first partition on the drive. It is a bit puzzling. Is there any way to look at an internal error code to see if the console returned a condition code or something similar when it tried to open the drive?

I partitioned an available 3 TB Seagate to 2 TB and formatted it as FAT32 but the console can't see the external drive. i did this because I didn't want to spend $100 on another 2 TB drive. I am probably suffering from ACRS <BSEG> and I can't remember if I had to do anything special when I intially did this about three years ago to get the console to recognize the external drive. ASSUMPTIONS (which obviously may not be valid)/Questions : 1) Even though the external drive is 3 TBs, I partitioned it to 2 TBs and formatted it as FAT32 so I'm thinking that the fact that it's 3 TBs is not the problem. Could the unallocated space (1 TB) on the drive be causing the problem? 2) I believe that the sector size on the external drive is 512. Could that be the problem? Is the sector size critical? 3) I "assume" that the volume label of the external drive is not a critical issue. 4) The partition is Primary and Active. Hopefully I can get this back on the road because I had a backup of everything but the last 25 games that I was testing when it failed. Thanks, outofwork

I was into some of the details a few years ago when I started into using FSD after I bought an RGH console but I never really got a detailed understanding of how it all fits together. Given all of the really impressive coding work team FSD and others have done over the years I am just a bit surprised there isn't a very easy way to completely back up HDD1 given all that is installed there over an extended period of time by the users like myself. I am very conservative when it comes to running backups on my PC and was hoping that it was something that I could also do on the XBox 360. Believe it or not I was an IBM mainframe systems programmer into operating systems coding for a long time and I always wanted to know exactly how things worked. I just didn't want to irritate some of the more knowledgeable folks here as a way to learn all the intimate details so I learned just enough to get it all installed without being too much of a PITA. If I can install Aurora on an external USB drive and run it as an application then that's obviously very straightforward. As always thanks for the help, outofwork

By signing out of the profile I assume that you mean the name I was signed on/logged on to when FSD booted up as part of the automatic logon. I didn't know that you could actually sign out. Also, is there any real benefit of a clone image such as Symantec Ghost versus just copying the folders? Can't I also just map the XBox 360 HDD1 drive to my PC and do it that way as well? As I recall when I did that a couple of years ago I could not see all the folders on HDD1. I would hate like hell to have to rebuild HDD1 from scratch given everything that's been put on there over the years. The way my luck has been going lately HDD1 is also going to fail soon. <BSEG> Aurora question - can I just execute it using my current level of FSD or does it have to be incorporated into an update? Thanks, outofwork

I greatly appreciate the feedback. Thanks, outofwork

Is there a utility that can clone the internal hard drive of the XBox 360? A few years ago I upgraded the drive to a 320 GB drive with the help of the folks here and later was able to copy some of the folders on the drive for backup purposes via my network to my PC but I could not copy all of the folders because I couldn't see all of the from the PC. Is there a utility available that would allow me to create a clone image of the HDD1 drive for backup purposes so I could do a restore to a new drive if it failed or at least copy every folder on that drive? Thanks, outofwork

I just lost my Seagate external hard drive tonight after installing about 20 new games. I haven't touched the XBox 360 for at least five months and right in the midst of testing all of the new games the drive disappeared. I took it back to the PC and the drive won't come ready. You can hear a brief spinup, a brief pause, and another attempt at spinning up. It's an endless cycle and the drive appears to be toast. That leads to my questions and my apologies for the questions which I couldn't find answers to in my searches here. Fortunately I have a data backup of almost everything except for the new games I was installing tonight. 1) The drive that failed was 2 TBs. I'd like to replace it with a 3 TB drive. Will that size drive work? 2) Is one large partition acceptable? Is it a primary partition, etc.? 3) Does the drive need to be formatted as a FAT32 drive? What is the largest external drive the XBox 360 using FSD can use and utilize all the space on the drive? 4) Do I somehow need to let the XBox 360 format the external drive? I don't think so but I wanted to ask. I just can't remember how I set this up a few years ago. Apologies for the questions but I set this up years ago with the help of you folks here and I have been away from the basics for a long time. Thanks, outofwork

I have a similar question for Wolfenstein. I have all four discs installed to an external USB drive where I have all my other games. I have never really gotten the multi-disc requirements quite straight. Forza 4 for example, I believe, required that the second disc be installed to the HDD. I believe that a message after the game started indicated that disc number two would then be installed to the HDD. Game worked fine after that. "unless you use the automatic disc swapping feature of fsd/dashlaunch/the discswapper plugin". I thought that feature was automatic with the latest versions of FSD and the firmware which I have installed. I have the discs installed in separate folders Disc1...Disc4. The game starts but wants me to do a disc swap. So, I am a bit stuck at this point. Also there are four separate covers for Wolfenstein in the game covers startup menu. I originally thought that if I installed them as I indicated above in separate folders that it could find them because the disc swapping feature was installed. Either it isn't or I have it set up incorrectly. Is it possible that the entire game has to be installed to the HDD? If it does require that I don't know specifically how to do that. I would have thought that the game might have asked but it didn't. I'd appreciate some assistance to set me straight on the entire multi-disc game issue. Thanks, outofwork

Apologies for yet another basic question but is it necessary to update to FSD Rev 775 to support dashboard 16547 or can I just update everything else and continue to run with the previous version of FSD?