I had my 360 modded by a mutual friend. I am able to play copied games, just burned ninja gaiden 3 and works fine. I am curious as to which way it was modded to see what I can and can't do. It has the old style dashboard and I have not hooked up to Internet yet. Can I update the dashboard or will it cause it to stop playing burned games.

If you update it it will stop playing "back up" games. Since your 360 is on an old dash you should look up jtagging your 360 if you don't care about going on live. Since it seems you really don't care about going on line and you just want to play your back up games I would Jtag tag the 360. Just Google Jtag 360 if you don't know what that is.

You can always re-mod it. Ask your friend to do it if you can't.