Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Consoles => Topic started by: scumball on March 26, 2007, 06:56:23 am
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I'm playing with modifying the case on an XBox with Xecuter 2 chip.
I am planning on removing the DVD drive - which I think is okay if the console is chipped.
However I was also planning on using a Compact Flash (to IDE) as the HDD to reduce the size of the new case needed.
So -
a. any reason why this wouldn't work?
b. what is the smallest size HDD you can put in a XBox - is it just enough for the dashboard (XBMC) or do you need the X/Y/Z drives at 750Mb each?
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You do need the XYZ and all other stock partitions unless someone's worked out a firmware hack to get around that. You'll need an 8 gig drive. You can remove the DVD drive but you'll get a blinky status light unless you short the tray closed status pin (assuming you use the status light).
I used a laptop drive mounted on short standoffs (1/2" I think?) and it sits lower than the CPU heatsink:
(http://home.comcast.net/~stwongbad/side.jpg)
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The stock HD has something like 5g free... 3g+ even with XBMC on it. You definitely do need all of the logical drives, but given how much empty space there is on a stock Xbox with just XBMC on board, I wonder if one really could get away with a 5g drive.
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Damn it. CF out the window then. An 8Gb CF is pricey...
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Laptop drives are at least smaller than standard IDE...
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True. I just wanted to boot direct to XBMC for streaming media etc. so didn't think I needed much space. Thought CF would be smaller, quieter and run cooler....
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You still need everything the stock Xbox drive has on it. XBMC sits next to the Xbox software, it doesn't replace anything.
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Shame...why is that BTW?
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Actually you can get away with missing a lot of the stock files if you don't need the MS dashboard for anything. I found that out accidentally when I used an installer disk on a blank drive and forgot to install the MS stuff and it worked for months before I realized it. I was using it strictly for XBMC.
I thought I remembered reading that you couldn't run with any of the partitions smaller than stock, but I'm not sure if any serious effort was made in that direction.
I was looking into running from CF a while back and decided that after adding the CF/IDE adaptor you can't really get the package much smaller than I did with the laptop drive. CF is also really slow compared to a hard drive, even using the CF microdrives. You'll probably have double the initial boot times, but after that it should run fine.
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Well I've got the XBox and 2GB CF card - I ordered a IDE adaptor for £3 (http://www.ebest24.com/product_info.php?currency=GBP&products_id=82&keywords=) so I guess it's worth a punt...
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Those CF-> IDE converters usually have over and under slots for 2 CFs, but the weight factor against using a laptop drive and the CF converter is very marginal.
What are trying to accomplish here?
Have you found a really cool way to house the xbox in a smaller case?
If so I would be really interested.
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Well personally I have scrapped the project - but it was going to be a small cased XBox - search for slimbox on xbox-scene...