XBOX-HQ.COM - Marriage Theory

BCossette Writes:

Hey All,

I just recently received a message from DCMODS on our forum, and he graciously gave me a write up on an experiment with the "Marriage Theory". Here is his write-up, along with a short write up I found about the Marriage Theory:

I just want to let you all know a few things about the marriage theory that I've run into.

First off, I have my degree in programming and IT, and I've modded xboxes for a while now. However, here is what I have found. As of today, 4/7/2005, I've bought 10 NEW IN THE BOX Xboxes from a variety of places like Best Buy, Target, SAM'S Club and Wal Mart. All were BRAND NEW, SEALED IN THE BOX. I modded all of them for the store that I own, because we game in the back of the store.

I put the Xecutor 3 mod chip in, with the latest BIOS, a 120 gb HDD in all, and I installed the UIX dashboard seeing as I can't get THC Lite to boot off of the F partition. I don't install anything "Hacked" onto any of the C or E partitions, and follow the marrage theory to the letter. All I have to say is that 4 of my boxes have been banned so far now. And to answer the question that you are all thinking, no I didn't use the same account on all 4 boxes.

Everytime a box would get banned, I would cancel the xbox live account associated with that box, seeing as I have a bunch of free 2 month cards, so I really didn't care about the account anyways. I also have a buddy that I modded his xbox about a year back now, and he just recently got banned, and I followed the marriage theory exactly also, and he just got banned 4 days ago.

SO TO ALL OF YOU OUT THERE, BEWARE! I THINK MSFT IS CHECKING A BIT DEEPER NOW INTO YOUR BOX, AND I SUGGEST PUTTING AN EXTENDER OR SIMILAR ITEM IN YOUR BOX SO YOU CAN DUAL BOOT HDDS.

I have a buddy that modded his box and used an extender, so everytime he goes onto xbox live he boots up the stock hdd and has the mod chip off, using the stock xbox hdd. I really feel that this is an unfortunate step to the xbox modding community, and I have many issues with what MSFT is doing to the people that are modding their boxes. But this is for another forum. If any of you have any questions, you can email me at Dan.white03@comcast.net or post them here and I would be happy to help you. And I want to give a big thanks to everyone here for all of your help in the past. I would like to know what you think about this. I just posted this message in the forums. DW

**UPDATE 1**

Here is a write-up I found containing a summary of the "Marriage Theory":

Marriage Theory is simple, when you first log in to XBOX Live your Eeprom and Hard Drive serial number are "married" or linked together in whatever files MS has on their servers.

Well it means that instead of just banning the Eeprom, as in the past, you Hard Drive is also banned.

Additionally, it means that if either Eeprom or Hard Drive are changed without the other (IE: HD upgrade after using Live or Eeprom replacement after banning) you will get banned.

**UPDATE 2**

It seems that while eeproms are married to HDs the Hard Drives can be polygamists, an unbanned (yet not "virgin") HD can be married to multiple Eeproms. So moving an unbanned Hard Drive to a new xbox will not result in a ban, even if the HD has been on Live with another Xbox.

News-Source: Xbox-Hq Member DCMods