Original Xbox molding

[Locke141]

So I have a 4 unmodified original Xbox’s, I payed less then $30 for all of them. I have had them for a while and am now targeting them for my game room setup. I want to mod them all and  give 3 of 4 to friends and family. It seems the xbox mod seen never went away and is still pretty active.

I’m looking for feedback on my plane before I get started but plane to update this thread to the end of the presses.

The current plane:

• identify the models of each
• remove all sub v1.6 clocks capacitors
• rocky5 soft mode all 4, assuming non are v1.6. If one or more are v1.6 I’ll use a Aladdin XT.
• TSOP flash all non v1.6, probably with EvoX F G
• install large HD
• fill the HD with original Xbox games or just use a pre-made disk image from a torrent

I want them to be mostly used for  original Xbox games, emulators are not the goal but will probably be added. Pretty sure I have all the odds and ends for needed for the soft mode and installing a SSD.

Dose anyone know I if I use the Evox f g if I can just swop the hard drives? Or is there more to it when using a pre made Disk image?

[pbj]

If you install a bios that disables the DVD drive check, you can use Chimp to clone the hard drive after you have one set up the way you like.  No need to hot swap, either.  I've got a custom bios that disable that check and gets rid of the flubber animation.

[Locke141]

If you install a bios that disables the DVD drive check, you can use Chimp to clone the hard drive after you have one set up the way you like.  No need to hot swap, either.  I've got a custom bios that disable that check and gets rid of the flubber animation.

Interesting. So I can get one all set and simple clone and move it to another Xbox.

Thanks

[Howard_Casto]

Ignoring shovelware I wonder how large a complete xbox collection would be.  We are starting to get to the point where these older hdd equipped consoles could be completely archived affordably.

[Locke141]

Ignoring shovelware I wonder how large a complete xbox collection would be.  We are starting to get to the point where these older hdd equipped consoles could be completely archived affordably.

I’ve seen torrents that clams to be complete, there were almost 2TB.

[Howard_Casto]

That's actually doable... it'll be better when you can get a 2tb ssd for a reasonable price though. 

I really want to take the time to set mine up properly, but I'm so divorced from xbox modding at this point I wouldn't know where to start... especially now that all the popular iso sites are gone.  I'll add it to the list of never completed projects I guess. 

[pbj]

Most of the games are really only like 400-700 megs once you remove a few video clips.  I used to dig around in the files and find something like “intro.xmv”, delete it, and replace it with a renamed copy of “endcredits.xmv” or similar.   As long as it existed, the game would run and nobody watches those stupid intro videos anyway.  They were using DVDs so there wasn’t any need to compress the videos.  In times where I’m pulling 2TB Sata drives out of the trash, I guess there’s no reason to bother but it was worthwhile in those 20-30GB days.

Would be interesting to pull together a list of 2019 Xbox must haves.  Only things I ever play now besides CoinOps are Simpsons Road Rage and Outrun 2.  Burnout 3 every now and then, but I’m like 80% complete and the remaining challenges are impossible and I’ve been stuck for a decade. 

[Howard_Casto]

The two Buffy games are great and nobody ever mentions those.  Crimson Skies and the Spiderman games are also particularly good.  The Prince of Persia Trilogy is fantastic... it's back when Ubisoft made something besides Assassin's Creed and clones of Assassin's Creed. 

[Locke141]

It is not hard at all to find roms Bittorrent is your friends.

I generally don’t want or need ever game for a system. But some times it’s simpler to download a complete set and just throw it on. This may be one of those cases.

[Locke141]

I finally got around to moving one of my OG xboxes. Decided to try installing the XBMC emulations station Dash, now can get out of it. Any one know how I change back to the other dashes?

I tried doing the soft mod over for a fresh install but simulation station persist.

[Locke141]

Rocky5 replied to I post I made to his youtube channel.

There is a specific boot path/order that’s followed. So if a dashboard is found before another it’s loaded. You can remove or rename the default.xbe of emustation to boot into another dashboard.

Hi tools are super easy to use. I highly recommend.

[pbj]

I always just renamed whatever I wanted to boot to evoxdash.xbe if I recall correctly.

[Locke141]

Thanks, I decided to just go ahead and TSOP flashed my xbox, installed a 2TB hard drive, and used HeXEn 2019 to format the HDD. The TSOP flash was super easy but make 100% sure you under stand what model of xbox you have and which TSOP chip you have.

The following likes were all helpful:

https://github.com/gotbletu/wikimd/blob/master/xbox-softmod.md

[Locke141]

I didn't realize you can't FTP zipped xbox games over. Now it's taking forever to move them over. I also can't seem to get my xbox to see the games I have moved over, I have deleted the two games and are trying over.

 I have a 2TB hard drive with the F & G divide equally and my "games folder in the F drive. I restarted the xbox but no go.
 
Wishing that the 2TB image I tried to torrent went fast enough to ever finish.

My end goal is to have this system be a large collection of OG xbox games. I don't need yet another way to play SNES games. Some Emulators like coin opps I may consider.

[Locke141]

I ended up using the copy disk to HDD app to see where it put the games folder. It turned out I can't spell and called my folder game not games.Now everything seems to be working.

To recap: TSOP flashed the bios, 2TB hard drive, and clock capacitor removed.

Moving original xbox games in progress now. Next I'll look into Coin OPPS and other emulators, but honestly I don't need another way to play SNES/Genesis games.

 

[Drnick]

I hope you have whiplash in amongst all the xbox games,  It was a strange game where you were a weasel with a rabbit attached to you by chain and you used the rabbit as a weapon.  I remember the game crashed on me in the final level and the save became corrupted so I never did get to see the ending. Well worth a quick bash, literally.

[Locke141]

I hope you have whiplash in amongst all the xbox games,  It was a strange game where you were a weasel with a rabbit attached to you by chain and you used the rabbit as a weapon.  I remember the game crashed on me in the final level and the save became corrupted so I never did get to see the ending. Well worth a quick bash, literally.

It is not hard to find a torrent of all the games. I'll give it a try.

[Locke141]

I ran into problems around FTPing games to my games folder on the F drive, around 261 GB it stop working. For now I ben just sending games to the games folder on the G drive with no problem. Does anyone know what is happening? Should I make a second games folder ever 260GB in the F and G drive? is so what should I call them, "games 2"?

[pbj]

Probably a 256GB limit.... just make a second folder...

[Locke141]

Probably a 256GB limit.... just make a second folder...

What should I call it? games 2 ok?

[Locke141]

So it turned out that that XBPartitioner v1.3 fails to actually format 64kb clusters about half the time, you see "ER" next to the partition. I have to run it a few times to get it to work.

Used this link to solve.

Re sending FTP now, will post to update if it worked out.

[Locke141]

Ok so this was a fun mod. I may do some additional modding bit for a huge amount of OG Xbox games are support and it’s fun mod at a lowish price.

Other items I may look into is to add other emulator for systems and MAME. Mostly I want to look into adding The SEGA arcade ram upgrade. We will see.

[Howard_Casto]

I'm not sure if the ram upgrade is worth it now that vcop 4 and outrun 2 sp are both emulated. 

[Locke141]

I'm not sure if the ram upgrade is worth it now that vcop 4 and outrun 2 sp are both emulated.

Yea probably, but it will be fun to try.

[pbj]

If you do it, keep us updated.  I was always intrigued and intimidated by that mod.

[Locke141]

If you do it, keep us updated.  I was always intrigued and intimidated by that mod.

I'm hopping that my brain recovers enough to try it this month. Need to take my time.

[Howard_Casto]

You should do a step-by-step of that and the softmodding process if you feel up to it.  When I modded that xbox I picked up last year I found that a lot of the info had disappeared from the internet.  It'd just be a good thing to archive here where we know the info will stick around.  I really want to sit down and document the process from all my mods as well. 

[eds1275]

I woulkd love to play Splinter Cell Chaos Theory again!