http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=12956.0

Again i've heard around big words about secret preservation in the name of 
the scene life, requesting a little sacrifice in $.
There is a guy that owns a topsecret way to dump drive fw, and i'm not going 
to reveal, cause it's something he should do, not me.
I'm sure i would have been able to discover myself, and i'm sure he would 
have been able to discover himself without my hints, why not, but i'm sure 
too that someone else can do it the same way.

I've spent a lot of time reversing the 7xxx fw to find an alternative 
solution, but now some flashed 93450 appeared on the mod market (lame 7xxx 
spoofed as 93450, probably you great modder don't have the mkt 
scrambling/descrambling app to change the original inquiry) with epoxy 
removed and reapplied (great security, i'm sure MS can't see it).

So, i'm sure the scene prefers to pay a MSproof modding to help the 
scene(rs), but if anyone wants to do some experiment and find the secret by 
himself, i'm happy to share something from my pocket, i'm sure someone with 
no $ in mind can report back some interesting result.

As you know, liteons have embedded spi flash, it's an MX25L2005 and a 
winbond in some cases.
during powerup, the spi is read by the mmtk internal flash controller, 
descrambled and copied to an internal sram. This sram is then connected to 
address and data pins of the 8051 core, which will start executing the code.
The mtk checkmodule checks for the first 0x200 bytes of spi flash, if are 
blank (all FF), the vendormode is full enabled with an ata status 72 and you 
can access the spi flash (and dosflash can read/write).
If the first 0x200 bytes are not blank, you can enter vendormode but you 
can't access the spi flash (status 52).
What i tried times ago, was to mess with the pins of the mtk chip to find a 
way to disable the spi flash during powerup, cause in many cases of spi 
imlementation, if the spi flash does not pull down MISO pin, the spi master 
reads all FF (lifting one pin makes an old psp battery pandorized, same 
principle).
The problem is that the embedded spi flash pins are not present outside of 
the mtk chip, except vcc and ground which are shared with other internal 
stuff).

Use some imagination, and feel free to do what you want with your discovery.