Print

[yannyb]

I've had no luck finding any existing post on this specific scenario so hopefully someone can point me in the right direction!

I recently picked up a 2nd hand xbox (v1.1) and softmodded it with XBMC installed as the main boot and the normal xbox dash as the open drive boot.

This was working fine for a few days but something has gone wrong - in a very odd way....

I stuck a backup disc (that I'd just burned) in it last night and tried to run it in XBMC.  It didn't load it so I rebooted the xbox with the disc still in to see if it would boot.  Instead I got the error code 11 which means that the DVD drive cannot be found.

I initially thought that once I removed the disc everything would be fine again but having done this I got the error everytime I rebooted.

I've checked all the cables etc and the DVD drive is connected correctly.  I also booted with the HDD disconnected and got the appropriate error code for that (as some sort of check that the error codes were working as expected).

In an extremely pissed off mood I unplugged the xbox and left it overnight.  this morning I gave I plugged it back in and switched it on in the vain hope that some form of miracle had fixed it overnight.

To my surprise it booted up fine into XBMC, everything working as expected!!!

However, having switched it off again, and back on, the error code 11 appears again.

Haivng mucked about a bit, it seems that as long as the xbox has been unplugged for a while (around 20 minutes!) then it boots fine first time, but not a second time.

I assume that something is being held onto after the first boot that is causing the problem for the subsequent boot....

Anyone able to throw in a few suggestions???  The DVD drive is the Phillips VAD6011/21

I'll try to pick up another cheap xbox to repair it if I have to but I'd rather avoid that if possible! Another option I wondered about was flashing a bios that didn't check for the DVD and replacing it with another hdd - I can't find a clear answer on whether this is possible on a softmodded box though...

Cheers

[Bomb Bloke]

Sounds a bit like you've got a bad connection leading into the DVD drive, either with the yellow or the IDE cables. I'd go with the former (given that the console notices when the IDE cable is removed from the HDD).

When you run a system for a while, the wiring expands ever so slightly as it warms up. This can sometimes bridge or break bad connections.

Let the box run until rebooting it gives error 11, then open it up. Try applying pressure to where the cable joins the drive (gentle but firm) and turning the system on. If that fails, repeat where the cable joins the motherboard. If you can make the box boot in this way you've found you're problem area and with any luck reheating the nearby solder joins will fix it permanently.

You can flash the TSOP of any softmodded box that isn't version 1.6 (hence making your console hardmodded). Your particular TSOP should be large enough to take the X2 5035 BIOS (my favourite at the moment), which will allow the X-Box to boot whether it can see the DVD drive or not.

[yannyb]

Thanks very much for the reply.

Some sort of dry/dodgy joint makes sense as having mucked about a bit more it appears to be a more intermittent fault that I first thought.  I'm having a bit of trouble trying to identify where the fault is though - as applying pressure to the mobo or DVD socket doesn't seem to easily sort it.

I'll keep persevering though.

I may still look to do a tsop flash as I like the idea of fitting a larger drive without the hassle of replacing the existing hdd.

I may be back for further tips once I've done more investigation!!  (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Thanks again.

Cheers

[yannyb]

I'm not having any luck identifying the bad connection so I'm thinking about replacing the DVD with an HDD and just FTPing what I need onto the disk.

I've not really done much precision soldering in the past and all the TSOP flash processes seem to need that so I was looking for alternatives.  Having dug around I found this post:

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?sho...4092&st=15#

which has this diagram:

(IMG:http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n270/evilsanta666/nodvddrive.jpg)

I am thinking of doing this simple mod to make the xbox think the DVD drive is plugged in and connecting a normal HDD to the DVD IDE cable plug (in theory also playing a part in making the xbox think a DVD is plugged in).

I'm hoping that no further tinkering would be required and I could use xbox partitioner (which I have installed on my E: drive) to format/partition the replacement drive (probably something like a 120GB).

Does anyone know if this will work or am I oversimplifying it?

Cheers

[Bomb Bloke]

The cable mod sounds good, but it won't help at all if the problem lies in the motherboard socket (or worse, somewhere further down the track). The same fault will prevent the mod from working.

There's one thing I forgot to mention before - The only way to get the console to use two HDDs at once is to flash it with Cromwell and run only Linux on it. Some people have installed two drives on a "switch" system (where only one drive is used at a time, depending on what they set it to before turning the console on).

TSOP flashing isn't as hard as all that, in fact if you can find a conductive pen you won't even need to heat up an iron. There's still plenty of room for error if you do take the traditional route.