7fbe7fdd   
   From: 8bitwizard#fanboy.net@127.0.0.1   
      
   In article ,   
    BelPowerslave  wrote:   
      
   > The main problem that I'd run in to, and it's what most run in to, is   
   > that we want bigger HDDs than the 10/12gig that MS puts in there. I   
   > don't know what it'd take to swap the drive out...   
      
   If you're softmodding, it takes a pre-formatted, pre-locked drive,   
   because the BIOS won't boot with an unlocked or unformatted drive. I   
   guess there's probably a hot-swap method out there, where you unplug the   
   old drive while it's still running, and then plug in the new drive to be   
   formatted, but either way it's tricky. And then there's still the   
   problem that AFAIK you have to patch your BIOS to recognize a drive   
   larger than 130 megs or so.   
      
   With a hard-mod, you just boot a CD with an appropriately configured   
   EvolutionX, upgrade your BIOS to a large drive patched version, and tell   
   it to format the drive.   
      
   And a large hard drive in an Xbox is a _good_ thing, because it means   
   you can "jukebox" your games without having to dig through piles of   
   discs. Just rip 'em and put the discs back on the shelf. (It's easier   
   for me to buy real discs used than to hunt around for downloads, and as   
   I'm a collector type, I'd rather have the originals anyhow.)   
      
   > Ugh, yeah the Thomson drive is bad, bad news. The nice thing about   
   > having your modded Xbox, though, is that you can replace the drive at   
   > some point. I'd go for a Samsung, but the Philips is good too.   
      
   I've got two working Xboxes out of three used ones. I think all the   
   drives are Phillips. One Xbox was dead to begin with, but its drive   
   works fine. Another has a drive which won't read larger games, so it   
   might have a dual-layer problem. The third drive never worked. But I can   
   use the good one to rip a game, then copy it to the other's hard drive.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)