HDShadow

^ Toss up between the Samsung 605F (second least compatible/tray issues) and the Philips (least compatible, becomes even less compatible with age and, my experience is that I've had one that was working fail completely). I've had a Samsung 605F totally fail recently too - the main ribbon cable connector just broke off. In both cases these were Xboxes I bought used with who knows how much abuse but you can only go on your own experience if you're answering a question like that. My Philips disc drives are the ones without question ageing the least well. Too be honest I haven't used the Thomson I have much at all. Its noisier than any of the others, something which I do not like, but it still works reliably. So better than the Philips.

I've been following this problem on another forum and one of the solutions suggested was using either of the other two unused cap mounting positions, as seen in the first pic. The fix seems plausible with the idea being that as long as the total value of the caps equals or exceeds 7500uF (6.3v) (5 x 1500uF) and does not exceed 9600uF (6.3v) (3 x 3300uF) it should work. But the information provided was that the OP had tried that and it didn't. Is there an explanation for this because otherwise it sounded to me like the simplest solution.

I always wonder in votes like this how many people have actually used all the drives. I thought I had until I found out there were actually two Philips and two Thomson models and both have, reported, somewhat different media preferences and reliability. There are also significant variations in the published media compatibility tables you can find online too. My own quite extensive testing on the Thomson (late), Samsung 605B, Samsung 605F, Philips (late), Hitachi (I have two of each except the Thomson) supports some online compatibility information but completely contradicts others. The only thing that is actually agreed 100% is that DVD-R is the only universal type and if it does not work chances are the media batch is bad or your disc drive has a problem. There is also the question of what constitutes the "best". Quite frankly the fact the Samsung 605B has the greatest compatibility is irrelevant. It doesn't make it the best IMHO. Reliability is, for me the key issue, and the Hitachi wins hands down in that respect. Both my Hitachis gave me identical results. They do not like any CD-R at all but that is it, anything else they'll boot including DVD-RW. I have an Hitachi in my most used Xbox and it has never given me any problems. All five Samsung drives I've owned have eventually needed replacement/reconditioned drive belts and even then that has not always cured disc tray eject/close issues 100%. The only problem is that the Hitachi drives seem to be less common in the US so fewer users and therefore I would expect in a poll like this the Samsung 605B is going to walk away with the prize. Another example of how in a free poll the majority vote sometime produces the wrong result.

According to a Thomson disc drive disassembly guide I've just found the top housing is held by two #1 Philips head screws. https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Xbox+Thomson+DVD+Drive+Disassembly/129534 That appears to mean they are either M2.5 or M3 thread but what length, no idea. I'd bet on them being flat head M3 which are commonly supplied for mounting motherboards and HDDs so you might have some already. Possibly they're not M3 but an equivalent UNC 4-40 or 6-32 or UNF 4-40 or 6-40. If you try the typically T15 head screws used to secure the Xbox HDD in the caddy and they fit then they're M3 so just buy a 10 pack same size as those if you do not have any spares but with Philips head.

If you are going to be happy with a 160GB HDD you can still find unused/low use IDE ones harvested from old PVRs and similar devices. They sometimes go at under £20/$30 including shipping but the prices being asked by many sellers on Ebay/Amazon now are often absurd. Paying more than £20/$30 for a 250GB or less HDD is silly when you can get new 320GB SATA ones for the same cost. There are some interesting 'bargains' though - I've just seen a Seagate 750GB IDE HDD marked as opened but unused for £50/$65 including shipping. Although you can get a factory sealed ITB SATA HDD + adapter for that sort of money its not bad value.

Never had a problem with the one Thomson drive I have's eject/close operation so never needed to replace the belt. The Hitachi likewise. I'd always assumed they used the same size but from your post I guess that is not the case. The ones that work well with the Samsungs and are indeed interchangeable with the XB360 are 22mm (inside diameter) square profile. I know this for sure because I tested an original drive belt (reconditioned) and it fitted just very slightly stretched over an old circular UK £1 coin. Those were exactly 22.5mm diameter. However there is a materials' issue involved as well - not all the 22mm drive belts I've bought have had the same flexibility, some have been made of a slightly harder, less stretchy 'rubber'. There are also non-electrical device drive belt alternatives bought from places like DIY and plumbing supplies shops as water pipe sealing rings that are made of softer materials and so stretch more. If you have the original Thomson belt you could try measuring that. Even if it broken you can use some simple maths to determine the diameter. One thing I've found you should not do is get a belt that is too small. You think the tighter the better but no. Beyond a certain point the tightness the belt actually seems to slip on the drive wheels causing the eject/close mechanism to malfunction just as it does when too loose.

If it is using a X2 BIOS it is not a softmod. Possibly a TSOP. If the disc being used was on an incompatible media type then it would explain the disc boot problem. Could also be instead that the HeXEn disc wasn't cold booted. If it is hardmodded and he used the Chimp softmod options that would also explain why the clone HDD does not boot. It is probably looking for the dash C:\xboxdash.xbe when it is most likely now E:\something.xbe. Only guesses but I think it fits the evidence provided. FTP access possible?

Very helpful posts guys - thanks!

No I built the new softmodded HDD using AID on my chipped Xbox. Unless the second part of that ^ is essential it seemed the easiest way of doing it rather than use XBHDM. Unfortunately I have another problem now, in fact two. The used Xbox concerned was sold as having a working (Philips) disc drive and was the main reason I bought it. It was working initially, I tested it on another Xbox. But it now appears to have partially died. It ejects/closes and discs spin up as but I'm now getting a consistent error 12 even though its all cabled up correctly. I've swapped out the old IDE cable to a known working one with no change and when I tried it in that same other Xbox again it also produced the error 12. I was suspicious that the disc drive might have been messed about with as two screw were missing from the drive casing but this has come out of the blue. The drive had the IDE cable taken out yesterday, when the box was turned off, to force error 12 for the HDD Chimp hot-swaps I was trying but apart from that I've not touched it. The second problem is that although I taken the HDD and disc drive caddies out before I'd not noticed that three of the 6.3v 3300uF caps are domed and I'm pretty sure the clock cap has leaked a bit too. So if I want this particular Xbox to work 100% again, and I do, I'm going to have replace those before doing anything else.

The key thing here is the unlocking of the HDD during the hot-swap to PC to be able, in SergioDeNice's case, to install the XBHDM created softmod. That's what the problem is and why I posted about my similar issue: swapping under error 12 does not work on some systems or particular circumstances. There's no way I could have messed up the IDE cable swaps under error 12 between Xboxes; I've hot-swapped (unlocked obviously) new HDDs for Chimp cloning purposes dozens of times successfully. If it was just a simple matter of disconnecting the disc drive, booting the Xbox to get error 12 and doing a quick hot-swap to the PC as the OP wants to do we'd both be laughing. But it clearly is not. Maybe it works better in reverse as Ging3rGuy suggested ie. hot-swapping a new unlocked, XBHDM created softmodded HDD to a running stock Xbox under error 12. However I've have been trying to do that same thing between Xboxes and it just has not worked. The new HDD on reboot goes to error 5. The way I successfully did an unlock on a stock drive and connect it to a PC was to hot-swap at around the time the Microsoft logo appears under the Xbox logo. But it took multiple attempts before I found that point, so I've never repeated the exercise.

SID/AID have dual boot options and unless he removed it recently Rocky5's XBSMT included a dual boot install facility, I think on the Extras disc. Problem with SID/AID is that you're limited to only two dual boot options: main dash/installer dash and main dash/MS dash. It may be possible to edit the dual boot SID/AID options to launch something else but I've never even thought to try that. Dual boot is practically redundant when you can install any dash as an app and with UnleashX you also have the controller shortcut options too where you can assign any button to launch any XBE at boot. Obviously UnleashX has to load to a certain point first but there is really very little additional delay in launching the alternative dash or whatever.

That's ^^ essentially the problem I been having over the past two days with the error 16 HDD I mentioned in another thread here. I disconnect the disc drive to instead get error 12 but the HDD unlock does not work on a Win7 SP1 (64 bit) PC. It did not work on my old WinXP SP3 (32 bit) either when I tried the same thing years ago. Today I tried with Chimp using a hot-swap to a softmodded machine. As described in an old post by Rocky5 the HDD was set to Cable Select. If set to Slave you don't get an error 16 the Xbox eventually decides there's no HDD and goes to error 7. First I tried an error 16 hot-swap on the Chimp 261812 v1.01 swap screen. Result - Chimp hung when I pressed A. Tried swapping on the dash but that corrupted Chimp, reporting no Chimp default.xbe found. That led me to the conclusion that using CS, even though the other HDD was on Master, was actually trying to use the hot-swap HDD as Master. So next time I bought on the error 16 again but before the hot-swap pulled the jumper so it was on Slave. Chimp still hung after pressing A. Many variations tried under error 16 including both set to CS but all failed. What eventually got Chimp working was doing it under either error 12 (disc drive disconnected) or error 7 (the aforementioned way) but complete with the jumper swap to Slave immediately before the IDE cable swap. It reported additional errors with hdb (the Slave) during the Chimp boot process and ended up warning that it was locked and needed unlocking. Now into Chimp what to do? Scanned the two HDD: both identified correctly but hdb reported a locked with maximum security. Tried unlocking from the MB which as expected did nothing. Same result using TEAMASSEMBLY or XBOXSCENE. Afterwards I tried the Fix Error 16 option anyway and something was going on with repeated message about hdb no DRQ (?) and reporting I/O errors so I let it run for an hour but whatever it was doing I realised was futile so ended the process. The point is forcing error 12 is clearly not unlocking the this particular error 16 HDD. Hot-swapping under error 16 breaks Chimp if you leave the jumper on CS or swap to Slave before the hot-swap. This confirms the reasons why yesterday I could not get the PC to initialise the HDD - it needs to be unlocked or perhaps not locked with maximum security for Xplorer360 or XBHDM USB to even see it. None of the recommended techniques appear to work. Is it possible to get an error 16 on a HDD that is not from that particular Xbox? That's the only explanation I can think of at this point.

Thanks, its just that these anomalies in how thing work bothers me. For instance whilst, as said, you need an initialised HDD for Xplorer360 and even then you get that difference in what you can do when using Win7 (64bit) and WinXP (32bit) compatibility mode. But why does this only happen with a FATX formatted HDD? A <4GB FATX formatted flash drive also has its own differences in behaviour ie. under Win7 (64bit) you can copy to and from it no problem. But, as I found last night, if you use WinXP SP2/3 compatibility mode drag and drop to the drive stops working. However I have WinXP SP2/3( 32bit) on a VM and when I boot that with the same FATX formatted flash drive set as shared volume I can copy both ways - no problem. What I can't do, so far, is get that uninitialised FATX HDD to be recognised by the XP VM. I like to try to understand these 'quirks' on some level but in this case a lot of it does not make any sense to me.

Will XBHDM USB actually see the HDD if its not initialised? Xplorer360 if launched takes some time checking but under both Win7 (default) and Win7 (compatibility mode) it reports no FATX device found. But I will try it.

Not in the folder, I installed it to the Windows folder years ago now. Win7 doesn't come with that DLL by default and Xplorer360 won't launch at if you do not have it. It will actually say which DLL is missing. But I've just tried a copy of it in the same folder as Xplorer360 to see if it made a difference; it did not. To see the FATX HDD I still need to use WinXP SP2 or 3 compatibility and, as said, using that appears to mean I can't copy anything to the HDD. Must be a Win7/Vista thing if it works 100% with Win10. Its getting a bit frustrating on another related front too - the error 16 HDD from the recently purchased 'for parts' Xbox I'm trying to fix. Even just being able to see what's on that would be helpful. With the copy from facility still working there might even be an eeprom backup I could get to and use to lock the other softmodded HDD I've prepared. I've tried multiple hot-swaps to my PC and Windows disc management sees the damned thing, reports it as a HDD, the correct unallocated space and even identifies it as a ST310014ACE. But to use it you need to be able to initialise it and when I try to do that there is in I/O error report preventing it initialising. I'm fairly sure that means it is still locked but whatever I've done, hot-swapping at various points under error 16 or 12 (DVD drive disconnected) I'm still getting that message. Any suggestions/tips on hot-swapping appreciated.

Follow up - annoying problem. Whilst its useful to be able to see the contents of a FATX formatted HDD the real purpose of this is to be able to modify or add to whats there and that's the problem. You don't seem to be able to do anything except delete files/folders and create a "New Folder" but you can not apparently add anything to it. Unlike FATX flash drives drag and drop does not work and when you use the context menu Insert Folder or Insert File whilst something sounds like it is being written to the HDD and the progress bars shows likewise once its finished there's nothing there. Bizarrely Extract works fine either using drag and drop or the context menu: Extract. Neither "Insert" option is working. I thought it might be a display issue so I relaunched Xplorer360 again but nothing is shown and I've tried shutting down the PC and restarting that. It reacquires the FATX HDD no problem but the folder I wanted to add just is not there. Any ideas about what the problem might be? EDIT This is just bonkers:- In WinXP SP2 or SP3 compatibility mode Win7 will detect and display a FATX HDD. You can Extract and Delete to your heart's content but, as I've just discovered, the Insert or drop and drag in options only work when using Win7 without the compatibility modes. That is a bit of a problem.

Since I moved over to Windows 7 64bit a long time ago now there's been one problem I've had with using Xplorer360 that has never made sense to me. Why does it see FATX formatted flash drives and display their content but the when you try to use an unlocked FATX HDD it always reports as no FATX device found. On my now deceased Windows XP SP3 32bit laptop it did work but was always a bit iffy. The solution is actually hinted at by that but in all those years of using Windows 7 I'd not come across any mention of this problem in any discussion of Xplorer360. There are even posts from a respected Xbox guru (no name) who states categorically that Windows 7 with Xplorer360 will not see any FATX device >4GB. It is not wrong because, clearly it doesn't but no mention is made that even using Windows 7 you can get it to see your unlocked FATX HDDs. I spent half the morning today just trying to get my FATX HDD to be seen by Windows and that in itself is difficult enough. A simple IDE > USB cable (+power of course) just didn't work for me. But a dual IDE/SATA external enclosure did after several reboots and cable changes. But Windows 7 64bit > Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage Devices still reported it as an uninitialized USB Mass Storage device with unallocated space. You do need to right mouse click the left hand panel of the HDD volume shown and use the initialize option provided but, obviously, do nothing else. But even then Xplorer360 thwarts you by not see what you know is an attached, Windows recognised, unlocked FATX formatted HDD. I was on the point of giving up and just happened upon this forum post from 2009 (hope it is OK to post this) :- https://www.se7ensins.com/forums/threads/getting-hdds-to-show-up-in-xplorer360-if-you-have-fatx-error-look-here.92832/ The answer is frustratingly simple: Run Xplorer360 in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode. Depending on your default status you may need use the run as administrator option too. The other stuff in that thread is mostly just about using the most up to date version of Xplorer360 and the DLL missing from Windows 7 installations it needs. If you're using Xplorer360 successfully already with flash drives then it is irrelevant. My feeling is that any trouble you may still have will be down to the hardware used in connecting the FATX formatted HDD to the PC. The HDD must be recognised by Windows as an attached Mass Storage device but it may only display in the system tray as an USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge if it is in an external housing. Unlike FATX flash drives it appears it will not be shown in the Computer/My Computer overview screen at all either. But Xplorer360 will still see it and display the content. Whether the same solution will work for Windows 10 I don't know yet but definitely worth trying compatibility mode for WinXP SP2 whatever Windows version you're using.

Some good information here although a lot of it above my pay grade - whether I can get anything to work or not I have no doubt it will be useful for others in the future who want to do the same thing.

It depends what dashboard you're talking about. Evox is useless, it tends to report a consistent and consistently high temperature, on my v1.6 it seems to like 64C for some reason. UnleashX is better - on a v1.6 the CPU and MB temperatures are suspiciously, consistently identical. On earlier version Xboxes there's a distinct differences in those temperatures and the CPU is reported consistently at around 10% higher. Currently ambient temperature here is 27C and I've just stressed my v1.1 a little and let it settle down again and it is showing CPU 49C and MB 44C. That's with x2 fan setting. XBMC - I've just switched over the v1.1 to XBMC as an app and that is immediately reporting the same temperatures as UnleashX but with auto temperature control I can hear the fan is at its 10% (minimum), a quarter of the UnleashX dash fan speed, with a 50C target temp yet the reported temperatures are dropping as I write this. Five minutes on: CPU 42C and GPU 46C. If I do the same test with same fan setting etc on the v1.6 UnleashX is showing CPU 56C and MB 56C whilst swapping from that to XBMC and letting it stablise: CPU 46C to 47C and GPU 35C, surprisingly, significantly lower. What is certain is that 75C report from any dash and fan setting is far too high no matter what the ambient temperature.

Latest as in new or a N64 emulator in general? Google Surreal64 if the latter - plenty of download sources. ROMs for it though are a different thing.

I thought it might be that but why on earth isn't that simple advice included with it? Its not exactly intuitive running a batch file to launch a program, at least not for me. I doubt I'll have much luck unlocking it either but I thought I might as well try. When I fit a new cloned HDD in a Xbox after softmodding once I'm certain that is working I often refit the original HDD and use ConfigMagic to unlock/lock it just to make sure I have that master password option available if ever I lost the eeprom details. Just hope something like that was done in this case. One thing more thing I don't understand is both how and why zero filling a HDD would unlock it. If it is locked how would a Linux Live disc or anything else gain access to be able to zero fill it? There's another tool I've come across: Hdat2. There a short thread about it here. Looks like a bit of a faff too but unfortunately the YT guide has been made private for some odd reason. In any case it does appear it also requires password use too so a bit redundant if XBHDM USB is doing the same thing but in a more convenient way.

I've got XBHDM USB Beta23 which I've never used and I assume I can use to test the passwords but I've been Googling for the last half hour and I can't find much help about what, exactly, I need to do to even get XBHDM running. All the YT videos assume it is booted and working without any explanation about how that was done. Inside XBHDM there are 7 qemu EXE at least, including an uninstaller, the readme and other documentation is practically useless providing no step by step guide about how to even launch the tool. Normally with a portable program you click on the EXE and it launches a GUI and away you go. But with this I've no idea what I'm doing. Its probably simple but nobody seems to have been bothered creating a genuinely noob friendly set of instructions from the ground up. Lets say I have the Xbox HDD in question I want to try to unlock attached by USB and Windows recognises it a some sort of USB mass storage device. How do I get XBHDM USB Beta 23 to open, find and then try to unlock it?

As I mentioned in another thread here I recently bought a 'for parts' Xbox which is giving error 16 but the seller also included another retail HDD, almost certainly not softmodded, which is giving error 6. Pretty sure it did not come from the same Xbox so obviously locked with an unknown eeprom on another Xbox which again, obviously, I do not have. Not likely being softmodded means no master password use possible either. I've looked into methods of unlocking it and either here or on another forum somebody mentioned there are Windows programs that can do this. I'm not bothered about the content just interested in finding out if it can be unlocked preferably, via a USB connection. Any recommendations/suggestions welcome.

If you're going to spend that sort of money on an admittedly decent sounding bit of kit you have the more obvious solution of buying a UK/EU Xbox instead. You should be able to get a working one in good condition for £30 - £40 possibly much less, around half what you're paying for that transformer. Most UK TVs have been NTSC external device friendly for decades so even if you do go down the transformer route you won't have to change your Xbox's region. If by some unfortunate bad luck the TV is not NTSC compliant you can region swap to PAL and use PAL60. That's only 480i/60Hz of course but, in theory, it is better than NTSC's 480i/60Hz. It won't be as good as Component 480p but if you're forced to use SD/PAL the TV will almost certainly support RGB SCART so for a few pounds for the cable you'll get get the best SD picture quality from the Xbox possible.

If you're going the soldering route, as I learned very quickly, the secret is to use extra flux. Even if you're using solder with a flux core it still tends to stick to the soldering iron rather than bridge the two small points. However paint on some roisin flux around the area beforehand and the solder will usually go much more easily where you want it to go. Excess flux can be cleaned off with isoproyl alcohol afterwards.