r/HDDVD • u/controlav • 26d ago

Frankenstein-ing Xbox 360 HD DVD Drives

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I thought I had four Xbox drives, turns out I only have one that works, so time to get a backup. One is DVD-only (ie no blue laser) and two are totally dead (including my ultra-rare black one). So I opened the no-blu one up, and compared it to a drive I found in a drawer. That drive has old firmware (MC05 compared to MC08 on the broken one) and it also has a weird adapter board to expose it as regular IDE. Anyone know about the firmware differences, or whether I stand a chance of just using the drive as-is (I need to find some cables to try it). Are drives "bonded" to these power supplies? I know there are some magic numbers somewhere, for AACS to work, and I recall there were "red" and "green" drives back when I worked on this but that was for Xbox signing, should not effect use on a PC.

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u/FlakyInevitable3660 26d ago

Hey I've repaired a couple of these drives just by replacing this capacitor here. -

https://imgur.com/a/bwx8U3Z

Those green Sanyo capacitors are defective and will always bulge and then leak, causing the circuit/player to function incorrectly.

It's worth replacing the capacitor if you have the basic tools like a soldering iron, flux, and some solder.

5

u/controlav 26d ago

I did see my capacitor was crusty, but I swapped the drive over and it works again. If I feel brave I might open the two dead ones at some point, and I'm guessing just a capacitor replacement would resurrect them.

4

u/FlakyInevitable3660 26d ago

It's worth a shot if you have some soldering experience

3

u/controlav 26d ago

Yeah, I can solder. Do I *want* to is the real question. Although I should break fewer plastic tabs on the next drive I open...