Fixing a bricked Xbox360 XDK Sidecar. (FPGA Reflash)

STiP0

STiP0

"That Dead Rising Guy"
Joined
Jun 3, 2019
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Follow these steps carefully to avoid issues.

- IF a hard drive is causing the console to RROD, remove it from sidecar board and reboot. (XDK Must be on)
- Launch the Xbox360 Command Prompt SDK Tool.
- Set your Xbox360 as the default console in SDK. (Not necessary, but helps)
- Plug the DVDEMU port into your PC via USB-B.
- Type: "xkd /i:0" into the console window.
- If your sidecar is recognized, an update message will appear, Type the letter "y"
- Allow all 46 blocks to write, the console will reboot on it's own.
- Ensure the DVD Drive can open & close using the eject button. if not, check Command Prompt again for errors, and check your wiring.
 
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Thanks to this thread I was able to recover my old FAT XDK with bad FPGA flash which was laying around, but it wasn't so simple. Heck, I didn't even know that it had something to do with Sidecar's FPGA FW.

I had Xbox 360 XDK kit with one red light (E68 error) and "broken" DVD rom. DVD rom didn't make any sound when the console launched and eject button did absolutely nothing too. I couldn't open it in a dashboard too.

In addition to that the console refused to boot with the Sidecar attached... even if I disconnected HDD. The console could boot only if I disconnected Sidecar. The HDD was working fine, I checked it via PC. I tried to use remote recovery while the console tried to boot-> no connection. I've disconnected Sidecar and used remote recovery -> it did reflash the XDK, but it didn't fix an error when I reattached the Sidecar, so I gave up, but eventually found this thread.

I connected the Sidecar to XDK. I disconnected HDD and used "xkd /i:0". It said, that my FPGA version is ff.ff. I guess, it was a bad flash.
FPGA1.PNG

Then I confirmed that I want to update its firmware and I saw this:
FPGA2.PNG

FPGA version became 6.d and I was quite happy that I had found the problem. After that I connected my HDD and pushed power button. Sadly, it didn't help me. I still had E68 error. Sometimes it was E69 or E70. But at least the DVD drive was working again! If I disconnected HDD, I still had the exact same error. Xbox 360 command prompt had this:
FPGA3.PNG

While the Sidecar was attached, remote and CD recoveries didn't work too. And then I came up with a stupid idea. I disconnected Sidecar's big socked on the left from XDK. Then I launched the console. Then I put newly burnt CD with 21250.7 recovery and while the console was on and while the disc was spinning, I attached Sidecar's socket with HDD attached to it....

As soon as I did it the console soft rebooted and I saw an update screen. I've confirmed that I want to use a recovery and after the reboot, the problem disappeared once and for all.

So yeah, it wasn't so easy, but, I hope, that it will help someone to restore their XDKs too.
 
That behavior with a corrupt XDK FPGA bitstream is normal - under normal circumstances the FPGA in the sidecar acts as a bridge between the motherboard and the DVD drive. With the bad data in the FPGA there is no connection between the drive and the motherboard, so it throws a DVD drive error.
 
Trimesh said:
That behavior with a corrupt XDK FPGA bitstream is normal - under normal circumstances the FPGA in the sidecar acts as a bridge between the motherboard and the DVD drive. With the bad data in the FPGA there is no connection between the drive and the motherboard, so it throws a DVD drive error.
Click to expand...
The console suddenly started to give E68 error again.
Strange thing is, if I disconnect the sidecar, then launch the console and then reconnect it, after soft reboot it becomes usable and I can use remote and CD recoveries.

Also I noticed that all LEDs are lit green inside the sidecar. Is there a way to fix it?
 
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check xdk mother board all CAP , because sidecars use much power but xdk did not give...
 
Bazatree said:
Thanks for the clue! I will definitely check them. But what if they are okay?
Click to expand...
if you have other set internal cable , try swap it test again , if not , check and clean up all connector , use multimeter check all cable ,make sure all is fine

btw , bad cap is top ranking on XDK..
 
Bazatree said:
Thanks for the clue! I will definitely check them. But what if they are okay?
Click to expand...
only way to actually check if capacitors are good - is to unsolder them and use a device which shows their capacity. even unpopped caps might be bad
 
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