Hey guys So I am working on my own original Xbox laptop, and I have hit a snag. I planned on using an optical drive from a laptop, because I saw that people had done this before. I first saw someone do this in this video (with a Toshiba SD-R2512) The creator of the video states in the description which particular optical drive he used, so I made sure to get the same one. I was aware that I would need an adapter to go from the 40 pin ide connection to the 50 pin pata optical drive connection, so I made sure to purchase that. Naively, I thought it would be as easy as plugging the power cable and ide connector into the adapter and the optical drive would work. When I try to turn on the Xbox with the optical drive attached I just get a red green, red green light error (the Xbox doesn't shut down just flashes red then green). My guess is that I need to find certain signals on the pcb's inside the drive, specifically the tray open/closed and disc in/out, signals then connect them to the yellow wires from the dvd power connector at the back of the motherboard, but I am not absolutely sure. I found a good tutorial on doing this here http://www.command-tab.com/2005/04/12/dvd-rom-modded-xbox/ But the tutorial is talking about a desktop size optical drive, not a laptop size one. I don't know how I could have the laptop optical drive apart and use a logic probe while ejecting and closing the drive to find the signals. It just doesn't seem like a possible thing to do, since the laptop optical is so small and you don't have access to the pcb's while the tray is closed. If anybody else knows anything more than I do about this please let me know. I have already tried messaging the two people that I know of that have successfully pulled this off, but no reply yet.
Well the signal of the tray being open or closed is controlled by the yellow/brown connector on the board. Reason why replacing the XBOX drive with any PC (or Laptop in the this case) drive won't operate normally. Do you get any error number when you get a frag? It will most likely be a DVD-ROM related error, so the Xbox simply isn't accessing the drive whatsoever if that's the case. That's just my understanding on it anyway.
Thanks for the reply Hexigon, I do not get any error when the Xbox begins to flash red green. I am not sure that you would call this a frag though as the Xbox never shuts down, it only flashes red green. Yeah I kinda assumed the Xbox wasn't accessing the drive, so what I need to do now is hook up the yellow (or brown) wires to the drive so that the Xbox does access the drive. This is why I believe the signals on the drive need to be found. I don't believe that I could hook the yellow (or brown) wires up to the pata 50 pin to ide 40 pin adapter because I don't think the signals would be located there but maybe I am wrong. I wish the two guys who have accomplished this mod would share their information. I am thinking I am going to have to do this the hard way, by using a logic probe to try and find the signals. Someone let me know that I can trick the tray into thinking that it is closed when really isn't and that way I should be able to probe around and hopefully find these signals. I wish I knew approximately where to look, and whether or not I have to search on both pcb's in the drive or just one to find all the signals.
you actually dont, it will recognize the drive without a custom firmware but it will not real retail discs. you honestly just need to be able to power it and get the appropriate signals to the xbox, so hes right that he needs to track down the correct signal points. It just will never read a retail game but will play backup media fine.
