Playing Game Backups
In order to play game backups on a modified Xbox, you will most likely need to convert them into a usable format first. This page will cover the various methods and file formats of what you might use for game backups on the Xbox system.
File Formats
Xbox Game Disc Images (ISOs)
"Redump" ISO
If a DVD drive flashed with Kreon or 0800 custom firmware is used to dump an Xbox game, it is possible for them to do an entire dump of an Xbox game disc, including all of the padding & the partition used for the DVD video. While this is the best method for archiving games due to them preserving the entirety of the disc, it isn't useful for average users who just want to play games due to them taking a large amount of space with a bunch of data that was mostly for just pushing the important data closer to the edge of the disc, with the rest just for making the disc harder to make/play backups of them. The majority of ISO management tools created for the Xbox can't properly mount full ISO dumps like these mainly due to the video partition.
That being said, you can rebuild these ISOs without the extra padding and security data to convert it into an "XISO".
Details on how to get full dumps of Xbox ISOs are provided on the Redump Wiki.
"XISO"
An "XISO", or "Xbox ISO", is a community term for what is essentially a copy of an Xbox Game Disc, but with changes made that allow it to be playable on an Xbox console, usually with stripped data. The main advantages of this format compared to an extracted game folder is that it has the highest compatibility with Xbox titles, they take up a bit less space per-game due to them fitting better in FATX's cluster size, and transferring them over FTP is far quicker due to them always being one or two big files rather than potentially hundreds of small files. These can often be less than 4 GB, so they can be transferred as one ISO too. They also have the nice benefit of being usable with the Xemu emulator without using FTP to copy games to its virtual HDD.
That being said, a notable downside of running XISOs directly on an Xbox is that modding the games require more steps due to the XBE and other files being hidden away in read-only ISO files. For example, XBMC's Flicker Filter Patcher feature is commonly used to reduce visual blur in games; when launching an ISO-based dump, the dashboard will apply its patch to the ISO mounting XBE as opposed to the actual game executable, which is hidden away within the image file(s). While it's pretty easy to mount a normal XISO and manage any of its files on a PC with something like Qwix, XDVDMulleter, or Xbox Image Browser, split XISOs require you to join them back as one file before mounting or extracting them with a PC application.
In addition, ISO mounting requires BIOS level support. Systems modded using Rocky5's Xbox Softmodding Tool or Cerbios have this out of the box; most legacy softmods & BIOSes on modchipped / TSOP flashed consoles do not support XISO mounting.
Rebuilt XISO
A Rebuilt XISO has the disc image entirely rebuilt to remove all unnecessary data, leaving only an XDVDFS partition. These can be created with tools like xdvdfs or extract-xiso. DVD2Xbox's ISO Ripper mode will also produce ISOs with this format.
This is the smallest possible method of having Xbox ISOs, but they have the downside of possibly having compatibility issues in certain titles, as some titles rely on the extra sectors of the disc for their copy protection security.
Partially Trimmed/Scrubbed ISO
Similar to traditional XISOs, but instead of removing all padding and sectors entirely, the padding data is instead nulled out with zeros in order to have even smaller sizes than XISOs when compressed (Scrub). You can also optionally choose to remove any unused data on the XDVDFS partition (Trim), making it even closer to an XISO. This type of ISO can be produced with Repackinator, OGXRepacker, or XGDTool.
These essentially function the same as Truncated XISOs while being smaller, but are quite a bit larger than fully rebuilt XISOs when not converted to a compressed format.
Truncated XISO
Basically a full game dump with padding intact, but just with the video partition truncated/removed. These can be created by manually truncating the 387MiB partition of a Redump ISO with the dd or fallocate terminal commands, or by using apps such as redump2xiso and Xemu Redump Repair. The extra padding of the disc still remains, but removing the video partition is enough to allow compatibility with software that needs XISOs.
Compressed ISO (.cci and .cso)
With Cerbios or Project Stellar, modified Xbox consoles can also use compressed ISO formats. The main one supported by Cerbios is .cci (Cerbios Compressed ISO), with .cso being supported by MakeMHz's Project Stellar.
These formats can be thought of as being a middle ground between unaltered Redump ISOs with original padding intact, and normal XISOs. They have the small size of XISOs, in addition to having the near perfect compatibility of a fully padded ISO while leaving the ISO's original file structure relatively untouched.
View the dedicated wiki page of Repackinator for more information in CCI files.
"HDD Ready" Raw Game Files
A folder containing a game's raw game files (Also called "HDD Ready", "HDD Rip", or "Extracted Folder" by the community) is a direct copy of all the files from an Xbox Game Disc's XDVDFS partition into a folder. The advantage of this format is that is that the executable file and assets are easily and directly accessible and can be used on any modded Xbox, but some games have issues when played in this format for various reasons, as seen on the Patching XBEs page. Patching the executables in games of this format also tends to break some functionality with Insignia, like downloading updates/DLC or not being able to play with other players that haven't patched the game. Folder format games are also a bit smaller than extracted XISOs, but a bit bigger than compressed formats due to most games not fitting well in the FATX file system.
Making ISOs Usable on an Xbox
Various methods of splitting or extracting ISOs exist for Xbox ISOs, and they will all be covered here.
Repackinator
Repackinator has the ability to batch convert ISOs into split >4 GB ISOs in addition to automatically creating an attacher XBE for them, trim & scrub unused data on Redump ISOs, and optionally compressing them with the CCI/CSO formats. That being said, it will not fully remove the padding like xdvdfs or extract-xiso will do, since CCI/CSO compression on a trim scrub ISO will give a similar file size to an XISO anyway.
View the dedicated wiki page of Repackinator for more information.
Extracting an ISO's Files to a Folder
If you want/need direct access to the directory of your game's files on the console's HDD, like if you want to use mods or XBE patches, you can install the games as just an extracted folder copy. You can use various tools on a PC to extract the files, then copy the game folder to your Xbox.
Manually Splitting >4 GB XISOs
Since the FATX file system does not support files above 4 GB, larger titles will require splitting if you want to use them as XISO.
Any archive manager like 7-Zip or PeaZip will easily allow you to split up files as any size you want. For XISOs, just split at the standard FAT32 limit of 4096 MB. Archive managers usually have a preset for such.
After the splitting, you will need to change the naming scheme of the files in order for them to be compatible with XBE attachers.
By default, splitting the games with an archive manager will give the ISOs .001, .002, etc. file extensions, which are not supported by attacher XBEs. Each game should instead follow the naming convention of <Game Name>.1.iso and <Game Name>.2.iso so they can be compatible with XBE attachers.
If you have a tool like PowerRename, you can also batch convert the naming scheme of the files in one step like this:
- Make sure regular expressions are enabled in the renaming tool.
- In the "Search For" field, paste
.iso.00\dinto the text box. - In the "Replace With" field, paste
.${start=1}.isointo the text box.- Example:
- Apply the rename. It should be ready for usage with an XBE attacher on an Xbox now.
XISO Split
If the game ISO is >4 GB, you can also use this app to split the ISO into two parts. However, it should be noted that this app appears to abide by the file name limitations of FATX, even on the PC itself. So, if the program tries to pull the name of the game from the executable, but the game's internal name happens to have a character not supported by FATX, the program will fail to split the game.
You may want to split >4 GB games with a separate tool instead of XISO Split for this reason, but you can still use XISO Split for splitting if you wish.
- Download this app from Rocky5's Github and extract the contents to a folder somewhere on your computer.
- Add the desired XISO to the application.
- Click the button to create an attacher XBE.
- If the game is >4 GB, click the
Startbutton on the bottom left to split it.
Methods of Installation
Transferring Games to the HDD
Once your game is either "HDD Ready" or you have ISOs in a playable format, it is ready to be copied over to an Xbox.
Simply use FTP or FATXplorer to copy the folder for your game to a directory called Games on the E:/, F:/, or G:/ partitions on your Xbox's HDD. Your dashboard of choice should automatically detect the XBE and you can play it.
Make XISOs Playable with XBMC4Gamers
The custom dashboard XMBC4Gamers features a built-in script for creating attacher XBEs for XISOs. It will also move every ISO into its own game folder for proper content scanning on dashboards. Simply copy all of your XISOs to the directory for your games on the Xbox, and use the script built into XBMC4G to automatically create an attacher executable for each title.
Burning Games on a DVD-R
- Check the image above to identify which type of DVD drive your Xbox has. Use this chart to determine what kind of optical media that your Xbox DVD drive can support. In most cases, it's recommended to use a single layer DVD-R.
- Rip your game backup using DVD2Xbox and choose "ISO Ripper" mode. Transfer the generated ISO via FTP to your PC, and unsplit the ISO if it was a >4 GB dump.
- Use ImgBurn, or a similar DVD burning program, to burn the ISO to the chosen disc.
- If you want to burn two games to one disc, download C-Xbox Tool and choose the MenuX or MXM option on the left side. Add the ISOs you want to use, and choose "Create ISO Image". It will generate a single ISO which you can burn to your disc, assuming that you have enough space on the disc.