Creating user profiles

As the hard drive has been formatted there are no user profiles on that console. I will be creating 2 user profiles; acc1 and acc2. One of the accounts will be used to play a game that has been installed to the hard drive and the other will be used to play a game from CD. I will be looking at the game saves and if there is any difference between the saves when running the game from hard disk and CD.

To create a user profile go to My Xbox > Sign In > Create Profile. The accounts I have created are; acc1 and acc2 selecting any of the avatars created by default.

The console is switched off and the hard drive imaged, see Xbox 360 hard drive acquisition (a single dd image will be created).

FTK results:

Analysis of this image will be performed at a later stage.

Initial setup and formatting

Starting with an unused Xbox 360 (manufacture date: 17/11/2006 (DD/MM/YYYY)), set the console up with no internet connection, just attach the necessary cables to use offline (power and video).

Turn the console on and if this is the first time it has been turned on it will ask you to create a gamer profile, I created a gamer profile called acc1 leaving the gamer picture as default and then exiting the setup. Once you exit the setup you will be asked to update the console or you will not be able to use it; accept and install the updates. When the console restarts you will be asked to sign in, select the one just created, pick an avatar then save and exit.

Next set the date/time of the console to the correct time, go to My Xbox > System Settings > Console Settings > Clock > Date and Time.

Then format the hard drive ('My Xbox > System Settings > Memory' press 'y' and select 'format); this will remove the profile you just created and anything else on the drive like videos and demo's. This will give me a fresh drive with nothing but the basic items the Xbox 360 places on it. Turn off the console and image the drive see Xbox 360 hard drive acquisition (a single dd image will be created).

FTK imager results:

Analysis of this image will be performed at a later stage.

Plan of initial experiments

I will format the Xbox 360 hard drive using the Xbox 360. A number of activities will be carried out on the Xbox 360, at each step a image of the drive will be taken for later analysis.

1. Format hard drive using  Xbox 360.
2. Create 2 profiles: acc1, acc2 - no internet access.
3. Play a game make multiple saves.
4. Install a game.
5. Play a game installed, make mulitple saves.
6. Sign in to an Xbox live account (my own account to be transferred via a USB memory stick to the experiment console).
7. Play online game.
8. Media streaming; pictures, music and video *addition to list*

This is what I intend to do, the results will be looked at after. The steps may also be extended, this is a brief overview of my first few experiments.

Note: I have quite a back log of activities, these will be put up shortly for the relevant date.

Using Xplorer360

Xplorer360 is a file browser for the Xbox 360 console. This software allows the contents of a Xbox 360 to be viewed and edited.

The physical drive can be loaded into Xplorer360 for viewing/editing or an image of an Xbox 360 drive can be loaded however an image can't be edited. Files from either method used can be extracted for later analysis.

Xplorer360 - open image

Select Xbox 360 image

Xplorer360 - view of Xbox 360 partitions

Images taken can be loaded into Xplorer360 as shown above, the all file types must be selected to see the 'dd' file extension. Once loaded into Xplorer360 the partitions (0,2 and 3) can be seen, by clicking on these partitions the files contained within will be displayed on the right and the sub-folders for that partition will also be shown underneath the given partition. By right clicking on the partition or any other file will allow all files and folders underneath to be extracted... All files shown by Xplorer360 were extracted for later analysis.