Hey again!

Looks like I wasnt fast enough!

Anyway, here is the images:
Pic #1
Pic #2
Pic #3
Pic #4
Pic #5
Pic #6
Pic #7
Pic #8
Pic #9
Pic #10
Pic #11
Pic #12
Pic #13
Pic #14

Or you can just grab them all in a fancy .zip file! HERE (8.35MB)

Anyone got any news about this? Keep up the good work!

Hi Shaggie good to see we have the same model.

Have you done any testing yet as to the W,x,y & z signals?

I just got my drive tonight, I'm gonna have a look for those sinals whene I get back in..

Has any managed to dump the firmware from the xbox rom yet? If so how about a heads up

chat to you soon, Val

Hey val!

Nope, no testing done .. What so ever..

Contact me if you find something intressting!


See ya!

Found X it's the little red dot in the top left of the PCB.



Not found Y yet but we can use superfro's idea in his tutorial.

not checked for Z yet & I aint looking forward to it!!!!

Hey guys,

Looking at the pictures the two drives look identical, except for the xbox dvd connector plug. Since the signals you are looking for are being sent to that plug, wouldn't it be really easy to find the points if you used the 8050 as a map. Simply follow the traces back and we should have the points.

Once we have the points, we are still going to need a copy of the 8050 firmware inorder to read xbox originals. So, we need to find a program to d/l the firmware off of the panasonic chipset, or someone needs to desolder the sst chip and use a chip reader.

Still working on the signals, not had a lot of time on my hands + the drive I was using decided to bottom out on me so I have ordered another it should arrive some time next week.

Thats is a good idea though I like it, the only real problem I can think of it reversing the power to the drive motor, it looks a lot more complicated than the sammy conversion...

I'll update you on how I get on.

Val

I'm not 100% sure we will have to reverse the power to the tray motor, but even if we do, why would it be more difficult than rotating the motor 180 degrees?

Is anyone working on getting the firmware off of the xbox 8050 drive? I am trying to get ahold of the dangerous brothers over at rpc1.org, to see if they have a program for the 8163b or similar, that could work on the 8050.

We will need the firmware soon!

As you can see from the pics below the drive motor is part of the pcb & nothing like the Sammy version.

These pics are from an earlier drive model but the same build technique has been used for the newer versions..

You don't reverse that motor, you only reverse the tray motor. The xbox disks aren't like gamecube disks, they are spun like normal dvd/cd's. If you look at a sammy tutorial, reverse the tray motor not the spin motor.

well then what do you have to reverse the tray motor for then? i thought that the discs had to be spun the opposite direction to normal, as a copyright protection scheme.

I think it is that they read from the outside of the disc in. Normal discs read from inside to out.

No, xbox disks are read exactly as a normal dvd is read. The copy protection, is some sort of formatting change. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think they just have a different file system, instead of FAT or NTFS, and signed code.

The reason you need to reverse the tray motor in a sammy is because the firmware says to close the tray when it means open, and vise versa. If you press the eject button on a sd-616t/f with sd-616t/f firmware on a pc the drive works fine, if you flash sdg-605b firmware the tray will not open, because the signal says close, but if you manually open(paper clip) the drive and put a disk in then hit the eject button, it reads fine.

We may not have to reverse the tray motor, but if we have to it will be very easy. The first thing we need to do, is get the firmware off of an xbox LG 8050. Then we need to find all the signals. Test and see if we need anything else, or if the firmware will be compatable at all. It is still possible that this simply won't work too.

getting teh firmware is the only thing that is holding this project up. getting the signals should be very simple. just get a xbox lg drive's pcb next to the pc versions one, and track down the signals. as i said, it should be too hard if you have to two boards right there in front of you, sitting side-by-side.

Good news,

I got a reply from the Dagnerous Borthers, they gave me an app that should be able to dl the firmware off the 8050, who has one they can connect to their pc and d/l the firmware? PM me and I will email you the app. It is very small, 36k.

Once we have a bin, I have to send it back to the dangerous brothers, and they will make us a working exe to flash the 8163b. By the end of the week there may be 2 replacement dvd drives! If so lets make sure all the contributers in this thread are mentioned the the tutorials!

P.S. All you need to connect your 8050 to your computer is a yellow dvd cable you are willing to splice into a molex connector (pc power plug).

Dont have to. Just boot up in the x, and the grey cable is connected to a pc, thats it!

Heya guys!!

Yeah!! This is the way these kinda things should work!! Good Team running this s*it!

Great work you all!!

Lets keep up the work!

Send me every info you'll be able to get your hands on .. i need them!

Thanks!

just had one of these the other day for a mod job. i didnt even think of ripping the firmware... damn... oh well.

Come on guys, someone has to have one of these drives they can connect to their computer. All you have to do is:

1: Connect Power to the Drive
Choice #1: Splice into the yellow wires to provide power from the computer.
Choice #2: Connect the yellow wires to your xbox, connect the ide cable to your computer and power them both on.

2: Use either the dos prompt, or a dos boot disk to load the exe I will send you.

3: Send me the bin file generated by the exe.

4: I send the bin to the Dangerous Brothers

5: They send us a flashable copy back, and we are in business.

...in case that somebody didnt know, you can get excellent bootdisk images from www.bootdisk.com

M.

send me the exe and i'll rip it.=)

Since the only person to answer my request didn't leave me his email, I will make this easier. The file is legal, so I will put it into my yahoo shared folder under xbox. It is titled dwld8163.zip. Once you have successfully made a backup of the 8050's firmware, you can send me the bin at either lentesubigo@yahoo.com or lentesubigo@gmail.com, or both to make sure I get it.

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/lentesubigo

Lets get to work!

i have heard that the firmware for the hitachi lg is being worked on to use a pc lg drive in the xbox it is a cheap dvd rom and would read everything like the sammy 616t so keep looking out for the firmware

thats what this topic is about man. do sum reading

Well, I guess people have heard of us yeah, now lets get this thing going, someone get the firmware already.

hey LenteSubigo, it aint working. i cant get that file you said was there.

just heads up

Ok, yahoo sucks, here is a link.
http://home.comcast.net/~lentesubigo/dwld8163.zip

Please don't download unless you are goint to use it!

Good job with the firmware downloader

I'm waiting on a replacement drive coming & I'll start the search for signals again

I'll update you whene the drive arrives.

Regards,

Valius

Is there anyone who is going to get the firmware for us? If we get the firmware we can have this project done this week.

out of interest and not wanting to rain on your parade......

but does anyone know the 4 pinouts for the pc LG drives then without using NANDgates ?

tray in
tray out
eject
ready

hope the LG xbox firmware can be pulled off easier than the Tosh/Samsung 605F - that 605F can not be backed up via mtkflash like the 605B or many other drives

If NAND gates are still needed for LG drives then it may not be quite a quick fix/project

would be intersted in your findings and think you might ask stitch626 - he knows a lot about replacement dvd drives and was also trying to find a 605f replacement drive too but firmware was a bitch on that

If the firmware is cracked to read CD-R's, can't we just reflash the M$ drive and not have to solder / splice wires.

HAHA i didnt realize that this thread was 12 pages so I only read like the first page before i post that i heard about the firmware being on the net somewhere My BAD

Will this drive fit in the XBOX? From the specs LG gives (146 x 41.3 x 184.6 mm) and my drive it should perfectly fit! My Samsung has (146 x 41.3 x 194 mm). Looks like the Samsung is a little longer than this drive!!!

technicly yes... but these are hard to crack.... nobody really managed to crack anyother one i dont think...

The goal here isn't to crack the firmware. The goal is to provide a reliable xbox drive replacement. We may even get the drive to read cd-r. The sd-616t reads slightly faster, and has better media compatability than the 605b even after being flashed with the sdg-605b firmware. So, I would guess that we can find a way to get it to work just like a sammy without a firmware hack. But first, someone who has one of these drives has to download the firmware extractor, and get us a copy of the firmware.

Please dont download the software unless you are going to use it to extract a copy of the lg 8050 xbox drives firmware. Thanks.
Firmware Extraction Software: http://home.comcast.net/~lentesubigo/dwld8163.zip

Ok, guys, I just checked my email, and I was told that making this tool available publicly available wasn't a good idea. So, If you have an LG 8050 Xbox drive, pm me and I will send you a link to its new location. Someone who has one of these drives please rip the firmware for us, you are one of only a few, there aren't many of these drives out yet.

But if the firmware isn't modified, what is the point of having a PC drive replacement? I thought people replaced the Samsung because the new drive could read CDRs better and was slightly faster.

The sd-616t/f has a slightly better laser on it, so it will read cd-r better, and has better dvd and cd-r media compatablility.

It would be nice to find someone capable of modifying the firmware willing to do it for us. If we had someone who could hack the firmware, we could make firmware for any pc dvd drive that would read originals, we might even be able to read originals on the pc if we knew what made the firmware support originals. We would be able to allow a drive to read at 16x and still read originals as well. If we could hack the firmware, we would have one hell of a drive. But noone here has the ability to hack firmware, and at least in the past those who did wouldn't help.

If you want to try and get people to help hack the firmware, start another thread. But this thread is for making another, more available pc dvd-rom drive replacement. And all we need now is someone to rip the firmware for us.

My xbox makes the same exact sound when it is loading games. I just bought it this month and it does have the new LG drive in it. The new drive seems to be the nosiest of all the xbox drives when loading (clicking sounds). I have used 20+ different PC CD/DVD drives and none have made this noise. A CD/DVD drive should spin up to speed and just read the disc, not make clicking noises when loading. Does anyone know why this new LG drive makes clicking sounds when it is loading discs?

No, but if you have an lg drive you can hook it up to your pc and download the firmware for us cant you? PLEASE

come on, please. there has to be someone who can get this firmware for us.

please

i have one of these drives, but i do not have any soldering tools(or the time) to learn and then handle the dvd power cable mod. if someone wants to send me a modified cable, i can figure out the rest of the steps lentosubigo has outlined to provide the results requested. i live in california and i can pay for the postage, if you need me to.

this merged thread was all i found here on x-s(no b/s/t), but i was wondering what xbox-scenesters would pay for the drive, as opposed to ebayers, and that is how i ended up here. however, if i can provide some help before i sell it, that is cool too.

i will not be reading this thread everytime i visit x-s(usually every day), so if you can provide me with a modified dvd power cable, please let me know via pm asap.

@mainx07 - i used my hitachi-lg for about 5-6 hours and i noticed that the drive makes more noise than any of the other xbox drives i have used, but it was definitely a whirring or whining noise that only happened while i was actually using the drive. it was definitely a little bit louder than my v1.0 mobo fan, but i did not hear any noise at all when i was not using the drive and i did not hear any clicking noises either. is the clicking noise you refer to similar to th noise an old thomson will make?

STICKY_BUD

Do you have Hitachi-LG 8050L model ? Please contact LenteSubigo, extract firmware and send him firmware file.

STICKY_BUD

you dont have to mod anything.
just unplug xbox ide cable from your xbox dvd drive (keep that other) and replace it with ide cable what comes from your pc.
then power up xbox and then PC.

when xbox starts up the drive gets its power. when pc starts up it detects that drive

that should work i think?

Sounds like it would work to me. Did either of you pm him, because he said he wouldn't be reading this thread?

I can pm he now.

lets hope he answers quickly

thanks for the pm stail. i am not sure i will be able to do all that within the next 48 hours. in fact, it will not be very easy for me at all. i was offering to use a modified cable, but the only location i can do this process is at work and taking the whole xbox into work is a quite a bit more conspicuous than i was planning on being.

i cannot use that particular method at home because i have a sony all-in-one box(drives and i/o built into the lcd) and my wife uses an imac.

however, i have carried my xbox to work on the weekend many times in order to take advantage of the projector and t-1 line nobody uses so going into work this weekend when nobody is around will not be a problem and it will give me a reason to get ionto some serious xbl action. as long as the app works for me, i can definitely have some results on sunday afternoon.

@lentesubigo - will you please upload the app again and pm the link to me?

If your still looking for a drive, I can get ahold of one tonight or tommorow. One of my buddies has one (I saw it when I moded his box I'm pretty sure). If you email me the App I'll hook it up to my comp tonight.

If I get the app by the time I leave work today I will stop by his house on my way home.

Post a message here if you would like as well.

kbarton77

EDIT: I removed my e-mail address, if sticky_bud can't do it I would be able too.

Both of you guys have been sent the firmware downloader link. Hopefully one of you will be able to d/l the firmware using that software.

i have the app now(thanks lentesubigo!), but i wont be able to complete the task until this weekend. please send me your email addy by friday night lentesubigo so i can send you the results from my gmail account. i will check tomorrow, and again on saturday morning, to see if kbarton has already posted the results before me. i am glad i searched here on x-s before i sold the drive and i am glad to help. looks like we can have this part of the project complete by saturday evening.

stay green!

I talked to the friend who's xbox I remember it being in, barring any brain farts on my part, I will have access to it tonight. I did two xbox's at the same time, so I'm not 100 % sure that I have the right xbox. I'm about 90% sure, but will let you guys know by 8 or 9 MST Friday. I got the program thanks LenteSubigo. I'll let you know as soon as I got it (or don't).

Kbarton!!