Generating HDD Password from your HDKey
From Xbox-Linux
Since the Softmodding FAQ used to only tell you to backup your HDKey and not the HDD pass, I decided it would be good to tell you how to get the password from that in case you did the same thing as me and messed up your hard drive with only the HDKey backed up.
This was figured out using the "Details of the Hard Drive Locking Mechanism" article on this wiki. First, you will need your HDD's Model and Serial numbers. I got these by opening the Xbox and looking on the drive, but you can also get them from Linux. Type this at a terminal:
hdparm -I /dev/hda
You might need to replace "hda" with the device name (try hda, hdb, hdc, hdd, sda, sdb, sdc, sdd in that order). If you don't have "hdparm" this command should give you the model:
cat /proc/ide/hda/model
Or failing that:
dmesg |grep hda
and look for the line that looks like this:
hda: ST310014A, ATA DISK drive
For more info, look here (http://www.xbox-linux.org/docs/versionsentry.html) and move the mouse cursor over the Harddrive entry box.
Then, you need to get the program "HashCalc", which you can get from http://www.download.com. Once you open that, check off "HMAC" and set the Key format to "Hex String", and put your HD Key there. Then, in the space above it, set it to "Text String" and paste your Model and Serial numbers, in that order, directly after each other with no spaces. Then, check off "Sha1" and press calculate. The hash that appears in the sha1 box should be your HDD Pass.
This worked for me, and if I made a mistake in these instructions, or if you would like to make this look nicer, feel free to edit it. Sorry if I'm not extremely clear here. Good luck :-D
2005-03-12 I just successfully unlocked a drive using this method, but with one minor hiccup. The drive in question was a Western Digital WD1600JB. The model as returned by the drive is fine (leave in the space(s) and hyphen(s)), but the serial number needs to be padded out to twenty bytes with zero bytes at the end, so you have to enter the whole thing (model+serial) as hex. wenid
HI all, i just tried it without the HDKEY and it doesnt work. SO if you dont hve the key, it wont work for you! -NOOBINATOR-
*Boink*
More Information
For additional details on XBox's use of the HDD Password and why you might need it, look at the article Xbox Hard Drive Locking Mechanism.
Great Success for me using a Seagate Model ST310014ACE Serial Number 5JRDWH4A (which was entered into Hash Calc as ST310014A5JRDWH4A). The HDD password value in XBMC is indeed incorrect http://xbmc.org/trac/ticket/3882 )
