Microsoft Xbox Repair Manual page 62

How to Recover A Locked Hard Drive without Password (From a Dead Motherboard)
(v0.1)
NOTE: If you know what you are doing, this tutorial could also serve as a way to un-ban yourself
from XBOX Live, providing you have an unbanned EEPROM on a dead or working motherboard
The smart thing to do is to always have a backed up copy of your Xbox's EEPROM. It is a good
practice to make backing up important data part of the modding process, specifically, your
Xbox's EEPROM information (done with Configmagic) and a backup of your C: drive (done with
evox). These 2 things ensure that, in the event of an XBOX disaster, such as, a dead motherboard,
that information can be transferred to a new XBOX and things will be as they were. However,
such disasters are not typically expected and can be an even greater loss for those who are
unprepared.
In the event that you find that your (locked) 80 gig hardrive filled to the brim with over a year of
history cannot be transferred to a new XBOX, you may begin to feel your ulcer acting up.
There is a solution to this problem. It is not necessarily pretty or very inviting to the uninitiated,
but it is a solution nonetheless.
** FOR THIS TO WORK, YOU MUST HAVE THE MOTHERBOARD THAT THE
HARD DRIVE CAME WITH OR WAS ORIGINALLY LOCKED WITH**
What needs to be done is to recover the old hard drive information from the XBOX EEPROM.
Since your XBOX is dead you can no longer access this information by normal means, but it is
most certainly still there. To recover this information the EEPROM will first, have to be identified
and located.
As you can see, it is just a tiny little, bug-sized chip, between the TSOP chip (on the left) and Pic
chip (on the right)
You need to de-solder this chip from your dead XBOX and solder it in to your current XBOX.
The most dangerous part of this operation is the removal of the EEPROM, as breaking a leg (pin)
can render it pretty much useless or make for a very difficult repair
**BEFORE DOING ANY OF THIS BE SURE TO BACK UP (1.EEPROM INFO 2.C DRIVE 3.
GAME SAVES AND APPS) FROM YOUR CURRENT HARD DRIVE AND UNLOCK IT, AS
YOU WILL BE REMOVING YOUR CURRENT XBOX's EEPROM.**
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