I was given a broken xbox, I want to mod it....

[dcescott]

Cool huh?
My step brother dropped a polished rock the size of a grapefruit on the top and it has never worked since. His real dad was supposed to fix it, but he is a deadbeat and plays with his two dogs more than his own kids. He did get another xbox (spoiled brat), I have one anyways, but I'd like to mod this one, I don't know where to begin, even to open it. I took a glance and didn't see any screws that fit a phillips screwdriver and so on. I thought about loading emulaters on it, I have a mac running osx, that kills any PC tricks. Any Advice?

[Richter]

the screws are under the rubber feet and i think one is under the sticker

[Push Upstairs]

You'll also need special bits to open the X-Box case. I bought a screwdriver kit from Ebay, one that that included game bits for SNES and Genesis games, and one of the orginial bits included happened to be one that worked on eht XBOX.

Once inside, everything is philips screws.

[dcescott]

Thanks!
I have a bit for the nes/snes games, I'll pry it open with that. Like I said, I just got it but I didn't want to open it or mess with it unless I have somewhat of a plan. I'm sick that way. Does anuone know if the harddrive is swappable? or any easy mods to the xbox?
There is a book out there but I don't like spending money on one time things.

[DogP]

You don't really need special bits to open it... just the standard torx driver... to completely disassemble, you'll need a T-20, T15, and IIRC also a T10.

When you try to turn it on, what does it do? There's a lot of things that can go wrong, but we can't really help unless we know what it does (could be broken hard drive, loose cable, cracked board, etc).

DogP

[Avatard]

Mine is just a standard star head screw driver. You can buy a standard set of bits and get what you need. And the screws are indeed under the rubber feet and under some of the silver stickers. Run your fingernail back and forth over the stickers and you'll see the holes.

2 things are on the top side of the Xbox, the DVD and the hard drive. Stick in a game and remember which side was facing you, then turn it on and open it back up and see if it spun. Also hold the HD in your hand or up against your ear and see if you hear any whirring. Thats the first 2 things to check. The HD is indeed swappable with another XBox HD, and I know there is a way to put a bigger HD in there and format the HD to what the XBox needs but I don't know how to do that. Especially not with a Mac.

What exactly happens when you start up the xbox? Any error codes or blinking lights?

If I had to make a stab I'd point my finger at the HD considering the rock was dropped on the top side. But you can open up your XBox and swap out parts to see which is defective in the broken one. From there you can decide what you wish to do with it.

[omnedon]

HDD's are not swappable without a properly installed chip first. Motherboards and HDD's are locked together in software with 128bit encryption. If you don't establish or bypass that encryption, it won't accept the HDD.