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The title pretty much says it all. The DVD drive on my Xbox refuses to open if there's no game in it. I have to manually open it up - taking it out of its metal housing does the trick - to have it slide out the tray when there's no disc in there. Nothing moves at all, so far as can be seen. I hear some mechanism at least trying to work, but the tray doesn't budge. If there is a game disc in there, it opens normally. I can only conclude that the extra weight of the disc does something, but I'm far from an expert. I and a few other amateur handymen in my family have had a look at the mechanism and couldn't find anything amiss. None of us have ever worked on something like this before, so it's very possible we overlooked something. Does anyone have a clue what might be going wrong and/or how I can solve the problem?

Dear Friends, I try to find a solderless adapter for my 8164B DVD drive to use it in my Xbox, but there is no any chance to get the "Talismoon 8164 Solderless Adapter" anywhere on the internet. (as you see it on the pic). I'd like to ask you, is there anyone, who has a complete schematics/PCB and a BIN file for "Atmel_Tiny12l" microprocessor? I think I try to build one for myself. Thank you for your help! BR: SiD

I would like to remove the DVD drive on my 1.0 tsop . Occasionally the Xbox will fail to boot because of the drive, and I have no need for it. I looked around on the internet and my xbox, although I know it can be done; I am not seeing clear way of performing this mod. Assistance would be appreciated.

Hey all. So, I have an already modded XBOX with an Xecuter 3 installed, and it used to work perfectly, but, I recently plugged it back in to play some Steel Battalion to find that the Hard Drive had failed. I then decided to throw a SATA SSD drive in, not for any speed gains, but to minimize the chance of further failures. I got it formatted and installed, but that's as far as I've gotten, and games on disc are already working. Obviously, I haven't worked with this thing in probably 10 years, so I just don't remember any software/steps I need to install/setup. I burned Heimdal's disc, and it's working fine, but: 1. I need a new firmware for Xecuter 3, but their site is gone. I assume if I can get the correct file, I can just navigate to the modchip's IP and use the built-in flash utility? 2. Dashboards etc: I used to use XBMC, but that scene has gotten much wider of the years, and I see a few choices on the disc, but I'm having a hard time figuring any of them out. Any suggestions? 3. FTP'ing Game images to the drive? I can't seem to get connected with an FTP client, or to get access to that hard drive? This wasn't really a realistic option back then, so I got to know ripping discs to the drive back then lol. Thanks in advance for any help that you can offer. Information has really gotten diluted nowadays, especially because of Softmods. It's good to see that the ModChip is still working, and that the SSD is actually working!

hi does any one maybe @Rocky5 have the direct gdrive link to his trainers? my xbox has no way of being online and i would like to ftp the trainers to my xbox i do have an ethernet cord but the og is far away from the router (PS you cann dm me that link if you don't feel like putting it out on the forum as I'm sure i'm not breaking forum rules)

Hi everyone. I have a Phillips DVD drive that i have taken apart, cleaned and replaced the belt on. When i slide the tray all the way in, the laser mechanism doesn't "engage" (not sure about the correct term, but it doesn't move up like it should to read a disc if a disc is placed in). I manually slide the black plastic part at the front to get the laser to move up, but sliding the tray back and forwards won't do it on its own. If i plug this back in, when i open the drive, and try to close again, the laser still won't engage, and the drive just pops back out and stays out. If i leave the top off and manually slide the plastic, making the laser move up, then place a disc in and turn it on, it reads the disc perfectly. I can't seem to see any broken pieces. Does anybody know something that could be causing this from experience?

So I'm finally upgrading the HD in my second OGXBOX. After initial issues, I was able to get HeXen2018 to load. I went through the process and chose to have the whole ~1TB for the F. After the process was complete and I booted up into UnleashX I noticed the f drive wasn't showing the full space. In fact it's a hell of a lot smaller than expected. Instead of the ~1TB it's showing 123,408.52 MB for the F. I attached a picture below. Thoughts? FYI it's hard modded with a Xenium ICE.

So. I am thinking of a some what weird and not that practical mod. My issue is with space obv so I am searching for a smaller or at least thinner PSU and I'd like to know if someone has ever used different kind of disc drive on a Xbox like a thinner and smaller one again . I know it would be easier to do a disc drive delete and load games on the HDD. But I like using disc s . And it's just a side project for fun . I just wanna make a slim version while keeping the choice of loading discs.

Before you ask, yes I'm aware this is kind of a stupid question since you can just load Xbox games right from the hard drive. I also understand that any standard CD-ROM drive will also work in an Xbox. Don't read too much into "why would you want to do this". There isn't a really compelling reason. Now that that's out of the way... Has anyone had success with any sort of optical drive emulators in an original Xbox? There seems to be a few projects floating around out there made by people who wanted to replace optical IDE drives for certain obscure arcade cabinets and old PCs... There's an "IDE Simulator" by Tattiebogle that runs for a whopping $200. There's the NetPi, which uses a RaspberryPi as an ODD emulator, but isn't fully developed yet. There's plenty of IDE to SD (or CF) adapters, but that would just appear as a 2nd hard drive to the Xbox, which as we all know doesn't work (outside of Chimp). SCSI2SD - SCSI isn't IDE, but perhaps an adapter could be used? There's this project on Vagons.org where a guy is working on an ODD emulator, but it's still in development Memkor apparently makes (made?) a product like this, but I don't see it directly for sale anywhere. But I'm wondering if anyone has tried using something like one of these devices in an Xbox. The official DVT kits had optical drive emulation built-in from the factory- official Microsoft parts and everything (technically outsourced, but still). This route however has a pretty high bar for entry: the DVT kit itself + a Raptor PCI card + obscure drivers (which I assume only work for Windows XP) + the software and know-how to use it all. I recently bought a DVT4 kit and want to experiment with this feature purely because I find it fascinating. We'll see how that goes.

From left to right: DVD Ready, DVD Activity, HDD activity, LAN activity. The DVD activity light is separated from the HDD activity light and DVD Ready light is present. How was this done? I know about the HDD activity signal, but that is handled on the right of this little custom housing. The left two LEDs are the ones I am wondering about. I assume it involves tapping onto the DVD ROM drive PCB. @KaosEngineer

I'm posting this here as I am at the end of my rope with trying to diagnose this issue. I have 23 original Xbox's and this fault ONLY happens on hard modded systems that have the Samsung DVD drive (both the SDG-605B and SDG-605F). I will give a little information first on the type of hard mods I performed to each of the systems(they are all identical). modchip: Xblast Jafar/Aladdin ide wire: 40 pin 80 wire 24" long ide to sata: startech adapter(set to master) hdd: 3tb wd red pro or 4tb hgst ultrastar RAM: stock 64mb(1.6 models and 2 1.4s) or 128mb upgrade(all other models) console capacitors: all replaced on both the motherboard and PSU with Panasonic FM(mouser) or Nichicon (console5 kit) DVD drive caps: all replaced on Samsung drives only BIOS: Cerbios 2.3.1 UDMA5 (tried UDMA2 did not help) Xbox motherboard revision: I have all revisions from 1.0 to 1.6b The issue I am having is that XBMC4Gamers gives the DVD "Busy" signal when I try to boot a game(game is brand new, no scratches), and the stock 5960 dashboard will just give a disc read error. The error can be fixed by simply rebooting the console into xblast OS then loading cerbios from there. Once the console boots again the game reads fine first try and works without stutters(the lasers are fine). The issue will happen again if the xbox is turned off then unplugged and allowed to sit a bit. If I turn it on again using the power button (instead of using disc button to boot to xblast first) the issue will happen again until I go back into xblast and reboot the bios. Also, the game will boot if I have the disc in the drive when first turning on the console. It only doesn't work when trying to insert it after reaching the dashboard (stock or xbmc). This issue only happens on the samsung drives. I have many thomson, philips and even 1 hitachi drive and the issue does not happen there. On first boot with these drives, the games always load first try without having to reboot the console. I can rotate these samsung drives between consoles and the issue follows them to whichever console I put them into. I am convinced that this is not a hardware issue because of this but some problem with either the BIOS or xbmc4gamers. I really hope someone can help me here as I have no idea what the issue can be and troubleshooting this had led me nowhere so far.

I took apart three consoles today that where sold as parts, all three had Phillips drives in them but one was a V1.0, all the research I've found says this drive only started at V1.1. The seals were intact, I was the first to open it up.

Or maybe i locked it in my inexperienced days? Anywhoo im curious as to if there is a way to unlock said drive without the eeprom..i still have the board but no power supply for it as i abandoned it and went to work on my 1.6 but i do still have the mobo and associated sister boards. Is my only hope resurrecting the 1.4 board or can i pull the eeprom without power to it? I have an Aladdin chip if i need to go that route...any help would be appreciated.

I believe I seen a Reddit post couple days ago by KaosEngineer touching on this topic the post was sometime back, I'm wondering if it's practical today to even attempt or even flash an pc optical drive. I am aware that you can of course get parts from other consoles.. I asked this out of curiosity as I lack the information and experience on the topic.

Cleaning the house and getting ready to move. Came across miscellaneous OG xbox items as pictured. I used to be into the consoles quite a bit a few years ago, especially for the XBMC capability, but now I don't even have a console. The drives and power supplies were spares, because even back in the day the hardware wasn't 100% bullet proof. I believe they work, but have no way of knowing for sure since I don't have a console. Trying to sell this so it ships out all in one box. I can also sell thru my ebay account which is: and has a 100% rating. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=276086163390&rt=nc&_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l161211&_ssn=maerickson Edit: Should have mentioned that the caps on the power supplies are all flat.

Found an old xbox and a locked 1.5tb xbox drive stored away. The thing is I had a few xboxes back in the day and am not sure if the hard drive is from that xbox. I want to try it in the xbox. Before I do so if the drive is locked with an eeprom different from the xbox will it do any permanent damage? Just being cautious. Thanks in advance.

Hi all, first and foremost, as the season approaches I want to wish everyone a happy holidays! I bought a "for repair" 1.1 unit that needed a LOT of work. (This is a different unit than the Sharp TSOP unit from my other repair post.) Luckily I was able to repair everything except the Philips DVD drive. It was relatively clean - I cleaned the lens, replaced the drive belt and cleaned up a bit of corrosion on the board, but it's still dodgy. Question, can this Philips drive be saved? On startup there is a high-pitched whine from inside the dvd drive, and when I push the eject button, it wants to open and close, but it will only travel about an inch or so and stick, then if I keep pushing the button it will eventually open fully but refuse to close again. Is this a control board issue, or a motor issue? I rarely encounter DVD problems, so this is a new one for me. Thanks all!

There's a tutorial I found on Wayback, but Wayback wasn't able to find all the pages for this mod. It's for using a PC drive on an XBOX. The DVD drive is an LG DRD-8160B. It's not similar in layout to the 8163B that there are drawings for. What I need are to locate the X and Z points on the DVD's pcb. This is all I've got...

Greetings all! First time posting anything but have gathered a lot of great tips and fixes from this forum for a few years now. This problem has me stumped though. Here’s the situation: The xbox boots fine to the ms dash. I can access the hdd, copy saves to memory unit (or usb via adapter), browse settings, etc. The eject button on the dvd player just flashes green. There’s no disc in the drive, it doesn’t make any horrible noises, it won’t open, and there’s nothing impeding it from opening. I took it apart, removed a lot of dust et al, cleaned the laser, checked to see that the manual eject via the release button worked, double checked the tray side rails, etc. Everything looked normal. Reassembled and had the same problem listed above. I put in a known good drive and that remedied the non stop green light flashing so I thought I’d figured out the issue. I go to test a disc and the known good drive starts to not eject or close intermittently. Additionally it won’t do anything with the disc. If I put a few known good and un scratched games it the drive just flashes green forever. It never gives a dirty disc type error or anything and again this is a drive I know works (tested it right before I pulled it out and put it for test in the current Xbox). I’m stumped. I thought about changing out power and ide just to see. Swapped out two known good AV cables just for grins. No effect. Nothing on the MB looks bulging and I can’t see and trace rot,etc on the top at least. Any ideas? Thank you, MaGee

has anyone had the same issues I have? the DVD drive under standard XBMC and other apps fails to detect DVDs (always shows as empty), this is hinted in Titan's readme on its github, but it's a software problem -- it should be fixable, for example XBMC4Gamers has it fixed, but it can't play media in any way! is there any way we can obtain the same version of the source code that XBMC4Gamers uses and have it in a normal XBMC4Xbox version that can play multimedia? i'm one of the few weirdos that still uses his Xbox to watch movies and shows, cuz it gives an amazingly crisp, bright and clear image over RGB! so this DVD problem is a major bummer that I'd LOVE someone could have a fix for!

I haven't used my og Xbox for a while I decided I wanted it set up and to play it again did all of that and it goes to boot up gives me a display but shows the contact service center with error code 12. I looked up the code and it points to the dvd drive. I've opened it cleaned it and still no luck. What are my options would a hard mod and no dvd bios be a better fix than replacing the drive? Or would buying a parts machine be better. Thanks Kyran.

I was trying to softmod my xbox by unlocking it using PiPROM and after many attempts I was successful. After I was done checking the drive, I locked the drive again with the same eeprom.bin, then plugged the drive back into the xbox and power cycled the console. I power cylcled the xbox and i get error 6. is there possibly ANY way i could get this drive working again with this xbox?

I bought a refurbished deck with a laser already assembled from ebay and also recapped the logic board 'correctly' with a cap kit from console5. I also replaced the dvd drive belt. I swapped out the deck assembly for the new one. I connected all of the ribbon cables and soldered the red and blue wires back. So dvd drive ejects very nicely and the cd that tested didn't get scratched or didn't stay stuck. The dvd drive emits a loud vibrating noise and I get the pop-up that says that the disc that I inserted is not an Xbox disc. Its a cd music disc that I inserted to test the dvd drive. What I suspect that I did wrong is that I applied too much lithium grease to the rails because the laser doesn't stay put in a single place anymore but it moves back and forth when I tilt the dvd drive. I also didn't pay attention to the laser position before I disassembled the dvd drive. I also don't know the correct level of the disc tray. The disc tray elevates up and down while the laser is reading a game. Its my first time repairing an Xbox dvd drive and I'm out of troubleshooting ideas. Edit: I just remembered that usually refurbished lasers have two pads bridged to protect the laser from being damaged by static. Well the two points were not bridged and there was a lot of burned flux residue too.

As usual, they gouge you if you try to buy a rubber belt for the original Xbox if they actually call it a belt for the original Xbox. But I heard you could use 23mm or so rubber O rings from the plumber's section of a store. Since I loathe the idea of spending $3.00+ for 1 "official" OGXbox drive belt, what are the exact size measurements (or close to) for the actual OGXbox drive belts so I can attempt an approximation with a 10 for a buck O ring? I want to resurrect my Xbox's troublesome disc drive that refuses to come out of it's shell, like a shy turtle.