UNmod my xBox?

[HatefulGravey]

I just got an xBox from a thrift store. The man working there said he didn't know what it was doing but it wasn't doing what a normal one does. He said "its says something about arcade on it". So I gave him $20 and took it and few controllers and a few games with me. I hook it up in the thrift store before I leave and its modded of coarse, and thats what I was thinking it was. So the questions begin.

 

Is there a way to unmod the xbox and go back to original? I have a modded box, and this one is in a little better shape (the disk door wont open on my other system and this one does) so I'm thinking if I can I might return this one to normal. This is a soft mod, I can't remember the name of it but it the same one I have on the other system too.

 

If I can't or decide not to unmod it, is there a way to put in a bigger HD now? I did this before with my other system many moons ago, and that was put in during the mod, not after....

 

I'm sure this thing hasn't had the HD replaced with a bigger one, and I'm going to want to put MAME on this system if I keep it so I can play on my bigger tv with no trouble, but the 8Gb HD that came with these things isn't going to cut it.

 

So, can it be put back to normal?

[Bruce Tomlin]

I suppose it's possible to copy a fresh software image to it, if there's an FTP server working.

 

I only have hard-modded units (I bought two hard mod chips at the same time because it wasn't much more after shipping to get a second), so I can't really help you with the details. Hard mods may take some effort to install, but they require a lot less fiddling once they're in. Most importantly, you can run with the drive unlocked, which I'm pretty sure you can't do with a soft mod.

 

The main thing is that if the DVD drive is working, it was probably worth the 20 bucks right there.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Bruce Tomlin

[HatefulGravey]

The DVD drive doesn't seem to work properly right now. I really think it needs a good cleaning.

[the.golden.ax]

Why would you want to unmod it? Regular units are a dime a dozen. Modded units are far cooler. I've love to see some pics and descriptions of what comes up. It could be from one of those arcade machines. Quasicade.

 

AX

[Chuplayer]

There may be a backup disk image already on the hard drive. However, without any XBL for the original XBOX anymore, there's no reason to unmod it.

[SlowCoder]

There may be a backup disk image already on the hard drive.

I was wondering the same thing. I don't have an XBox, but I do have a PS3, and it came with a restore DVD. I'd be surprised if the XBox doesn't also have one.

[Hatta]

There's no reason to un-mod it. Doing so would make it less useful.

 

You want to put a new hard drive in it. If it's hard modded, it should just be a drop in replacement. If it's a soft mod it will require some gymnastics to "unlock" the drive, so you can build a filesystem on it, and then relock the drive so it can be read by unmodded hardware.

 

What you want to do right now, before you do *anything else* to it, is dump the eeprom. Once you have the eeprom you can lock any IDE hard drive for use with this (and only this) Xbox. Since your box is already modded, it will be easy to do this. Check out the Wiki for tips on how to do this.

 

Once you have the eeprom, you can prepare the new hard drive with Xboxhdm. Google will take you to some tutorials. I haven't done this myself, but it looks straight forward for anyone with basic computer literacy skills. When you're done, you should have a new virgin Xbox hard drive that will need to be softmodded to do any fun stuff like emulators or XBMC. (I guess you could stop here if you really want an unmodded box) I recommend using Auto Installer Deluxe, it's stupid easy and very well documented.

 

I think that about covers it. Also remember that a softmodded Xbox can run games from the hard drive, so the broken DVD drive is nothing to worry about at all. I could count on one hand the number of times I've used my Xbox's DVD drive.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Hatta

[HatefulGravey]

I have a modded xBox other then this one. I guess I could sell this one or something. That xBox is nice as aside from the DVD drive they are built like a tank and it has a 180Gb drive and many games on the HDD already. That disc drive works when it opens, something I just saw a video on fixing on YouTube so I'm going to try that when it comes home from my buddy's house.

 

Yeah, the more I think about it, I would like to get the DVD drive to work if I can (I really think it just needs a good cleaning as this unit is a bit dirty) and I'll sell it or give it away or something. I have no need for 2 of this system if they are both the same thing anyway.

[the.golden.ax]

I have a modded xBox other then this one. I guess I could sell this one or something. That xBox is nice as aside from the DVD drive they are built like a tank and it has a 180Gb drive and many games on the HDD already. That disc drive works when it opens, something I just saw a video on fixing on YouTube so I'm going to try that when it comes home from my buddy's house.

 

Yeah, the more I think about it, I would like to get the DVD drive to work if I can (I really think it just needs a good cleaning as this unit is a bit dirty) and I'll sell it or give it away or something. I have no need for 2 of this system if they are both the same thing anyway.

 

 

I've got a box full of new lasers from back in the repair heyday.

 

AX

[HatefulGravey]

 

I've got a box full of new lasers from back in the repair heyday.

 

AX

 

How hard is it to replace them? I haven't actually seen that done. I normally look on YouTube and the like for these kinds of things. It hasn't let me down yet.

 

Does that normally get it done right?

[the.golden.ax]

It depends on the model. It's been 6 years, as I recall you just take the drive apart and put the new laser on the track. That and there was some jazz about soldering a pair of points since it ships open, unused.

 

AX

[Austin]

Generally there is a special bios screen you can get to that allows you to roll back the mod. I can't tell you how you would access that though. I know on my soft-modded system, there is a button combination, and sometimes it will go to this screen when I power up the system by pressing the eject button as opposed to the power button.