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Im Tsop not bfm - cerbios udma2 (the one previous to latest alpha thing - the last beta - cant remember the version - I’ll check when i get a chance). And im running from directories not cci or xiso. My ntsc copy is origins my pal is ripped from disc.

Ive been getting dirty disc errors from hdd ntsc version on crimson skies on cerbios, but seems okay when loading my pal version - I’m gonna see if they use the same gameid for tdata - there may be a DLC region issue - or possibly even the DLC is unsigned or something. Or maybe the ol dvd2xbox processed some dodgy acl or something. I’ll do some digging if I get time. Theres a surprising number of variables here! Lol!

Hey - I seem to remember that DLC can cause this sometimes… make sure if theres any DLC for your games that its from the right PAL/NTSC region, also some DLC gets ‘signed’ to the console its installed on. Rocky5 added some scripts to Xbmc4Gamers that will sign the dlc for you i think… Last resort for the dlc is delete the specific tdata folder for that specific game in your e drive i think… chime in if anyone here knows better of course!

Aha! No, its okay, Ive got 3 boxes - two are softmodded, so I just stole the HDD from one of those and changed the lock to my main box’s eeprom in fatxplorer - just to give me something to boot from - as soon as i flashed the TSOP i went back to my main HDD thats set up for a hardmod. Is true open xenium or similar is probably the way to go, but I also nerd out repairing amigas, C64s and the like so a more generic eeprom programmer will probably be more useful for me in other ways too… but yeah, money allowing, i’ll get both! ta!

Okay so, i lifted d0 then booted to a softmod from stock bios, (which worked nicely). Then tried re-grounding d0 and flashing but evox still only saw the built in bios chip to flash, not my aladdin. so then, its a 1.4 so i soldered the two pads needed to unlock tsop write enable. Booted into my softmod again and flashed the udma2 2.3.1 beta cerbios to my tsop. all went well and i’m back in business. the aladdin is still connected but without d0 it’s like it isn’t there. at some point i’ll buy a usb flasher and rescue my aladdin with sst chip for my 1.6 (after rebuild)… Thanks for being there for moral support and advice!

Hey - um - you know the A18/A19 trick (that works for bank switching on the 1MB capable TSOPS)? Does it work for modchips too? Like... would changing these address lines change the bank referenced on the modchip maybe (if my aladdin advance SST chip is 1MB not 256KB)? nope scratch that - it's a 256kb SST chip anyway (the 020 not the 080)... Maybe if I boot with D0 not grounded (it's currently just mobo to gnd), then exploit, reconnect D0 and run a bios flasher it would act a bit like a hotswap maybe...?

so, take off the modchip, softmod and tsop? or usb bios flasher for the sst plcc32? no other free options? BTW thanks everyone for the help -you folks are awesome.

Hai! thanks for chiming in! - I've got "China Adapter 1" which the list says should support UDMA4 stable... I've got the DVD drive open and thown in a TrueHexen2021 - It takes like - forever - and spins up and down - and loads apparently nothing. Working blind, there's nothing appearing on my router's DHCP list and nothing there when I try to FTP (I assume that the truehexen 2021 dash uses DHCP for it's FTP IP addressing). It's weird - I don't even get the Cerbios logo showing - literally nothing out of the video port at all. It does still orange/green if there isn't a video cable plugged in though... It's definitely due a recap anyway I was wondering if cranking up the UDMA to 4 somehow increased power drain or noise and the flakey caps are just not having it? - I gotta buy a set - considering a "wired opposite" set maybe if they deliver to UK. Easier than rading CPC/Farnell/RS/Mouser for bits? Any more ideas, good people?

Sooo..... chinese IDE 80 way cable to sata adapter (Master jumper available and enabled)... "aladdin advance" modchip with SST chip. 2TB drive yada yada... been working fine for years. with Evox Wanted Cerbios because... y'know - new toysnstuff.... Flashed the default 2.3.1 Beta - All working well - lovely stuff. Then... I thought I'd try the one with UDMA4 on the end. Now - no video output. At all. my TVs all say (no signal)... This is with component and with composite. Green lights come on on power on - flashing if I push the eject button to turn on. (I heard there was a "safe mode" udma2). But alas no video. Did my flash go bad? It seemed to complete the flash just fine in EvolutionX flasher for both the standard 2.3.1 Beta, and for the "UDMA4" version. But dead now. Any ideas? zero cost option I guess is remove the modchip and TSOP flash (I think it's a 1.4 board definitely not 1.6)? Or try to get a disc to load hexen 2021??? the DVD drive seems to try to open (I can force it with the little pokey hole thing - the eject rubber band is dry)... Or do I have to buy a chip flasher... wanna avoid money spend if possible! lol! Thanks folks!

So, I’ve put in a new clock cap. And my 1.6 now works flawlessly!

https://3do.dev/products/ide-emulator-batch1 they’re on sale! Not cheap though. Way more than an Xbox and a massive hdd right now.. but if you’ve got deep pockets it might be worth a test???

Yeah I’ve got a 2004 PAL 1.6 crystal here that has exactly the same problem - tiny ticking noise from the psu sorta area whilst the power or eject is held down or lpc power shorted to ground) my caps are also blue/gold and no signs of bulging or leaking - I’m definitely the first in this box too. I think on mine that the clock cap might be blown, slight signs of leakage - which would prevent boot - anyone know at what point boot is prevented by a dead clock cap on 1.6 does it mimic a dead psu??? btw ALL standby voltages seem good (3.26 on blue, steady 5.08 on orange, 3.36 on Q7C2 collector, lpc 5v is stable and good)

https://www.retrorgb.com/ide-pata-emulator-interest-check.html I am so bad at forums! Link to register interest here please

ARGH I HATE FORUMS LINK HERE SORRY! https://www.retrorgb.com/ide-pata-emulator-interest-check.html

gotta love a zombie thread! Lol… can we all register interest in this please? Maybe this will be the answer???

Regarding Dave's earlier commend regarding 1.6 boards, that "ALL capacitors fail" at some point. Yeah - I do get that. Electronics age. Capacitors have a lifespan. But I've got some amplifiers, computers, and other electronics from the 60s, 70s and 80s that have no failed capacitors (as yet) I haven't taken them out and tested, but these simpler boards seem happy enough that they're close enough to spec to still work well. I think our issue might be Capacitor plague - Wikipedia - last couple of paragraphs are particularly interesting! As it was exceptionally poor manufacturing and bad copies of chemistry in many fabs, and the problem seems to have been solved since 2008, maybe once we re-cap our xboxs, they'll last for some 40 years or more...? Here's hoping! It is probable though that all revisions of the OGXbox suffer some dodgy caps just due to the timeline. Y'know. It does give me hope that maybe a modern replacement supercap as 1.1-1.4 clockcap wouldn't be such a corrosion timebomb... maybe?

Well I for one would sure love to see a low bar to entry - a tiny bit of hardware hacking or some very simple software setup - like installing a distro to an SDCard in raspberry pi land... Just enough intrigue to captivate, with a nice feeling of 'job fairly well done' to encourage coming back for more! It's kinda partly why I love stuff like the GDEmu - my teenage son can get it installed himself without ruining the console, and make it work. That learning curve is very individual, of course, but make it smooth and people interested should be able to jump on it at their level and have fun! BTW thanks SinclairUser for taking some of this idea and putting energy in! At some point I really want to get properly involved, but it may be at testing stuff phase! Not a whole lot of time or money at the moment! lol! Studying for maths/physics degree, parenting a teenager and a little one, and mentoring in education doesn't leave a lot around the edges and my wife takes priority in those edges most of the time of course!

Love it - those cards definitely looks like late 90's tech!

Thanks for investigating this! Another one that was worth a shot... Ideally the solution would just be a "disconnect the optical drive and drop this in" type solution, one that solves the powerconnector has custom eject and tray notification nonsense too would be best. Basically so any total noob to OGXBOX could crack open the box, take out the old optical drive, (tear off the clock cap), drop in the replacement and seal back up. That's the dream here. No soldering, No "if you've got this drive/this version xbox you need a different type of solution" stuff. Just unscrew, swap out, and play! BTW - Please post your test results to GoTeamScotch's thread linked in their post above - https://www.ogxbox.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3960-optical-drive-emulation/ I'm trying to keep all this stuff in there rather than dilute the board... :D

A repost of the same info from my ODE thread... I'd like to keep this one as the main for ODE interests if possible, GoTeamScotch definitely has seniority in XBox land and I'd like to maybe start collating peoples trials and experiences on this thread instead. I got the right cables through to try my Zalman ZM-VE200 external ODE drive as a possible solution. It's a no go of course! The drive is ONLY an external HDD when in "eSATA" mode. Even though the manual doesn't mention this limitation. It's a lovely ISO ODE for windows installs etc, but it only enumerates as an optical drive over USB. The little window, as soon as you plug the eSATA cable in, says "eSATA Mode" and it just gives you access to the hard drive, with no ODE. A waste of money - but it was kinda worth a go! Maybe also thinking about just replacing the HDD with an SD Card, and having a nice access panel somewhere for swapping SDCards with complete images on them. It is only a solution for us with hardmod bios though, I don't know if you can lock an SD-IDE?. I am really coveting the idea of one SDCard per game, in the discboxes, with the manuals. Part of the experience is going to the shelf and choosing the game, loading the media etc... (I know it's stupid, it's all right there on the HDD... But...)

I get it Dave - you are, of course, correct. This is a useless project - a modded OGXBox with a 2 or 3 terabyte drive does make this slightly silly. Especially given the low cost of 2-3tb SATA drives nowadays. And it's a beautiful machine for homebrew and the frontends and FTP and everything else that has made our love of this go on for years... And yet... I still somehow have a dream of being able to replace the optical drive with an ODE, and keeping the box's bios and even original HDD unmodded (somehow! lol)! A custom hardware drop-in replacement for the dying optical drives. Something that means we can just either load up an SD Card with ISOs of our games, and easy swap out for updating etc. or even get hold of an SD Card for each rip, that I can put in the disc boxes along with the manual and original disc. I don't know - it's just REALLY appealing somehow! It feels good in a preservation kind of way...? In a side point, the OGXBox feels like a bit of an island nowadays, connectivity wise, especially with BIG drives of data. The necessity of opening up, tearing out the drive, finding that string of adapters, (possibly unlocking), using our (licenced) versions of FATXplorer, in order to get decent speed offline management. Or suffering the slow and sometimes buggy FTP process over 100MBps cat5... I also have a worry that the fabulous Rocky5 online updater won't be around forever either, with google drive being the host! Great though it is, it obviously requires JC to maintain actively, real-life may claim him away from us at some point. So, slightly conflating things here, but longevity of our go-to solutions for keeping the console modern are probably shakey, so I have silly feeling that we're all gonna migrate back to wanting the console as a 'stock experience' at some point. Just feels like replacing the original game media with SD Card is such a retro standard too nowadays. It seems like THE replacement media of choice. Keeps the console original (apart from clock-cap hell), and keeps the original experience in a way. Everdrive for OGXbox lol. Sorry - rambly post - as I say - Dave you ARE RIGHT. (But... please...? Can I has my ODE dream???)

So - I got the right cables through to try my Zalman ZM-VE200 drive. It's a no go of course! The drive is ONLY an external HDD when in "eSATA" mode. Even though the manual doesn't mention this limitation. It's a lovely ISO ODE for windows installs etc, but it only enumerates as an optical drive over USB. The little window, as soon as you plug the eSATA cable in, says "eSATA Mode" and it just gives you access to the hard drive, with no ODE. A waste of money - but it was kinda worth a go! I'll update GoTeamScotch's post with this same info.

This is interesting for sure - let us know how it goes! - Don't forget GoTeamScotch's post too - please update any progress there preferentially - my post is almost a repeat of theirs!

Yeah - I saw that RMPrepUSB review after I'd ordered it! But I'm still hopeful, the manual is ambiguous regarding esata... worth a shot, and I'm sure I'll find a use for it in future. Darn it! Why is Dreamcast and Saturn and EVEN xbox360 getting all the Optical Drive Hardware Emulation Love - but none for our beloved OGXboxen... I'll update you as soon as I can if it works or not. Meanwhile - on another track - I'm still trying to figure out if it's possible to format a hard-drive or a cfcard/sdcard as Joilet! that would also be worth a shot - no more stupid FatX filename limits... the dream of sticking the 2TB in place of the DVD drive and keeping the stock boot drive...

Awesome stuff! always great to have authoritative compilations of knowledge! It certainly leads to less hunting around the web for bits of info. if you’re feeling ambitious you could even document when misinformation has got spread about and help stamp it out with some nice citations! (I’m guilty of a bit of that too, so eager to help and end up repeating bad info that I’ve heard) thanks for your original version - and good luck with the update! don’t forget the wayback machine for some of those citation links!