I just bought an oXbox for the first time (sorta)

[Reprise]

Hey bud, I'm reading too! sorry I've been MIA

Ziggy and nightrnr helped me a lot in my early PS2 & OGX mod days.

Can't recall if I replied earlier, but I did get my current OGX upgraded to a 250GB HDD and softmodded. I bought a 40 buck Kiaco HDMI adapter off Amazon. I was planning on this being a relatively temporaryp.

- Back up EEPROM key or zero it out using one of the newer tools. Caveat - I don't think the new Insignia online Xbox Live replacement works with key zeroed-out.

Hey, thanks for the reply! I have indeed backed up my EEPROM. What do I do with it when I need it? Is it in case the console dies or the hard drive dies? Basically, I know I was supposed to back it, but I didn't fully understand why I needed to, other than I understand the hard drives are locked to their systems

I have been having a blast on my Xbox and I really need to start thinking about upgrading the HDD some time too. Then I can just get everything ripped and not have to worry about the disc drive. I am actually in the process of doing that on my Gamecube as I have an SD2SP and have Swiss running on it.

Speaking of the disc drive, my new Xbox refuses to read Spikeout. I thought it was maybe because my disc was a bit scratched, but I just bought a new copy and it does the exact same thing! I wonder if it's the disc drive at fault (even though it reads other games ok) and I just need to either give the lens a clean and change the belt, or try replacing the drive with my old console's one (since that had no issue playing Spikeout). Or could it be the force progressive patch and/or mod causing some issue? I don't know. It's a weird coincidence if both discs are broken, but it's also weird that my Xbox/disc drive doesn't like that one game.

Anyways, one other thing I might try is downloading a copy and burning to a DVD, if it's possible to get it crammed onto a single layer disc by removing junk data, and seeing if that works. This is another reason why I need to upgrade the hard drive, because it's mental that each game's disc holds more data than there is free space on the stock hard drive that is installed

[Reprise]

Well a burned disc of Spikeout works fine, so I guess it's a combination of both my retail discs and the disc drive itself being slightly dodgy maybe. It's a bit odd. I guess I'll see how the disc drive goes and might take it apart sometime to give the lens a quick clean.

[Jagosaurus]

There are much newer softmod and HDD upgrade methods. Check out JRockys dashboard. He has a YT channel but I think Mr. Mario has the best step by step video tutorials. Search his channel for latest.

I'm still using the aging combo of 007 Agent Under Fire + UnleashedX softmod + JRocky's (now legacy version of) Chimp HDD upgrade tool from ~9 years ago. I already have these all set up and it's fairly seemless so I haven't migrated over yet. Again, use composite cables during all this.

Ahhh yes, I've ran into something with 2 games. I had 2 copies of Delta Force BHD that refused to read. 1 was scratched, 2nd I think had tiny disc rot pinholes. I FINALLY got a 3rd disc that worked

Then my copy of MX Unleashed has issues reading on my OGX, but isn't totally gone as my Series X can read it for backwards compatibility purposes

I'm assuming it has to do with how data is arranged on certain games that makes them more sensitive to scratch issues and/or aging DVD laser issues. At least the DVD drives are plug & play swaps!

[Reprise]

Yeah, I upgraded the softmod to Rocky's latest version. Although I don't think I actually needed to, as I only did it to fix the fact someone had set up VGA or RGB output to be forced over component, which was giving me the pink and green screen issues. I hadn't realised that I could change that setting in NKPatcher (which my old softmod also had installed) until I messed with it to force 480p on all games and apps. I'll look into how to upgrade the hard drive. Presumably I can safely move the contents of my old hard drive over to the new one so I can retain my save files? I'll start looking into it soon.

And I think you're right about how some discs are put together and that it causing issues for some drives, perhaps ones that are gradually deteriorating. I have a Dreamcast that hates disc 3 of Shenmue. It reads everything else fine, but disc 3 of Shenmue always has crashing issues (and I now own 3 or 4 different discs of it). It's good that Xbox disc drives are easily swappable though, like you said. My old Xbox had no issues with Spikeout, so hopefully just swapping the drives should sort it out. Then if both copies work, I know the discs are ok and I can sell one copy.

[Jagosaurus]

How did you end up with 2 copies of Spikeout!? not a cheap one!

Good to hear you fixed the color issues. Yeah the HDD upgrade process has some options & should be able to fully clone HDD content. Sounds like JRockys CHIMP program/XB App is still the go-to.

I actually am thinking of upgrading from a 250GB IDE to a 1 or 2 TB SATA, or even a solid state. I'd need to clone over my ripped games. I bought the current IDE drive new last year, but it was new, old stock aging on a shelf somewhere. At least it was mileage free. I backed up my HDD Key & eeprom.bin file, while also keeping the original HDD just to be safe.

100% how the DVD data is arranged & "queried" works the disc drive differently. I remember in DC burned CD-R days, some of the compressed/stripped down full GD-ROM files were rearranged ROUGH. DC disc drive sounded like it was going take off into orbit

[Reprise]

How did you end up with 2 copies of Spikeout!? not a cheap one!

Lol I know. I won my original copy in an auction last year. The second one, when I couldn't get my copy to load on my new Xbox, I happened to check eBay and see one listed cheap. I was actually looking for a disc only listing, but this one was a complete copy. It was cheap because the inlay has some pretty bad fade on the spine and part of the front and back next to the spine. They sent an offer out, so I picked it up in the hope the disc would work and I could then make some (if not most) of my money back hopefully by selling the case and manual.

Thanks for the tips on the HDD upgrade. I'll definitely look into that. I am slowly in the process of getting a lot of my old disc based games backed up and running off of external drives. My Gamecube is now set up with Swiss and running all my games off of an SD card and my PS2 is also running a lot of my games off an SD card now too (I know a hard drive is preferable, but I have a slim model). Last night I learned it's quite easy now to jailbreak a PS3, rip games straight to a USB thumb drive and run games off of there (it even works for PS1 and PS2 games apparently), so will do that next, before moving onto the ODE solutions for Dreamcast and Saturn.

100% how the DVD data is arranged & "queried" works the disc drive differently. I remember in DC burned CD-R days, some of the compressed/stripped down full GD-ROM files were rearranged ROUGH. DC disc drive sounded like it was going take off into orbit

I remember that too

I reckon one of those rips actually destroyed the laser on my original DC. Do you remember there were a few games that the teams behind those rips just couldn't squeeze onto a normal CD, so they produced rips that would only fit on hard to find 99min CD-Rs? Shenmue 2 was one and eventually they managed to fit in a normal CD-R by removing some speech and/or compressing it so much that it sounded absolutely awful The other game D2 was the one I reckoned wrecked my DC. They eventually fit that one on normal CD by taking the 4 disc game and turning it into a 6 or 7 disc one, by splitting some of the discs into two parts. That game made my disc drive go absolutely insane during certain points and one time whilst it was going crazy, the disc just stopped spinning and sounded like it had completely died. Sure enough, my console wouldn't read a single disc after that.

[Reprise]

I looked up a guide to upgrade the hard drive using the CHIMP program and it does look really straightforward. I might have to do that sooner rather than later, as relying on the disc drive is becoming a pain. My disc drive doesn't like Spikeout (as mentioned), but I also discovered yesterday it refuses to load my copy of Black and it is having more issues with Burnout 3 (a game that was working 90% of the time, but now seems to be presenting with more issues). It's weird because it has no issues with pretty much all my games except those 3 ones. Burnout 3 does have some nasty scratches, so I ordered another copy, but I can't see anything wrong with my Black disc.

A true test is going to be my Splinter Cell disc, because that one looks like it has been used as a chew toy by a dog, yet miraculously worked on previous console. If it works on my current one, but Spikeout and Black don't (and Burnout has intermittent problems), then it's going to be weird

Might have to just swap the disc drives in any case, as that might improve the disc reading issue in the meantime until I can upgrade the hard drive and rip all my games to that instead.

[marurun]

I am always really impressed that the Xbox used such off-the-shelf parts but then somehow slathered over them with proprietary stuff so that the Xbox is somehow the hardest console of the generation to emulate or interact with.

[Reprise]

I thought I would give an update on my Xbox situation.

Firstly, I swapped the disc drive and Spikeout and all games seem to work flawlessly now.

Secondly, I finally bit the bullet and upgraded the hard drive and have a 1tb installed. I would love to say it all ran smoothly, but honestly it was a right bitch to do. In theory it's easy. I completely get it. I didn't even need to do it along with a video tutorial, as the principal makes total sense. But in practice, twisting the new 80 wire ribbon cable back on itself, putting it all back together, not being able to put the shell back on for ages (I was an idiot! How I had bent the ribbon had left it covering one of the holes the shell slots down onto) was just a nightmare. Mostly down to my own incompetence (oh and the cheap molex splitter I picked up off Amazon, the pins from the male end bent and I had to spend ages bending them back trying to get it to fit!)

That said, it seems (touch wood!) to be set up and working ok. The only thing is, the Xbox now takes like a whole minute to turn on and boot to the dashboard. I looked on Reddit and people were saying it could be the SATA adapter, the cable, the disc drive (why would it be that!?), the hard drive or even just the Chimp program. So I really can't be doing with doing trial and error to work it out. Most people say avoid Chimp and do it yourself with FatXplorer on a PC and FTP the C and E partitions from the original drive ugh.

Hopefully games will all rip and run ok. I tested Burnout 3 and it seems to load perfectly and quickly, so I think it's all fine. I did have one complete freeze though that doesn't completely fill me with confidence...

[Reprise]

All games backed up on my 1TB hard drive and I still have about half the space left for any new games I pick up.

I just need to get the 3 caps by the heatsink replaced at some point.

Edit: Oh and I forgot to say, but it runs mostly flawlessly. It still takes longer to boot when you first turn the console on, but everything is fine after that as far as I tell. I also got occasional disc read errors (not recognising discs) whilst backing up all my games. I am not sure if that's a coincidence (scratched discs, the fact I switched disc drives a couple of days before the hard drive switch) or an issue down to me upgrading the hard drive and swapping the ribbon cable to a 80 wire one and using a SATA adapter. Either way, it seems like the disc drive is mostly working fine, so I'll see how it goes.