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High quality replacement DVD-ROM drive for XBOX under $26.99 delivered

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This is pretty cool news for anyone with a picky or defective XBOX DVD drive. The stock XBOX drives (mostly Thompson or Philips) are notorious for being very picky (at best) and for NOT being able to read recordable media (backups, movies, MP3, etc) if you have a hacked XBOX. Until now, the only reliable replacement has been the Samsung 616T, which costs about $60 unmodified or $100+ modified. Someone on xbox-scene has posted instructions on how to modify a cheap LG drive to read all or most media in an XBOX.

The mod is pretty simple, requires a few solder points and resistors, and reports are it works great!

Mod Instruction pdf file
 
even if i want to mod the drive, would it mean i would have to play the xbox with the case cover wide open?
 
What? He shows pictures of the case closed after he has inserted the modified drive.

I will recommend this to my neighbor who has a Phillips, I was lucky and got a Samsung.
 
Originally posted by: Loop2kil
will this drive work without modding if i wanted to play original games only?
Click to expand...

Xbox dvd drives require proprietary firmware to read original xbox games. The slick part of using the 8163b is that you can flash it with 8050L firmware and it now works just as the original 8050L. Flashing the firmware does more than allow you to read xbox games. It allows the drive to have the same connection points, ie, tray_in, tray_out, ready, etc. So you really need to flash it if you want it to be recognized by your xbox properly.

Great deal since you only need 3 resistors, (+1 if you want cd-r support).

read x-s thread


 
After reading the instructions, that is a major waste a time and not worth the effort.

You can get a direct replacement Xbox DVD drive off of ebay for under $30 shipped.

Any XBOX Thomson drive made 2003+ are reliable and will read burned CDRs and DVD-Rs.
 
Originally posted by: bigempty
After reading the instructions, that is a major waste a time and not worth the effort.

You can get a direct replacement Xbox DVD drive off of ebay for under $30 shipped.

Any XBOX Thomson drive made 2003+ are reliable and will read burned CDRs and DVD-Rs.
Click to expand...


All my research says otherwise. I happen to have a Thompson drive in my xbox that will read nothing but original xbox dvds, most original movie dvd's, and NO dvd-+, dvd-+rws, cdr's or cdrw's.
My newbie moment was as I was chipping/hd upgrading my xbox and was horrified to find that I was unable to load a dashboard on the box until I stumbled upon (after going through several manufacturers and finally hitting up friends with different media) some ritek media which worked to boot up with. These disks work some what consistantly with my drive (not for backup movies tho), however the spindle of dvd-r's is getting dangerously low.
This inexpensive drive could be the answer to all my problems, but then I don't mind getting down with a soldering iron.
 
My Thomson loves all DVD+RW but not +R...not sure about -RW/R tho. Well either way, I transfer everything to my xbox or stream media from my comps so I have never really worried about this. All movies are either ripped to the xbox or my computer and readily available for streaming, and games are just ripped to the xbox..
 
samsung and philips drives are the best. the new hitachi drives are so-so, with thomson the poorest excuse for an optical drive ever produced. what else would you expect from thomson, they've always made absolute crap.

philips drives are pretty close to the samsung in speed and readability, but i often run into problems with the philips reading certain discs on the first boot. a reboot often cures the problem (laser alignment delay can cause the disc to spin/sync up differently during a random power-off-power-on in a short period, randomizing your chances of a successful toc read)
 
I still dont get the Thompson is a bad drive argument. My Thompson reads every dvd-r I have ever tried with it. From the cheapest of the cheap on up. I have never found one piece of dvd-r media that it will not read. So just replacing it for names sake I disagree with, but if you have a defective drive then yes this is a great deal. Oh and mine is the Xbox 1.0 with the first Thomson drive that ever came out and its still working perfectly.
 
"Oh and mine is the Xbox 1.0 with the first Thomson drive that ever came out and its still working perfectly."
congratulations
 
Originally posted by: k1114
Awesome because before you had to find an overpriced 616T and do a more complicated mod!
Click to expand...

yea i was gonna say warm deal till i realized the same thing. and for the genius that is touting how his thompson can read dvdr's... good for you but thats not the point. its about reading other media.

I modded many xboxes and thompson drives are a pain in the azz. my first one had a thompson drive and i almost gave up chippin til i found a friend wit a sammmy to test with.

decent deal, even though my lazy behind would jus ebay one for ~$40.
 
Originally posted by: dfloyd
I still dont get the Thompson is a bad drive argument. My Thompson reads every dvd-r I have ever tried with it. From the cheapest of the cheap on up. I have never found one piece of dvd-r media that it will not read. So just replacing it for names sake I disagree with, but if you have a defective drive then yes this is a great deal. Oh and mine is the Xbox 1.0 with the first Thomson drive that ever came out and its still working perfectly.
Click to expand...

But will it read anything else?

My Thompson will not read anything but DVD+R's, which was fine to get things started and now I stream everything to my Xbox.

However for people that still burn discs to play games/video/audio on their Xbox then obviously $30 and a little time is worth getting better compatibility from their Xbox.
 
better off just adding a 2nd hard drive, like two 250gb drives, then ftp'ing your data files over. its much more pleasant system.

 
On a somewhat similar note, what ATA100/133 IDE cable have you guys used to replace the existing one? For some reason all the ones I looked at had the drive connectors flipped (notch on the wrong side) making it a mess to mimic the clean wiring.
 
Raising a thread from the dead!

Just finished this mod, and can confirm that it works. My Xbox plays every backup and original game/movie on dvd-+r/rw that I throw at it. Has played EVERY CD-R/RW that I've thrown at it as well. All I have to do is tweak it to fit in the xbox.

This makes my XBMC complete, now that it can play anything. Thanks to OP.

Available for 24.99 shipped now (Aug 7, 18:03).
 
Thompson drives for Xboxes are like early revision PS2s. Lots of people have them, some have no problems, some have horror stories, and the console manufacturer does not admit error.

Personally I've had the utmost luck (knock on wood) with my Xbox with a Samsung drive in it. Loves any dvd-R media I've thrown at it.
 
Originally posted by: dfloyd
I still dont get the Thompson is a bad drive argument. My Thompson reads every dvd-r I have ever tried with it. From the cheapest of the cheap on up. I have never found one piece of dvd-r media that it will not read. So just replacing it for names sake I disagree with, but if you have a defective drive then yes this is a great deal. Oh and mine is the Xbox 1.0 with the first Thomson drive that ever came out and its still working perfectly.
Click to expand...

Mine too! I have played CDRs/CDRW, DVD+/-R with no issues. I have the Xecuter 2.0 Pro and I've been a happy camper. Thompson drive as well. No issues, no regrets, no problems.
 
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