Hey guys n gals, I'm basically looking to purchase a new (or refurbished if that's recommended) XBOX 360 console.

A friend of mine has a white XBOX 360 Pro with a Hitachi drive (which he has told me is easy to mod?? also unsure if he means disk drive or HDD) which he uses to play games he has backed up onto disks.

I'm trying to buy a system suitable to do this on.

My questions are (keep in mind I'm ignorant to things in the XBOX scene, not tech in general):

What's the difference between an XBOX 360 "Slim" and a regular XBOX 360?
Is Kinect worth it (or even possible to mod)?
What's the difference between the white and black XBOX's?
If I purchase a brand new XBOX 360 (which all seem to be black) would it be suitable to mod?
Should I look into getting an XBOX 360 pro?
In terms of modding a system to played backed up games am I modding the disk drive or the HDD?
Related to the above question: What is the ideal HDD or disk drive model/manufacturer to have when modding?
Overall, what system should I look to buy (model, specs, time manufactured if possible please)?

Thanks in advance for all the help

Well yes hitachi drives are easy to mod but any drive can be modded but the very newest one wich i think is in progress and every drive that has ever came out that was un moddable was eventually figured out.

Keep in mind too that hitachi is a old xbox that were plagued with problems breaking down and to my knowledge have no hdmi
so if i was not in the knowing about modding or light on cash i would stay away.

The difference between regular and slim is not very much. The slim well obviously is smaller and are a newer more solid design and they are a bit harder to mod then some of the regular ones and some of the newest models you cant mod just yet but everything else is identical.

The difference between black and white xbox is the whites are the old models and am not sure but most of the time have no hdmi output and break down with the 3 red lights.
Kinect you dont need to hack it works with any modded xbox and wether worth it is up to your gaming tastes , i bought it launch day and havent used it since lol I just bought to have but its not my kinda thing , you use your body as a controller and it mimicks your action in kinect compatible games and is alot of good exercise in some cases. Also the big flaw in kinect is you need tons of open space for it to work.Like i have to move my coffee table and tilt my tv and kinect over to the side.
You could enjoy it though but maybe look around you tube for demos of it in action.

when modding you are only modding the dvd drive thats it and the manufacture is your refrence on how to mod it cause each one is different in some ways , some big some small and the hdd doesnt matter at all.

If i was you i would buy depending on what i wanted to spend and if i absolutley needed xbox live. Me personally i would rather have a newer black case regular xbox cause it has hdmi , it doesnt break down and is easy to mod and cheaper to buy used and is same machine. I like the Benq.
if you have bit more money to spend you could buy a pre modded slim or take a risk and buy a new one and hope it can be modded.
Also the jtag modded ones are awsome especially if its the hdmi one. With jtag you can play all your favorite emulators like super nintendo sega and atari ect ect And you can play all the homebrew games and programs
and BEST of all you can get a external hard drive "not some dinky 20gb" with like 800 gb and put all your games on the hard drive instead of discs , there is also other cool stuff but its against the rules to talk about here just google what jtags can do Also you cant play live on jtag without being banned so that sucks if you need live
You can buy jtags right here on this site in the selling section , they are pretty rare consloes though.

One last thing is keep in mind that eventually new firmware will come and you will have to flash the new firmware if you wanna stay on live or even play new games that are coming out so either you learn yourself or take it in to a pro in your area and pay the $20 to have it reflashed. If your tech savy you can buy those mod kits or that xbox usb pro device or that new lizard flashing device and do it on your own with a tutorial

I think you should wait a couple weeks for the new LT flash firmware to be released "you MUST have for new future games" and buy a pre modded un banned newer black case regular xbox OR preferably buy a brand new regular xbox or and go have it modded in your area its cheap but dont bother till the new firmware comes out or you will be making 2 trips to your modder or be banned right away lol

Anyway hope i helped a bit

Xbox slim's are cooler and have a lower failure rate than the older types. Also it is much quieter.
If you are not "tech savy" it's propably best if you have a local guy or shop, that can help you out every time there is a new firmware for the dvd drive.

If you see an older type console with a hitachi drive, run away! ;-)

Thanks for everything! You definitely cleared some things up.

When you say "new black case xbox" do you mean the 360 Elite? I've been eyeing a new or used black 360 Elite with a 120GB HDD.

Also, what do you mean by a "benq"?

And lastly, if I were to flash my disk drive would I be banned if I played backed up games locally and retail disks online? (versus playing backed up games online)

Thanks in advance for the help

Benq is one of many different dvd drives that can come in 360's.

If a Live ban is something you cant live with then dont mod. There will never be a 100% safe way to play backups even offline.

I see, thank you Ranger. I realize there is always a risk, that I am fine with. I'm just trying to get information so I can minimize it

In terms of buying an XBOX now should I be hunting for one that has a Benq drive? Or would my best bet be to just purchase a new XBOX 360 and find a program that can flash it.

Ok, I'm gonna step out on a limb, so I hope I don't step on anybodys toes.
I'm pretty sure that if you buy a new console from the store, you will not be able to mod the drive right now, as I'm pretty sure there are no custom firmware for the new drives right now. However, according to recent news, a custom firmware for the new dvd drives are right around the corner.

But, in order to flash the dvd drive, you also need to have the right hardware to do the job. If you buy an older "phat" type console, you can just buy a VIA 6421 sata controller which is compatible with all the phat dvd drives. You can propably find one of these on ebay pretty cheap. Note though, that for the Liteon drives you'll also need something called a probe in order to get the dvd key.

However, with the newer slim type drives, you might need to buy a "X360USB PRo" instead, in order to modify them.

When you say "phat" console, what do you mean exactly?

I'm not really a huge XBOX gamer, so I would be totally fine with an older XBOX 360 Pro instead of a brand new Elite or Slim. That being said, does anyone know if performance wise there is a huge difference?

I mean the old type xbox. The one that has the clip on hard drive on the side.



There shouldn't be any performance difference, but perhaps someone that have physically compared the two consoles next to each other can give you a better answer.

Thanks so much for your patience haha

I've decided on getting an XBOX 360 Pro since it is cheaper and has the same specs as an Elite except for HDD space.

Are "phat" consoles only XBOX 360's? or can Elites also fall under the phat console category?


EDIT: I've been looking around on Ebay for a used XBOX 360 Pro, what kind of specs should I be on the lookout for, and are there any things I should be checking before buying?

Yes elites also fall under the "phat" category. All the older types (white, black) are considered as "phat" consoles. The reason is because the physical dimensions of the xbox are bigger than the new type xbox, that was released last year.

Here is a link which shows the difference between the two types:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT2CKJF4cw0

If you're getting a phat console, whether if it's a pro, elite, or arcade, I would make sure that it was a "Jasper" console. The Jasper consoles are the quietest and the coolest (does not overheat) ones of the phat consoles.

To find out if the console that you are looking to buy is a Jasper console you can just ask the seller to take a look at the power supply and ask him what wattage the power supply has.
There are three different power supplies. 203W, 175W and 150W. The Jaspers uses 150Watt power supplies, so if you get one that has a 150W power supply, then you've got a jasper.

trust me just buy a pre modded phat xbox with either a benq dvd drive or a lite on dvd drive , they are all black case ones ,all those drives come in xbox's with hdmi and are easy to mod and dont break down. Make sure you ask if its live banned or not
Also they are pretty cheap now on ebay or in the sellers section here or on craigslist.

Me personally i have 2 xbox's , they are both phat black case ones , 1 is lite on drive other is benq drive.
The reason why i have 2 is because i have 1 that is completley unmodded wich i play my originals on LIVE like call of duty , halo ect ect and the other is modded with flashed firmware wich i play my backups on and dont go on LIVE with cause its banned anyway.

I also modded both my consoles and didnt have a clue what i was doing i just used ALOT of google and youtube videos and used the newbie section of this site. I recently just bought the modding tool "LIZARD" im not sure wether people like or reccomend this tool but looks easy enough lol

But ya i would just buy what i reccomended cause trust me first time modding something sucks and is hard but you feel pretty good after you finish lol

Phat 360 with Black case = Elite AFAIK, a bunch of them do break down (with a Falcon motherboard), best is to look for a Jasper (150W PSU), black or white doesn't really matter besides HDD space..