Xbox dvd drive

Xanex · 17th May 2006, 3:36 PM

Hi all,
I have an xbox which is purely used for console emulation (my master system died so I have alex kidd on the xbox

) and home theatre. The box i own is a 1.0 revision which means I have the thompson drive. This drive can be tempremental with media at times so Im wanting to replace it. What i want to know is, is it possible to just jam a normal drive in its place and mod the case so the eject button is accessible? or will this just not work? I have scoured net but all i can find is tutorials that require the orriginal drive to be left in place (ugly) or a bunch of soldering on the replacement drive to make it funciton as a needed for games.

I dont want to play games....just dvd, div-x etc. I solder like a frog with parkinsons....so avoiding this would be good.

kamehameha · 17th May 2006, 3:50 PM

Depends on how neat you want to be?

You are right in that you cant power the xbox up without the drive in place - so the trick it to make (or buy) a Molex y adapter, and then piggyback power off of the hard drive.

You use the IDE cable from the Thompson drive, and plug it into any standard PC drive.

This way, power still goes to the thompson drive, allowing you to boot up, but the data comes from whichever drive you want to insert.

Does the trick with my xbox, although it is an untidy fix.

sanjay · 17th May 2006, 5:03 PM

it wont work.

the xbox DVD drives read DVDs differently to normal PC DVD drives, which is why you cant do direct copies of xbox games on your PC.

i wont say how you do, but it involves your modded xbox and a network cable

as a result you'll have to use a normal xbox dvd drive - i strongly recommend the samsung drives, can pick them up off ebay.

if you dont care about being able to read EVERY media format ever made, then the philips drive is also good, and much cheaper.

Xanex · 17th May 2006, 5:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanjayschrapel

it wont work.

the xbox DVD drives read DVDs differently to normal PC DVD drives, which is why you cant do direct copies of xbox games on your PC.

i wont say how you do, but it involves your modded xbox and a network cable

as a result you'll have to use a normal xbox dvd drive - i strongly recommend the samsung drives, can pick them up off ebay.

if you dont care about being able to read EVERY media format ever made, then the philips drive is also good, and much cheaper.

Umm I dont think you read my question properly....It will work, but not tidily. You can run any drive you want in an xbox, but the only way I can find to do so is to leave the original drive in place with power connected but no IDE. I AM NOT WANTING TO PLAY GAMES, COPY GAMES OR HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH GAMES. All I want to do is replace the drive to make my xbox a better home theatre machine. My question is can i do this as a clean replacement rather than the aforementioned method

Jesper64 · 19th May 2006, 6:39 PM

I was looking into this a little while ago. It's sort of possible. If you want just the new drive hooked up you will need to have a modded xbox (to bypass the DVD check).

XBMC has an option in the xml to use a "PC DVD Drive". I've given this a go with a DVDRW drive hooked up through a Y splitter and plugged into the IDE cable. It didn't really work, I was able to view the contents of a DVD but when I went to play a video file it would hang. I'm not sure if that's because it was a RW drive and not just a normal ROM drive, but I've read of other people having a similiar problem.

However, just recently I cam across this article on Xbox-scene, talking about fooling the xbox into thinking there was a disk in the drive by fiddling with the yellow DVD cable. I haven't tried this but might work for you.

If you're interested I've got a LG-8163B DVD ROM drive that has been modified to work with the Xbox. It's a standard PC drive so requires a bit of modding to fit inside your standard Xbox case but it will read all media including original Xbox games.

17th May 2006, 3:36 PM	#1
Xanex Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Devonport, Tas Posts: 560	Xbox dvd drive Hi all, I have an xbox which is purely used for console emulation (my master system died so I have alex kidd on the xbox ) and home theatre. The box i own is a 1.0 revision which means I have the thompson drive. This drive can be tempremental with media at times so Im wanting to replace it. What i want to know is, is it possible to just jam a normal drive in its place and mod the case so the eject button is accessible? or will this just not work? I have scoured net but all i can find is tutorials that require the orriginal drive to be left in place (ugly) or a bunch of soldering on the replacement drive to make it funciton as a needed for games. I dont want to play games....just dvd, div-x etc. I solder like a frog with parkinsons....so avoiding this would be good. __________________ The Tasmanian Waterfalls Index \| My Gallery \| Camera Club Member 251 \| MiGorengNoodle Club member #27

17th May 2006, 5:03 PM	#3
sanjay Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Prospect, Adelaide, SA Posts: 13,028	it wont work. the xbox DVD drives read DVDs differently to normal PC DVD drives, which is why you cant do direct copies of xbox games on your PC. i wont say how you do, but it involves your modded xbox and a network cable as a result you'll have to use a normal xbox dvd drive - i strongly recommend the samsung drives, can pick them up off ebay. if you dont care about being able to read EVERY media format ever made, then the philips drive is also good, and much cheaper. __________________ 2003 Mitsubishi Magna TL VR Limited Edition \| 5sp Auto, 17" Enkei Ralliart Alloys Over 120 Successful Trades on OCAU - Most Recent: dche5390, Rugal, Tornhelm, ummmz, darknight84, bumography, b4sk3tb4ll3r, marktadros, MoveIt, Maxknott, NoBooze, bnyboy, Stooge007, caddy, the_rick, Soupratt, Doktor, Logik47, KraniX, Talisman, start, gizmo_melb, Omarko, Arkanite, WooKiE_MaN, PM for full list

17th May 2006, 3:50 PM	#2
kamehameha Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 867	Depends on how neat you want to be? You are right in that you cant power the xbox up without the drive in place - so the trick it to make (or buy) a Molex y adapter, and then piggyback power off of the hard drive. You use the IDE cable from the Thompson drive, and plug it into any standard PC drive. This way, power still goes to the thompson drive, allowing you to boot up, but the data comes from whichever drive you want to insert. Does the trick with my xbox, although it is an untidy fix.

19th May 2006, 6:39 PM	#5
Jesper64 Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Perth Posts: 428	I was looking into this a little while ago. It's sort of possible. If you want just the new drive hooked up you will need to have a modded xbox (to bypass the DVD check). XBMC has an option in the xml to use a "PC DVD Drive". I've given this a go with a DVDRW drive hooked up through a Y splitter and plugged into the IDE cable. It didn't really work, I was able to view the contents of a DVD but when I went to play a video file it would hang. I'm not sure if that's because it was a RW drive and not just a normal ROM drive, but I've read of other people having a similiar problem. However, just recently I cam across this article on Xbox-scene, talking about fooling the xbox into thinking there was a disk in the drive by fiddling with the yellow DVD cable. I haven't tried this but might work for you. If you're interested I've got a LG-8163B DVD ROM drive that has been modified to work with the Xbox. It's a standard PC drive so requires a bit of modding to fit inside your standard Xbox case but it will read all media including original Xbox games.