' date='Feb 2 2010, 10:15 PM' post='4631455']
Cheapest....you asked for it !

Technicaly you should be able to do this at zero cost..

First take a spare 4 pin hard drive Molex connector from your PC and snip off the connector.
Strip off the 5v, 12v and a ground and tin with a soldering iron. Grab one of the 0v black wires, follow it back to the power supply and snip it off....this gives you some spare wire...recycling too !

Next find a 3.3v output on your PC power supply (normaly Orange), mid way down the cable length, strip off the sleaving without breaking the wire. Strip off the end of the spare black wire from above, wrap it round the stripped bit in the orange cable...tin/solder them together and tape it off securely with insulation tape.

Next, remove the lid of your xbox dvd drive and locate the soldered power connector. Solder the red 5v wire you snipped earlier to pin 8, the 0v black wire (not the one linked to the orange wire) can go to either pin 5,7,9 or 11 (common gnd). The 12V wire should go to pins 10 and 12. I dont remember if those are common, so you can use a connector block and some spare wire to route that to those pins. The spare wire from 3.3v goes to pin 6.

Finaly you will need an eject mechanism. Pin 3 is used as a switching pin, it needs to be switched to ground, so you can buy a cheap switch to acomplish this connection, or if you are still craving cheapness, solder a wire to this and another wire to one of the GND's, and have them hanging out of the pc, then just twist them together or seperate them, depending if you want the tray open or not.

It wont be pretty, but it is the cheapest method. Also double check the pin numbers I have stated, I may have got them wrong from memory.

Personaly Id look to buy one of the basic connectivity kits that simply sort the power out, and dont have serial ports on them etc.