The original xbox I got has a dead hard drive. Is there a way I can replace it? I know there are way to upgrade the hard drive but with the original working. But what I can do now with a dead one? Is it completely dead or I'm lucky and can be fix.
It's been a long time since I've had to fix something like this ... here's what I remember You'll have to get a modchip, with a bios that allows unlocked hdds. Retail BIOS requires you to have a lock hard drive so you cannot just put a new one in without some type of mod. I'm not sure if there's a softmod way to do this. I'm sure others can comment to confirm that. There are programs you can burn to a disc (once your console is modded) to reinstall any dashboard/software you want.
I read about someone using an EEPROM reader on an unmodded Xbox, then using xboxhdm to rebuild a new HDD. It would be easier to just install a modchip.
You can use a Eeprom reader and dump the Eeprom from the system to get the HDD key and redo a new hard drive xboxhdm like mentioned above, but its far cheaper and cost effective just to buy a cheap hard mod (Aladdin xt) install it and use one of the repair discs(google Hexen - Heimdall's Xbox Engineering Disc) to partition, reformat, and copy the missing dash files back to the new drive. Allso once you have it hard modded you dont need to keep the HDD locked at all times, meaning you can use a IDE to SATA adapter and a normal hard drive perfectly fine. PS There's allso the very faint chance that your console might have been tsopped flashed (if its V1.4 or below) so I would check for that just incase as it removes the need for a hard mod.
As fasman and others have said above you can read the eeprom to a bin file and use xboxhdm to build a new drive for the system. Once you've got the system running you can then tsop flash it so you don't need a locked hard drive in the future. I have one of these eeprom readers
Go with the modchip install, its probably easier then building your own eeprom reader unless you can buy one somewhere. PM me if you need help.
For what I can read the easiest way for an xbox noob is to install a modchip. Which modchip is recommended and the easier to find, to install it is no problem I can solder fine I had installed modchips before. Also where I can find those modchip like I said before I'm no expert with the xbox.
I actually built the simple eeprom reader and it worked great for me. However I had a bunch of Xbox to repair and it was useful for more than one console. If you dont expect to need the reader more than once you should probably just get a modchip as the others suggested.
I have some duox2 gs's that are cheap . Pm me if you want one. Otherwise check on the marketplace for other's selling some alladin's. This guy is really good. He sell's alladin's. If you in the USA pm me and i'll sell you one duox2 gs for cheap. http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?39971-For-Sale-Modding-parts-chips-etc
I'd just install a modchip really. Less hassle if you know how to do it. Only other way is the to dump the EEPROM and read it through Config Live and copy the key or include the EEPROM.bin in XBOXHDM and lock the Hard Disk. Doubt you have a PC with IDE so, modchip would be the utter most best option.
