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Microsoft Xbox Modding Guide - Part 1

Date Published:
03-25-2005

Written By:
Capn

Sponsored By:
N/A

Page: 2

First Step: Void Your Warranty!#@

You need to open the Xbox first so turn it upside down and locate the 6 Torx #20 screws. DO NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT use anything but Torx #10 and #20 screw drivers! Using a Phillips or any other kind of screw driver WILL strip your screws. Don’t risk it, they will only cost you’re a few bucks and a run to the hardware store. Get them. Four of them are under the little pads and 2 are located under the stickers.

The 6 Screws

Pry the pads off, I used a butter knife but a flathead screw driver would work also. Unscrew the screws and put them in your screw holder right away to minimize the chances of losing them.
Instead of just ripping the whole sticker off to find the screws, I just ran my finger nail across the sticker until I was able to locate the hole as shown above. Then I used a knife to cut out the circle.


One hiding under this sticker

Once you’ve removed the 6 screws turn the Xbox over, grab the sides of the Xbox and lift it off. It won’t come off extremely easy, but not hard either. Once you have the top removed you’ll end up with this:


Xbox exposed!	The DVD and Hard drives

On the left you’ll see the DVD drive. On the right is the Hard Drive. Yours may be a different brand than I have here, they’ve been known to ship Thompson or Samsung DVD drives and Seagate or Western Digital HDD's varying from 8-10 gigs. There is no definite way of telling which parts you have without opening up your Xbox.

The different brands vary by which country the unit was manufactured in. Don’t be bummed out if you get an 8 gig instead of a 10 because the code in the Xbox is written to only support 8 gigs so even if you have a 10 gig only 8 gigs is used, unless of course your modifying your Xbox but were not quite to that part yet.

The two drives are each screwed to their own plastic cage by Torx #10 screws. There are a total of 3 screws, one holding the HDD cage and one holding the DVD drive cage.

The HDD cage is on top of the DVD drive cage so you must remove the HDD before the DVD drive. First take out the IDE cable and the power connector on the HDD. Try and pull on both sides of the cable so you don’t bend pins on the HDD. Once you remove the cables you can remove the one screw holding the HDD cage down shown below.


Pull the IDE out like so	Yet another screw

Once you remove the one screw, put the screw in your screw cup and lift up the HDD and it should come out nice and smooth. Make sure to put the HDD in an anti-static bag so you don’t risk damaging the HDD. I personally didn’t bother with the anti-static bag but I like to live life on the edge and if you kill your HDD because of static you can’t say I didn’t give you fair warning.
Just grab the hard drive with both hands in front of it and behind it and lift up and it should come out looking like the picture below.

The Hard Drive assembly

Now the DVD is held in by 2 screws located in the pictures below. Unscrew them with your trusty Torx driver, grab underneath the DVD and lift up, being careful not to pull too far away yet because of the cables. Once you lift it about 2 inches you can grab the cables easily and pull them out. The DVD Drive has 2 cables, make sure to pull them out nice and easy.

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