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[mikalem]

Hi, first post and I'm relatively new to the scene but I figured I'd share my story.

Me and a friend of mine recently modifed our xboxes to see what could be done with them - he was already using the live service, I never had (never even had the dash installed to my machine).

Around a month ago I was the first to bite the bullet and get a modchip - both of us have the Xenium ICE chip using the 2.0.1 bios for the chip, with the X2 4983.67 bios and the retail bios booting from the chip.  I made sure that I got the new hard drive in the system and everything setup the way I wanted it hardware wise.  Then I got a copy of Halo 2, and installed it (booting to the retail bios with a locked new drive) - I also signed up for the 2 month free stuff from live with the card that came with the game.  To this day I have not been banned from XBox live.

Now for my friend's box - same model as mine (1.0) same mod chip, same bios (almost same everything down the line - the only difference is his has been on live before modification and now has a bigger aftermarket drive - both are samsung, mine is a 80 gig, his is 160).  We modifed it and left the stock drive in it, and booted halo 2 with the retail bios and played on live for a little while.  We did this a few times.  2 days after that, we went to put in the new hard drive.  After that was done, we locked the drive back up and attempted to get back on live.  It let us in initially - I left thinking maybe everyone is just crazy on the web and that as long as you have the chip off you are okay - turns out the next day he went to play and the box was banned.  The following is the support conversation my friend had with the xbox live reps.  

Welcome to MS XBox Support

The XBox Chat session has been accepted.  This chat
session is being recorded for quality monitoring; your
IP address may be traced.

Aris: Welcome to the Xbox North American Customer Support!  My name is Aris.
Friend:  HI Aris
Aris: Hi Friend
Friend: My xbox wasn't working and it is one of the first xbox sold in (removed), OH
Friend: I figured out finally that the HDD was dead.
Aris: I understand that you are having problem because you recieve an error message saying that your console is modified, right?
Friend: after I finally got everything fixed now I'm getting a Modified Xbox error.
Friend: Yes.
Aris: so you repair your console by yourself?
Friend: yup
Aris: this is the reason why you cannot connect to Xbox Live
Aris: your console is considered modified
Friend: well is there a way to get it back online by taking it to a dealer?
Aris: Unfortunately, once an Xbox has been modified it can never be put back to the original, non-modifed state this is in compliance with the terms of use for Xbox Live.
Friend: I spend a lot of time and extra money fixing it back up just to loose half the reason I bought the games for Xbox Live.
Friend: So now it is out of warranty and modified --- there is nothing that can be done?
Aris: I apologize but you cannot use your console on Xbox Live anymore
Friend: Just out of curiosity ... why doesn't MS allow a fixed "modified" xbox on their system?
Aris: because this is considered piracy
Friend: ?!?!
Friend: Just to fix it?
Aris: because we do not recommend our customers to open their console
Aris: If you need further assistance, please come back and visit us again.  I hope you have a nice day!
Aris: It was a pleasure chatting with you today.  Thank you.
Friend: Thanks for your help
The Support Professional has ended the session


So, we can't fix our own stuff because MS qualifies that as piracy?  So we need to give them more money to do something we can handle ourselves..? Something to think about.....

This post has been edited by mikalem: Nov 16 2004, 06:59 PM

[Gumba]

I've been saying for a while now that if the marriage theory is true, then only MS is 'authorised' to replace HDs.

After all, you need to at least temporarily mod a console to replace the HD.