Adding Sata port to xbox 360

<-- Here was my first idea at a sata mod - Run the cables out the side and just use a piece of an old PCICard as a female to female sata connector... FAIL that would be crap and who wants cables dangling out the box when you dont need to. There simply had to be a better way... Well I FOUND IT!

Note to self: The rubber tape to guard cables against the sharp edges worked a treat. Will use that in another project.

It's been a long time in the planning however I finally did the mod to stop me having to open the xbox ever again. What I did was splice a switch in between two sata cables and an eSata backing plate.

I pulled apart the xbox in the usual way, used my dremel to cut out some metal shielding, and some plastic that helps hold the 360 together. This however will make no difference to the 360 as the case still closes without issue

I flick the switch one way and the DVD drive connects to the 360 motherboard allowing game play. I flick it the other way and the drives output is switched to the eSata port and out to my computer.

List of parts and prices (AUD)

1. eSata Cable -$4
2. eSata external backing plates x2 -$5 each (needed one for pc as well)
3. 4PDT switch - $7
4. Sata cable x 1 - $0 (Came with data card)

Only needed one extra data cable as the esata plug can be cut to make another cable to connect to DVD drive.

So it's basically, cut all sata cables in half,
Strip wires back a little, solder wires to switch contacts
Dremel case and shielding, drill hole for switch, coat switch in hot glue to provide shielding.
Install switch and esata portto top case
Instal cables to motherboard, middle cable to DVD rom, top to esata port.
Close it all up and enjoy.

Here are some finished pics, will upload some more soon. (These look crap and make the mod look untidy. GRRrrr - Will Get some good ones soon)

Installing OSx86

This is the second attempt - after getting fed up with things not working out of the box thought i'd try two different distro's to see if it makes a difference to the out of the box experiance.

Installing now should take 15 mins, will see how we go.

First was iakos7 - Install went fine, rebooted and then:

Boot - Reboot Loop on the Grey Screen

Turn off Hyperthreading... Boots to a blue screen with music playing - Sounds like the audio drivers work - Grahpics drivers - Not So much, Time to try Kalayway as I dont want to spend the vening working out the correct .kext etc to use to get it to function and who wants to use it without hyperthreading :d

Kalaway's Turn

1. Turn hyperthreading back on - I want this out of the box.

2. Boot from Kalaway DVD without the use of boot options

3. Installer startup is taking a while longer than iAktos, although its scanned the NTFS partition for some reason for consistency.

5:31pm greeted with northen lights background and welcome to installer text.

Use English for main Language.

Mac OSX - Barbers Pole - Preparing Installation

4. Utilities Menu --> Disk Utility --> Erase OSX Partition from previous install

5. Select newly erased partition to install to

6. Press Customize - And go through options keno'ing answers :D

7. Leaving Graphics Drivers Empty.

8. Unselected Language translation - My english is pretty good so i'll stick to that

9. checked to install additional 3rd party apps - removed network drivers that i dont have such as marvel etc

10. Click Okay and then Install

11. OSX would now "hypothetically" be installing :D

6 Mins to go :)

Boots up with grey apple boot screen - Wont load past that

Okay - check the manual... need to run a few commands to get it to boot past the grey apple logo - Seems this is the same as the blue screen fix

Boot as normal, press F8 to enter boot options,

enter -s as boot option to go into single user mode

Once it boots and presents with a command line enter the following:

mount -uw /

/movevideo

Go through and say yes to the correct chipset and no to the others

once its all done, type exit and BOOM into OSX we go.

Next comes sound...

No sound has been installed it would seem, time to start with the drivers (Called .kext's in OSX)

I have a sigmatel AC97 sound card that shows as Intel HD Audio in windows.

So time to go diving for a driver. ... meh.. can't be bothered - I'll do it later.

Haze - you've got to be kidding

Ohhh great. Now the game wants to quit and update itself. Grrrrrrr


-- Post From My iPhone

Ps3 Game - Haze

My seond game ever. Haze from ubisoft. Talk about snore fest. I've started the game only to be greeted with this...


It's now 10 minutes later and I'm at 82%. Surely I could have decided if I wanted to install to my hard drive. Game better be worth the wait.

-- Post From My iPhone