360 Drive replacement

[manuba]

I was just given a 360 because the drive wont read games, can I replace the drive and flash it so it will still work on xboxlive? No pirate bull#$%% or "I want to play back-ups" lie that some people tell. I mean come on, play back-ups? I want it to just be like a normal 360 again.
Can it be done? and if so where do I find the flash files?

[marshallh]

It's easier than that. Just get on eBay and get a new DVD drive of the same type. I had a Hitachi drive that was DOA so I bought an ebay replacement, and swapped my old drive PCB into the new drive assembly. Good as new and it's the same to the Xbox.

If you really want to flash it, be ready to spend some money on cables and lots of time Googling. The stuff you need is out there though.

[lifeisbetterwithketchup]

You can just switch the PCB as marshall said, but flashing the firmware is also an option. You need to connect the SATA port of the drive to your computer and use some dos tools to dump the firmware, then flash it to the new drive. Either way would work. One plus of flashing though, would be that the replacement drive would not necessarily have to be the same as the original (you could spoof the firmware). So you could replace a noisy Samsung or Hitachi drive with a nice quiet spoofed BenQ drive. It's not terribly difficult, but definitely more involved than simply swapping the PCBs.

There's lots of info on this sort of stuff at xbox-scene.com.

[manuba]

Thank you!