January 10, 2004

	I'm proud to announce that UnleashX (not unleashx -that's me, Unleashx or Unleash-X, it's cap U and X ;p ) can now format new harddisk without using the PC to prepare it first. Previous versions simply just wouldn't work and would spit out Error 21. The 5.61MB video shows the xbox booting up and the dash proceeding to format the HD -only if you booted from a CD/DVD disk. Of course, it will ask for your permission and requires you to press certain keypad combination before proceeding and it has enough warning -after this is completely up to you. After confirming, the dash will format Drives C, E, X, Y and Z. Then it will ask if you have drive F and if you want to format it. Same goes with Drive G (not if you skipped formatting of F), if you have it. It is important that you know whether you have G or not as it would likely crash on some BIOSes if you elected to select/format it but there's no G partition.

	After it has formatted the new disk, the dash will detect the presence of D:\CDrive (or D:\CBackup), D:\EDrive (or D:\EBackup), D:\FDrive (or D:\FBackup), D:\GDrive (or D:\GBackup) and copies the content to appropriate destinations. If either of the source for E isn't present, it will create TDATA and UDATA on the said drive. Further, it will detect for the presense of evoxdash.xbe on the C and if it isn't there, it will copy default.xbe into drive c as evoxdash.xbe. For people with older chip, it will detect xboxdash.xbe and if it couldn't find it, install itself as default.xbe on drive C.

	The UI is kinda rudimentary and may feel one step backward from what EvolutionX currently does, but it works and it's very simple. The backup files doesn't have to be there as you can copy them later with the built-in file manager. A few more commands will be added that are useful to some people (installers).

	Note: Using HD prepare on a new HD won't fire this up as the drive won't be detected as new. It has to be a brand new, out of the static bag HD ;). Of course, you can manually invoke the process via the action command (Action="PrepareHD") when the new version comes out. I'm putting the next release under a microscope. While I'm currently satisfied with it, I wanted to put and test some more.


	I'd like to thank the people at Modchip-Source (www.modchipsource.com) for making this possible (you know who you are). He is kind enough to provide a new 250GB Western Digital harddisk for my testing. He doesn't want me to mention this but I feel it's just right, for without his help, this may not happen so quick. So again, thank you very much. Please support this site as hardly you will ever meet a man who is very much willing to help the scene.

	Of course, my usual thanks goes to the people at Xbox-Scene, Xbins, to the homebrew app makers, to the beta testing group and to all users for finding my work worthy and useful. Let's all keep the scene rolling and make it better -no bashing ;). Cheers!!!