Original Xbox: Project Resurrection - Part 2

And I'm back with a second installment of "When I found my xbox at the back of a shelf in my shed and decided to try it out". You may remember, back in part one, when I booted it up and...well hey, why not read it for yourself HERE.

Done? Okay cool. So after the great disappointment which was:

I wouldn't let it go, I had to make this thing work and I didn't want to wait a few weeks until the converter arrived. Everything else works fine and I have some games ready to copy to a hard drive, I just had to work something out in the interim. From a little research I learned an SSD wasn't necessarily a great idea due to bandwidth considerations and that sticking with a spinning disk was both cheaper and more practical. I looked around online I was confident I could get my hands on a spinning SATA disk super cheap (refurbished). For now, being the impatient person I am, I decided it was time to pull it apart and check things out.

First, unplug that bastard and pop it open. I hadn't taken this apart in a decade and, given the sudden death of the HDD, I didn't know what to expect. Screws out, case off, and everything looked pristine, just how I left it. What else to do now but dismantle. Why? Why not! Out with the internals, out with the hard drive and DVD! I took that thing to pieces and then, job done, I cabled everything back together (though I didn't put it back in the case).

 

This is where the magic happened. I booted it back up, as much in hope than in anticipation of having fixed anything, and it was alive. Alive! Of course the first thing I did was back up any files I already had on there, delete them to make room, and then copy across a handful of my games to test.

Obviously, this was a resounding success

So why was it working now, HDD dangling in the wind, pants around its metaphorical ankles? I really don't know, but I can play Arx Fatalis so I don't care.

Looks way better in real life

For the past week then I've been ordering parts, researching options, backing up games, and getting my hands on new ones. I'm going to install a 500GB SATA drive and fill it with everything I have, and everything I get my hands on in the meantime. My ultimate goal is to have every Xbox game I'm even remotely interested in on a machine set up in my lounge room. I already have a laptop and router configured that I can use to swap games around so, for now, I can chop and change between about 20-25 games and compile a list of the best couch co-op options for a retro night. Who knows, perhaps I'll even post a micro review or two.

More to come when the parts arrive.