Xbox(original, not 360) Mod

[fastbilly1]

So how hard is the softmod? Its been years since Ive looked into modding an xbox but in the very near future I might endup with four more of them. So I figured why not softmod, upgrade all the drives to 80 gigers that I have lying around, and throw on the handful of 4-16 player games that my friends and I will play in multiplayer.

What are the pitfalls?
How long does it typically take?
Does the fella who had the softmod kit still have it for rent?
Are there any compatibility issues with games loading off the harddrive?

[avrame]

Softmodding is relatively easy to do, but depending on what type of computer you have, getting the 80gb harddrives to work with the softmodded box will be a pain.

For me, my motherboard didn't have the appropriate bios or drivers to lock/unlock the hdds for xbox usage, so I eventually gave up to buy a modchip so I can use the xbox with an unlocked hdd.

for softmodding, all you'll need is a softmod game (splinter cell or mech assault are my faves, easily for for $0.50 at pawn shops), a memory card and a means to put a save from the pc onto your memcard. I made a xbox controller to USB cable, and transfered the save that way. worked great for me.

[fastbilly1]

Well I have 9 working pcs in my office right now with about 12 os's so I I will look into the harddrive issue first. I wont be getting the xboxs until Memorial Day weekend, so I have time to plan this out, I think.

More questions:
Do any of the dashboards scrub garbage data out of the game images?
Can I use a memory card in a xbox controller I have hooked up via a usb adapter? I do not own a memory card so I never thought about this until right now.

[Hatta]

The softmod itself is stupid easy. Replacing the hard drive takes a little more work. Google 'xboxhdm' for tutorials. I haven't done it myself, but it looks like something anyone with basic computer literacy skills should be able to do.

I've only found one game I haven't been able to play from the hard drive, Fahrenheit. Actually, it plays it just bugs out on one scene. Don't know if it's the mod or a bug in the game. Everything else I've tried runs perfectly.

If you need a kit, I have Mechassault and an Xbox memory card with the save file preloaded. I can lend it to you when you want to do this.

Not sure what kind of garbage you're thinking about in the game images. The Xbox doesn't launch game images directly, the files have to be extracted from the image and put in the Xbox filesystem. Hdl dump or WinHIIP do this for you. I don't think it does any more processing than that but I could be wrong.

[fastbilly1]

Hatta,
I appreciate the offer, we will talk as soon as I get the boxes.

My garbage data I mean that at of the games are not a full 4.7 gigs. So say the game is 1.2 gigs the rest of the disc is full of garbage data so the console reads it as a full 4.7 gigs. For other consoles they scrub garbage data out of the games so they fit in a smaller data footprint. The best example I can give is that Wii Sports is something like 32 megs when scrubbed.

I am tempted to not upgrade the harddrives, since they do come with 8 gig drives and odds are there are only two or three games we want to play anyway.

[Hatta]

Oh sure then. Once the files are extracted from the iso (by hdl_dump or winhiip as the case may be), they only occupy their actual size on the Xbox's filesystem.

[fastbilly1]

Beautiful. Thank you Hatta. I will finally get to play Metal Wolf Chaos!!!

[gtmtnbiker]

Hdl dump or WinHIIP do this for you.

Those are PS2 utilities. I think I used craxtion but it's been awhile.

http://www.xboxscene.com/tools/tools.php?page=isotools

[Hatta]

Oh hell, you're right. Easy enough to get those mixed up.

Now that I'm thinking straight, the process for the Xbox is to extract the files from the ISO on your computer, and just transfer them over with FTP. I use XDVDFS tools, but now that I look I can't find the archive anymore. I'm sure you can find something on Xbox Scene.

[avrame]

Call me noobish for asking, but whats wrong with ripping with DVD2Xbox? that staple in all the softmod builds, and works great. Rips out the fluff data as well.