Purchased a used XBox from a friend, not knowing he had a shop do repairs on it for the optical drive no longer reading discs. It appears they replaced the entire optical drive (or maybe the motherboard, but doubtful). Anyway, the latest Dashboard update won't install on my Xbox and I'm guessing this is why. Am I stuck with a worthless piece of junk now? Or is there any way to remedy this situation?

Thanks in advance.

Sounds like they replaced the drive with a different model than originally shipped with the console (this is known as spoofing). This is what you need to do, find out which drive originally came with the console. Purchase that drive and insert the key found in your current dvd drive (known as dumping the firmware). Make sure to save your key, very important. Finally, with the newly purchased drive in the stock condition (you may need to flash it) make the updates. Then re-flash it to LT+1.91.


So in short, no, your console isn't junk.

Thanks for your help. I'm new to all this stuff.. so looking around, I guess I would need to buy these things:

http://www.xconsoles.com/xbox-360-liteon-d...d2s-74850c.html (Lite-On DG-16D2S drive)

http://www.xconsoles.com/xecuter-ck3-lite.html (Xecuter CK3 Lite)
http://www.xconsoles.com/xecuter-ck3-probe-3.html (Xecuter CK3 Probe 3)
(or maybe I just buy this one item:)
http://www.xconsoles.com/xecuter-x360usb-pro.html

Or is it simpler than that?

And to make sure I follow your directions-- I will dump the key from my current (incorrect) drive, then stick the new drive in and update to latest Dashboard. After that, re-flash it to LT+1.91.

Will I need to futz with it in the future? Will Microsoft ever release an update that kills my drive again?

Thanks again for the help.

Pretty much got the right idea. Thing is that is a lot of money to invest in a console that can be get for as little as $75 or lower in many pawn shops now.

That is correct. Just make sure to have the original firmware in the correct drive while you update. Without it the update may fail.

No one knows the future but most likely we will need to update our drives sometimes in the future. For now, we are "safe".