How do you figure this is MS's fault? You are using their system to play on their service. They only want people with unmodded XBoxes on XBox Live, can you really blame them? Maybe if you weren't a stupid n00b you wouldn't have gotten banned. I was one of the people experimenting to prove the marriage theory, I read the forums everyday until I knew what to do, and I haven't been banned for 6 months. You are blaming MS, calling them gay, yet it was you who didn't research the topic properly. What you should have done is flash your EEPROM first, and then install the new hard drive. And as far as the shortage of XBoxes that seems weird, I can't go to a store without seeing an XBox.