Modding an original Xbox

[Ed Oscuro]

CF is basically IDE in a smaller form factor, so they'll definitely work as a replacement. SD to IDE seems to be fine too! I'm just wondering if there's something in the modders' tools that favor one thing or another, and what happens to a drive when it's "locked" I don't know about.

[Endymion]

Thanks for bringing this up, I don't know how I forgot about it! Installing a 24" 100/133 IDE Cable speeds things up tremendously, every single Xbox owner needs to do this mod. Regarding SSD's, the advantage here's in reducing heat. I think a 128GB or 256GB SSD isn't all that unreasonable. Should be large enough for most users favorite titles and a bunch of ROMS if needed. That said, completists and ROM hoarders are going to want a large capacity drive.

I've never had a real problem with heat and the original XBox. And I even keep my XBoxes in av cabinets with glass doors. The default fan speed that Microsoft's dashboard uses is 2 (of 5). If you softmod you can control this manually and that cools things off massively, 3.5 is a good fan speed that doesn't significantly noise up your XBox. But you can always crank it to 5 if you want. I think there is even a temperature-controlled setting that you can set and forget in Unleash X dashboard. If you really want to eliminate heat in your XBox though, then open it up and completely remove the metal RF shield that lines the plastic case. This does wonders for air flow and really cools off your XBox much more. Like I said, most folks I know who went for 2.5" drives were modding XBoxes to newer, smaller cases, where a thin drive like that means an even smaller enclosure, and of course, an SSD runs even cooler, which is important when you are sizing down your case. But if you're staying put in the original case I don't think there's a lot to worry about, I've had 1-2TB drives in my XBoxes without any heat issues.

Unfortunately, IIRC the drive swap trick almost never works when an IDE/SATA adapters involved. Great if you're using an IDE drive, but I advocate using SATA.

Are you using Chimp? Chimp is actually the preferred method for upgrading your hard drive and has been for quite some time now, precisely because it works with everything--including SATA adapters. I've done this with four XBoxes of my own (models 1.1, 1.4 and 1.6) and a friend has done it with two of his own (1.0 and 1.1). The HDM method is tried and true and works also, even with SATA adapters, but it can be a pain in the ass finding or keeping a PC around that will work properly with your HDM disc; the USB virtual drive works also, but is more finicky if you have problems (it's a Linux environment, most people with little experience with it give up if it doesn't work first try). Chimp though? Is easy peasy Japanesey, just boot with your XBox lid off, once you've booted disconnect your optical drive and plug up your new one (with SATA adapter if you are using SATA of course). You'll target it to copy from the original drive, then use Chimp's locking feature and you're done, remove the old drive, put the new drive in its place and reconnect your optical drive. Hit the power to turn off and reboot and if you do not see a working, modded XBox with a new hard disk then you probably didn't lock the drive or did not copy the contents or something. Oh and one thing to know about Chimp is that although it does lock and unlock a hard disk, it does not report its state properly once you have done this. Nutshell: lock it, trust that you've locked it and reboot. If you lock it then check its state, Chimp will always tell you it's unlocked, this might be a firmware quirk I'm not sure, but it definitely works, even with SATA drives and adapters.

do you have an online resource that has all this info collected in one spot?

No, I sure don't, this is years of experience and multiple threads on homebrew development I'm relying on at this point, with many download resources changed through the years, any partial tutorials I can remember have gone offline years ago. But the tools are still out there, "the usual place" has the older tools, and xbox-scene forum still has linkers to the newer ones (Chimp, HDM, HDM USB, etc.).