# Xbox DVD drive replacement



## Sicklyboy (Jul 15, 2011)

Where is the best place to find replacement Xbox DVD drives?  I've looked on Amazon and Ebay and can't really find anything at all... I want to get rid of this shitty old Thompson drive that hardly works at all.

Also, this IS an original xbox.


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## Armadillo (Jul 15, 2011)

Looking around I can't locate any either except a few thomson drives 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





. Only thing I can think of, is if you can find a broken box, with a working drive for cheap enough you can just swap the drives over or you can use a normal pc drive if you want

http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/dvddrive.php

Although you will lose the ability to play original discs.


Have you considering modding it? Rather than mess around hunting drives down, just softmod the thing and play straight from the hdd? You don't need to solder and it can be done for free.


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## Sicklyboy (Jul 16, 2011)

Yeah I'm looking into softmods, the hotswap method specifically.  Only hard part is gonna be downloading all the games I have (I have a good 20 games).  Got a 500 gig internal for it today that I'll swap to once I get the softmod setup properly.

Does the xbox have a way to rip games to hdd like Wii backup loaders do?


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## dilav (Jul 16, 2011)

There is a 'refurb' Samsung drive going for 25.50 on eBay
It's also possible to modify the GDR-8163B (quite common, also used for RawDump) and SD 616T/F drive. These two drive can be flashed with a firmware which reads xbox games.



			
				plasma dragon007 said:
			
		

> Does the xbox have a way to rip games to hdd like Wii backup loaders do?


DVD2Xbox as well as dashboards, and applications can do this.


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## Sicklyboy (Jul 16, 2011)

Thanks for the responses guys.

Finally got the box softmodded, slapped in a 500 gig wd caviar blue which works great, put the F/ partition on it.  Before I cloned the stock drive, I ripped Robotech Invasion to E/ and it launched just fine.  I downloaded a Halo Combat Evolved ISO, and tried to extract and FTP it to F/Games/Halo Combat Evolved with  Craxtion 4.  Shows up in my game browser, but it just hangs at a black screen when I launch it.  Any idea why?

This is so much more confusing to me than the Wii stuff -_-

Also, I am trying to figure out how to reinstall UnleashX as the primary dash... cloning the stock drive to the 500 wdc made it have this blue one that is themed after the original dash, but looks weird... unless I find something, any help would be appreciated.  Complete noob at this and don't want to screw it up -_- - UnleashX was running the whole time, but reverted back to the Default skin.  Changed it back to the skin I wanted and got it to save... disregard this.

And I enabled the G/ drive.  Didnt realize F could only be so big.


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## Sicklyboy (Jul 17, 2011)

Meh.  Ordered a replacement laser for my Thomson drive for 8 bucks, free shipping.

Still would like to know why Halo isn't working when I FTP it to my xbox though...


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## lenselijer (Jul 17, 2011)

what softmod did you use? halo is one of the first xbox games so it should work fine on anything. I think your iso is not good, try ripping it again.


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## Sicklyboy (Jul 17, 2011)

Xboxhdm with ndure.  I'll dl another ISO, I guess.  I have the gam but my fracking thomson drive wont read it because it's a piece of shit.  Ordered a new laser, gonna wait a month for it >_>


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## Sicklyboy (Jul 18, 2011)

Torrented a different ISO, extracted that, left with the same file structure as the other one: \bink\, \maps\, \default.xbe

Can't ftp it to the box right now because my only net connection for it is in the living room (xbox is in MY room... actually I could wirelessly ftp) but I can't imagine it will work...


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## Sicklyboy (Jul 19, 2011)

I guess it was the iso o.o

Set up an uber ghetto ftp connection from my desktop to my xbox.  Mobo has 2 ethernet ports, so one is hardwired from my router to my pc.  The other one is wired from the xbox to my pc.  Also have a pci wireless card on my pc, connected to my home wifi network.  Bridged the xbox's ethernet connection to the wifi adapter in windows and ftp'ed the new iso to the box and it worked great 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 (oh, and I didn't hardwire the xbox to my 2nd ethernet port and ftp directly because the ftp guide i read said you needed a crossover cable, which I don't have)


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## FAST6191 (Jul 19, 2011)

Crossover cables are network cables with a couple of swapped wires (crossed over if you will). Back when it might have made a difference but today most network cards and ports if it is even necessary will be able to do it in software or possibly hardware but either way it is pointless on most modern network gear.
Diagrams if you get a sudden urge to make one.
http://www.incentre.net/content/view/75/2/

If you would rather not fiddle with the router and wireless (although decent wireless speeds and xbox hard drive speeds are not too different) you can run a DCHP server on your PC (or fiddle with static IPs I guess). Oh and that way is a fairly nice way to have wireless on your xbox.

P.S.- usenet. Have a look there.


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## MSaki (Aug 5, 2011)

i just wired in a old dvd reader and burner into my old one just find pinouts of the old dvd power cable and wire it with ide power on the other side or just split the hdd power connector

use ide ata 66 im not sure if higher is supported as its faster.

after every thing above is done find the original firmware for the old random dvd drive and open it inject the dvd firmware for xbox games or just leave the drive alone as it will still read burned games.

(non patched firmware drives will only read burned xbox games)(patched will read all)


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