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[pyro42]

QUOTE(torne @ Jan 5 2009, 09:29 AM)

Yes. The problem is not that it doesn't tell the console to look for it, but that the console doesn't tell the DVD drive what it's looking for. You try to run the data, it goes "hmm i need the rock band disc", it goes and asks the DVD drive "what disc is in the drive right now", the DVD drive then has to say "it's the rock band disc" or else it won't work.

The drive never knows what to expect, so whatever hardware/firmware solution you might build or invent to replace/modify the DVD drive, there will always have to be some human interaction to do *something* so that it knows which disc it's supposed to be being: currently we have to put an actual disc in, with a sufficiently clever device we could flick a switch or scroll through a menu on some external box but it's never going to work entirely from the 360 dashboard unless an entirely new exploit is discovered allowing running code on current kernels.

what if, for argument's sake, we were to take the disc's vital data, (ie everying the system would ask to check to verify the disc is in the drive) wrap it, and some kinda flag into some file format the xbox trusts.. IE jpeg/mp3.  throw a couple thousand of them on a dvd (each named for the game who's data it containes) , and code the firmware so that when it see's that certain flag passthrough to the xbox, it knows to capture the vital data that went with it.  the xbox of course would most likely display invalid image/mp3 or even more laughingly, actually attempt to render the data, however that wouldn't matter.  The drive then and sets itself into 1shot boot mode with the data it just captured, you select the game you want to play off the harddrive, the dvd drive firmware replies with the data it captured, and you are on your way.  worst case, spoofed data doesn't match required data, and xbox asks for the correct disk.  eject, close, and select the right spoof file

now i grant you, i have no understanding of the limitation of the dvd firmware, however since we currently do have discs that set 1shot boots, the concept doesn't seem TOO far fetched.  

this of course, does fall into the Human Interaction catch you were mentioning.  However, it seems a fairly simple and cheap process.  and i'm sure adding the flag+wrapper to the vitals is something well within the abilities of ABGX.  

if that is feasable, then i assume the biggest issue is getting the games to the HDD without actually burning a disc.  I take it when the game is "installed" it is signed somehow? and if not, then the 250gig HDD would be the most imposing limit.

-- Double disclaimer--

1:  yes, this obviously would NOT be live safe.  but then again, these days, what is?

2:  i have only skimmed a thread or two about this, didn't see this idea, but it might already be out there.

[torne]

The firmware only has so much space to keep track of this stuff, and there's no guarantee that the drive is only going to be asked to read the relevant sectors (for music/photos/etc various metadata is read which is also in the file, and that'll be read before you choose one). This would be *incredibly difficult* to implement, and I doubt you could get it to work reliably.

Installed games are indeed signed, so you need to be able to sign CON in order to install without a disc.