Soft-modded Xbox, but I have a few questions!

I may have a few other options for you. Best option is to find a Samsung SD616T and mod it to work with the Xbox. Rather simple to do. You just need to reverse the door tray motor, solder 4 wires for the original yellow cable since it has a few data lines, flash the modified SG605B firmware to it, and go. You can still find these drives on eBay for a good price and the modding itself isn't too hard to do. I actually have a half modded SD616T I can finish and test out for you. This drive when modified will play original games and all known CD/ DVD media. It's also extremely fast. Hardest part will be finding the proper wires on the yellow power cable to hook up. I can have it modified to where you just have to drill holes in the plastic drive holder thing, snap the front bezel on, hook it up, and go. I need to get the drive going anyways so give me a day or 2 to see if it will work out before deciding to hand it over to you if interested. If you want to do it yourself the instructions and hacked firmware are all over the net. Best place to get the firmware is Eurasia. In fact, here's some links on how to do this.

A page with documentation on all of the Xbox DVD drives as well as known working PC drives and what is needed to make them work.

The hacked Samsung SG605B firmware for the Sd616T. This download even includes a flasher tool that is supposed to work on Windows 7.

The instructions on how to modify the SD616T internally have disappeared from the net... I'll try to walk you through the steps. You need to do 2 things to the drive. first up is reversing the tray motor. Easy enough to do. It's at the front of the drive. Simply remove it completely, desolder from the PCB, turn 180 degrees, and resolder it back on. Part 2 is soldering 4 wires on the main PCB so the Xbox will get status readings, tray position, and the eject button hooked back up. This image shows the points you will need to solder. They're easy to find and even labeled. The points you need are "TRIN", "TROUT", "EJECT", and "M1". Images will give more info as well as how to hook these points into the yellow cable.




If you need any more help then I'll see what I can do. I could even make a video for the hard modding section since I still have to finish my drive.

 

Imgburn should be fine for burning your isos. Chances are it doesn't like the discs. Try and buy/borrow another (i.e. better) brand and give that a try.

If you want another drive and can't find one, you could try looking for another cheap console to take the drive from.

 

I also have a Phillips drive on hand that seems to read burned media fine if interested. A bit slow but it seems to work fine. Read a burned CD-R and DVD-RW I made with no problems. PM me if interested. not going to give a price here in public.

 

Thanks for the info! It looks to be far cheaper to mod a Samsung SD616T than trying to locate an Xbox version! How did you go with the drive you were working on?

The DVD-RWs and CDRs are both TDK brand, do Xbox drives not like this brand?

 

I haven't bothered with it at all. I actually have a Samsung 605 with bad laser coming and will be swapping the good laser from the 616T into it. I still have that flakey Phillips that was reading all my media fine when I removed it if interested. No cost. Just shipping.

 

When you say "a bit slow" is that just in comparison to the faster Samsung? Is it at least as fast as a stock Xbox drive?

 

Yeah. I'm comparing to a 605. Specifically my hybrid 616T/ 605 drive. It should be around as fast as a stock drive. I'll pop it in and do a test to make sure it still reads my media fine. Haven't used it in forever. Been trying to get rid of my useless Xbox junk since it clutters everything up and the Phillips drive is among that.

 

The tutorial for replacing the DVD drive with a Samsung SD-616T is here:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/5362919...box-DVD-ROM-Replacement-using-SamSung-SD-616T

 

Sweet, let me know how you get on!

Thanks for the link! Might have to be a project for some other time, since if sonicdude10's DVD drive works and can load all disks, I don't really mind that it's only as fast as a stock drive.

I finally sorted out my optical sound issue, it turns out that the cable was indeed faulty, despite that the optical cable glows and everything. Got a new cable and it works! Which also means surround sound! I've been playing the Futurama game and it supports 5.1 sound! Not sure if the game is bugged, but the front and rear channels appear to be reversed. Fry's footstep sounds come from the rear speakers and it sounds like environmental sounds are coming from the opposite direction that they're actually located. Any clues?

 

My Phillips DVD drive is in good working condition. Reads my burned AID DVD-RW disk just fine. My offer still stands if you want it. Not going to let go of my hybrid 605 or working 616T as I have the 605 in my console and the 616T will be going in another 605 and that will go in a 1.1 I got dirt cheap recently with the now classic stuck drive tray issue.

As for the reversed sound channels, do you run the optical through a decoder to make it analogue signals over a few cables? Could have that problem as my 5.1 headphones were that way. Reversing the subwoofer and center channel wires in them fixed it. I thought it was odd but they are Chinese built...

 

Cool, how much for postage to Australia?

I've got the TOSLINK cable plugged directly into my AV receiver from the Xbox, no extra cables.

 

Been away all day. I'll have to figure it out tomorrow. Getting a bit late here.

 

1) Easiest way is to just pack Evo-X and your BIOS of choice into an exploited memory card save. Then boot off the original game disc and flash with that.
2) If you're already modded (as you are) then you can FTP over Evo-X and the BIOS. Start Evo-X from your current launcher and flash.

I've always found the original Xbox drives to be picky with DVD-RW, especially if it was burned at high speed.

Stick with DVD-R for the best chance of success.

 

Don't burn Kameo to a disc, it's meant to be played from the Hard Disk. It does work from DVD but you'll get problems...

 

Does Kameo work on 64MB systems or only 128MB? Doesn't really matter to me since my console is 128MB. Just asking for others in case that is part of the issue.

BTW, downloading it ATM.

 

Does your system have 128mb of RAM? (I kid, I kid)

It apparently starts and runs on 64mb, but some areas have issues with freezing.

 

Haha.

It is a fun game but hard as hell. Still having trouble getting past the first level. Plays fine from the HDD.