i jst got my xbox last week and i already want to mod it! is it really possible to mod it only using mech assault, a usb thumb drive, phantasy star online convertor, and the mech assault hack? could someone please point me to a reputable tutorial as to how to do this? also, if i want to go back to my original xbox config, is there anyway i could backup my entire xbox hard driver over my network? thanks you for your imput.

Look at some of the softmod questions, pinned topics, forums and tutorials on here.

Here is a great soft-mod.

Here is a great tutorial for soft modding:

http://how2xbox.tk/