Xbox DVD drives

[SlickRoenick]

My friend's Xbox took a dump the other day. He has the original Thompson drive, which is said to be the worst one in the world. So i checked around and found that Samsung 616 can be compatitible. But among the other boards and webpages there are mentions of different 616's. I have seen 616, 616E, 616F, and 616T. Naturally i don' tknow the difference b/t any of them. Does anyone know if the xbox behaves differently depending on which drive?

[SlickRoenick]

<be dum bump>

[Saranga]

AFAIK, the xbox doesn't care which drive is hooked up. But any PC CD-ROM will not work. Your best bet is to get a replacement drive out of another Xbox.

If you are looking to modify one of those Samsung drives to work in an Xbox, you have to find yourself some illegally distributed software, which is not something you'll see discussed on the SDMB.

[Richard Pearse]

There's nothing particularly wrong with the Thompson drive except that it doesn't read CDRs very well. Some people seem to think that it's the cause of the dreaded Dirty Disk Errors, but I had a Thompson Xbox and never had problems with DDEs. I agree with the above poster's suggestion to get one from another Xbox. They come with Samsung or Philips if you really don't want a Thompson.

[pestie]

For the record, there's no off-the-shelf standard PC DVD-ROM drive that'll work in the Xbox. There is a Samsung drive that can be made to work with it, but it requires these modifications:

o The Xbox DVD-ROM drive's firmware needs to be flashed onto the Samsung drive.
o The motor that spins the disc needs its polarity reversed.
o 4 wires need to be soldered to the circuit board of the drive and then to a connector which mates with the "yellow cable" inside the Xbox.

Someone mentioned "illegal software" being necessary - I don't believe this is so. Since you own a legal copy of the Xbox DVD-ROM's firmware (by virtue of the fact that you own the actual Xbox DVD-ROM drive) you should be well within your rights to make a backup of that firmware. Installing it on another drive might be a legal grey area as far as licensing goes but I can't imagine that anyone would really have a problem with you doing it if all you intend to do is replace a defective Xbox drive with one that works.

Reversing the polarity of the motor is most easily done by desoldering it, flipping it around 180 degrees, and resoldering it.

[bdgr]

The dvd drive in my sons xbox stopped working, but all it needed was a cleaning disk shoved into it, and it was good as new...worth a try if its not working

[SlickRoenick]

The cleaning disk is what did it in for good. After that, not even music cds would work. I'm just going to take it to a shop in Springfield, VA that does xbox repairs.

[pulykamell]

Check here under Xbox Hardware Addons/Modifications for a tutorial on how to do this.

[Saranga]

Originally Posted by pestie

Someone mentioned "illegal software" being necessary - I don't believe this is so. Since you own a legal copy of the Xbox DVD-ROM's firmware (by virtue of the fact that you own the actual Xbox DVD-ROM drive) you should be well within your rights to make a backup of that firmware.

IANAL, and maybe a real lawyer will chime in here, but AFAIK you have no "right" to make a backup of copyrighted software. There are fair-use privileges, but they are subject to interpretation on case-by-case basis. Making the blanket assumption that “backups for personal use” are legal is a common misconception. For example, if the software is copy-protected, circumventing the copy protection to make a backup is illegal.

Nevertheless, in this case it may be legal to backup the DVD-ROM firmware, but how many people have the hardware to do this? Most people in this situation would go about trying to obtain an illegally-distributed copy of the firmware.