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Optical Drive Hardware Emulator (here we go again!)


neakmenter
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Will this botch setup of ridiculous hopes work?  

5 members have voted

  1. 1. Zalman ZM-VE200 SE as optical drive emulator?

    • Naw - not a hope
      4
    • Yeah - it might do
      1


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Hi folks,

I know what you're gonna say. And you're probably right... but...

I've just dropped about £50 (inc delivery) on a ZALMAN ZM-VE200 SE...

This is a hard drive caddy, USB powered, with eSATA data connection, that will spoof as an optical drive, and let you mount .iso files stored on an internal SATA drive.

It was probably a waste of money, and my 2TB drive is perfectly happy... BUT I wanna give it a go!

Hardmodded, running EvoX m8+ (with LBA48 and F&G).

eSATA to sata (HDD gender not mobo gender) cable ordered.

Gonna use a SATA to IDE adapter (with a SLAVE switch).

Gonna try leaving the OGXbox DVD drive in place (with a Xbox disc in the drive, just disconnect the IDE), and connecting the IDE to the Zalman (via the eSATA to SATA, SATA to IDE SLAVE adapter - yuk!)

I'm gonna power the SATA to IDE adapter via a molex splitter, and power the ZALMAN via an external USB brick.

 

It probably won't work, but... it... might????????

What's your thoughts anyone?

Wish me luck - I'll report back in a couple of months when all the cables and crap arrive from China into brexit-bound UK and when I get a couple of hours away from real life to mess around with it all...

:D

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On 1/16/2021 at 3:07 PM, neakmenter said:

Gonna use a SATA to IDE adapter (with a SLAVE switch).

I hope it works because it's something I'm interested in too. Check out my thread here for some other devices I've found.
https://www.ogxbox.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3960-optical-drive-emulation/

The DVD drive connector on the Xbox's IDE cable expects there to be an ATAPI IDE CD/DVD drive specifically. I'm not sure if that Zalman device presents itself over eSATA as an ATAPI CD/DVD device. It claims to, so hopefully it does. And hopefully your SATA-IDE adapter passes that flag along to the Xbox. If it presents itself as a regular hard disk, then that would be a problem.

Also, according to this website, the eSATA port is for copying files to the device, not for optical drive emulation (only USB offers ODD). If that's true, then it won't work. 🙁

Edited by GoTeamScotch
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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... :)

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28 minutes ago, neakmenter said:

Darn it! Why is Dreamcast and Saturn and EVEN xbox360 getting all the Optical Drive Hardware Emulation Love - but none for our beloved OGXboxen...

 

So is the Sony PS1.

Maybe it to do with the size of the game file as example a PS1 is max 700meg compared to a Xbox at around 4gig that's a lot of games on a 128gb sd card

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

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what you are trying to do in a round about way is what the xkey and wasabi  devices on the 360 did am i right?,

i wonder if messing around with that it could be modified with ogxbox in mind, the wasabi would be the one to go for as it has esata support and is way faster usb(2.0), but dont forget the esata or usb is just for connecting the harddisk to the wasabi board not to the ogxbox, the wasabi board has sata in and sata out.

it has a small linux distro that mimics a dvd drive, when connected to the console it asks for the dvd key for the 360 drive, but it is a console requirement, any dvd key or maybe a nulled key should trick the wasbabi into starting up, if the harddisk is formatted correctly and contains ogxbox iso's we may be able to fool the wasabi into working.

the best bit here is the ogxbox drive is still connected, if the wasabi was in pass through mode the xbox wont even know its connected, i have searched the net about hacking these type of devices but not found anything, there is plenty of skill here and on the net in terms of tweaking the wasabi's os, if needed but it may be a hardware/electronics problem rather than a software/firmware issue.

if you can boot the wasabi and fool it into thinking its connected to a 360, and boot the og xbox without it "seeing" the wasabi it may work, then you would have a drive full of ogxbox iso's,the wasabi can handle ogxbox iso's and the drive formats are very similar at the disk level.

it may work with some modifications, i would bet you would stand more chance modifying an existing device that does what you want to do, as opposed to building something from scratch, all this would need to try it would be a ide to sata adapter, and a wasabi and your drive of choice.

i have an wasabi ode in storage i am going to order an ide to sata adapter and try it, one of those cheap slave ones that dont work well the og harddisk might be usefull here(though i will order a unit with a jumper to be safe).

of course we may both be barking up the wrong tree, it might be as simple as an ide to compact flash adapter, with the right format on the flash card, and a modified dvd drive board, but thats another idea if this is a fail.

thanks,

sinclairuser

 

 

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So you are trying to swap the DVD fo a hard drive to store games on why not just fit a 2 or 3 terabyte hard drive and store all your games on that.

I can understand using/wanting a ODE on a console that doesn't have a hard drive built in like a PS1 or other CD/DVD/Cartridge only console.

I hope someone works it out I just don't see why you would need it, That's my view anyway 

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

 

 

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On 1/26/2021 at 1:59 AM, sinclairuser said:

what you are trying to do in a round about way is what the xkey and wasabi  devices on the 360 did am i right?,

i wonder if messing around with that it could be modified with ogxbox in mind, the wasabi would be the one to go for as it has esata support and is way faster usb(2.0), but dont forget the esata or usb is just for connecting the harddisk to the wasabi board not to the ogxbox, the wasabi board has sata in and sata out.

it has a small linux distro that mimics a dvd drive, when connected to the console it asks for the dvd key for the 360 drive, but it is a console requirement, any dvd key or maybe a nulled key should trick the wasbabi into starting up, if the harddisk is formatted correctly and contains ogxbox iso's we may be able to fool the wasabi into working.

the best bit here is the ogxbox drive is still connected, if the wasabi was in pass through mode the xbox wont even know its connected, i have searched the net about hacking these type of devices but not found anything, there is plenty of skill here and on the net in terms of tweaking the wasabi's os, if needed but it may be a hardware/electronics problem rather than a software/firmware issue.

if you can boot the wasabi and fool it into thinking its connected to a 360, and boot the og xbox without it "seeing" the wasabi it may work, then you would have a drive full of ogxbox iso's,the wasabi can handle ogxbox iso's and the drive formats are very similar at the disk level.

it may work with some modifications, i would bet you would stand more chance modifying an existing device that does what you want to do, as opposed to building something from scratch, all this would need to try it would be a ide to sata adapter, and a wasabi and your drive of choice.

i have an wasabi ode in storage i am going to order an ide to sata adapter and try it, one of those cheap slave ones that dont work well the og harddisk might be usefull here(though i will order a unit with a jumper to be safe).

of course we may both be barking up the wrong tree, it might be as simple as an ide to compact flash adapter, with the right format on the flash card, and a modified dvd drive board, but thats another idea if this is a fail.

thanks,

sinclairuser

 

 

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!

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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.

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On 1/26/2021 at 2:24 AM, SS_Dave said:

So you are trying to swap the DVD fo a hard drive to store games on why not just fit a 2 or 3 terabyte hard drive and store all your games on that.

I can understand using/wanting a ODE on a console that doesn't have a hard drive built in like a PS1 or other CD/DVD/Cartridge only console.

I hope someone works it out I just don't see why you would need it, That's my view anyway 

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

 

 

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???) :D

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If there was a direct plugin replacement for the DVD drive using a SD, USB, CF that could work without a hardmod that would be a seller or even if the Xbox had to be hard modded.

As SD card's would have a short life if used in place of a hard drive using them as a read only (like a DVD/CD) should extend their life.

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

 

 

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no go on the wasabi it works you can fool the wasabi to run and think its connected to a 360, and the xbox boots to evox, in pass though mode but activating the wasabi evox cant read the emulated drive structure, it could be that the og xbox cant read mixed mode disks or the format of the isos, xisos with the wasabis firmware tweaked may well work though further work is needed.

an IT mate of mine who i spoke to about this reckons that modifying one of the other solutions might work, he suggested designing a board to connect to an ide laptop drive and emulating the laser and drive structure, leaving the dvd drive board in place, if you stripped out the laser assembly and bits not needed you could 3d print a replacement tray for the dvd drive to hold the 2.5 laptop hardisk in the the dvd drive, then it could be filled with roms and fitted back in.

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21 hours ago, sinclairuser said:

no go on the wasabi it works you can fool the wasabi to run and think its connected to a 360, and the xbox boots to evox, in pass though mode but activating the wasabi evox cant read the emulated drive structure, it could be that the og xbox cant read mixed mode disks or the format of the isos, xisos with the wasabis firmware tweaked may well work though further work is needed.

an IT mate of mine who i spoke to about this reckons that modifying one of the other solutions might work, he suggested designing a board to connect to an ide laptop drive and emulating the laser and drive structure, leaving the dvd drive board in place, if you stripped out the laser assembly and bits not needed you could 3d print a replacement tray for the dvd drive to hold the 2.5 laptop hardisk in the the dvd drive, then it could be filled with roms and fitted back in.

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

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