Hi Guys, I realy need your help !!!! A couple of days ago I fried my xbox motherboard. I ordered a new one from consolewerks. I had a version 1.4/1.5 and got a new version 1.4/1.5 with a new harddrive included. After installation of the new motherboard the xbox ran fine. It booted original games without any problems. After that I tried to softmod it as I always do. I used the SID Splinter Cell v2.0 autoinstaller. After softmodding everything seemed ok. But when I insert a backup game, the xbox doesn't recognize it and refuses to start the game. I tried PAL and NTSC games on DVD+R and DVD-R. It doesn't make a difference. After that I tried using the SID4 Splinter Cell autoinstaller with the same result. I figured that the problem might be with the motherboard bios. I restored the xbox to it's original state with the restore ms-backup option. After that I bridged the motherboard for a TSOP flash. I flashed the TSOP with Executer 4981.06 and EvolutionX M8 biosses. Again with the same result. The xbox boots originals but refuses to read backups. For my last attempt I flashed TSOP with the original 5101 bios for 1.4/1.5 and softmodded it again. This also gave the same result. The xbox runs al other applications like Xbox media center and dashboards fine, but keeps refusing backup games. It's like this xbox is unmoddable... Does any of you have an idea what might be causing this or does anybody have an idea what I could try next??? Any help is greatly appreciated !!!!
Did you get a whole new console including dvd player maybe? When you say doesn't recognize it, exactly what is happening. Does it give you the no disk or dirty disk or what? The problem may lie in the dvd player and not everything else you tried.
Thank you for your reaction DLyon4. I ordered a new motherboard with matching harddrive. I replaced both of them. I still use the same dvd drive. The dvd drive has always worked perfectly and as far as I know all xbox dvd drives work with every motherboard, but I'm not 100% sure of that. When I insert a backup game, the xbox tries to read it. It takes about a minute before it gives up and in UnleashX dashboard it sais that the dvd drive is empty. I don't get the disk unreadable or dirty disk messages. Even when I use an other application, dvd2xbox for example, it also sais no disk. So if I asume the dvd drive works because it has always worked before, it leaves the motherboard and the harddrive. I also tried putting a previously working backup on the c-drive and it gives the same results, so I can asume the problem is not with the harddrive or the files installed. That only leaves the motherboard. I tried to softmod and to flash the TSOP directly, both result in non bootable backups. So the problem is not the bios. That only leaves the eeprom. I checked the eeprom settings and they say It's a PAL xbox, and that is correct as far as I know. I just don't see what I'm missing. I'm all out of ideas.
Welcome to one of the PAL region xbox funnies.. They don't like the dvd drives being swapped around for some unfathomable reason. Now as you have flashed the tsop I found a trick to get around this about 70% of the time.. though it does tend to come back.. Unlock the hdd and lock it a few times.. Then reboot a couple of times and try the drive. It sounds weird, and the drive will always play up.... I have no other answer for it. Some version mobos are just picky I suppose.
That sounds weird indeed. Then I wonder how the motherboard detects that another dvd drive is used. As far as I know the xbox dvd drive does not have a dvd key or serial number that the motherboard is aware of. Even stranger is the fact that it does boot original disks and only refuses backups. I have seen however that programs like configmagic can detect the brand and modelnumber of the dvd drive. I will try this as soon as possible. Could the problem be solved by using another brand and model dvd drive? I will try some other dvd drives and see what it does. I never though that the dvd drive could be causing this. Thanks for the tip varnull, I will let you know what I find out.
Yup.. it's a strange one.. In my xbox repair business I found the only way to get a reliable drive swap was to use the same make and model.. Doesn't seem to happen with the US ones at all. I did find once that the bios looks at the drive type, so it may be firmware related (nothing you can do about that) Puzzled me too.. but give the hdd lock and unlock a few goes.. It seems to reset the IDE controller.
Problem is solved. You were all right. The problem was dvd drive related. I had a Philips drive installed. I swapped it for another Philips drive and the problem remained. Then I swapped it for a Thompson drive and the xbox worked perfectly. After that I tried another Thompson drive and again the xbox worked perfectly. It seems that the PAL xboxes indeed check the dvd drive type. I want to thank you all for your help. I think I wouldn't have figured this one out by myself.
