I picked up a used, beat-up original (1st gen) 360 at a thrift store. Its outer case was cracked in several places and the end panels were missing. I do not have a hard drive for it. I popped off the front faceplate and the M$ sticker was untouched, so I knew it hadn't been messed with. When I powered it up I found it had the RRoD.

I got a Team-Xecuter RRoD fix kit and installed it. It now works. I also found a person at work who fixes them and he provided me with some missing case parts as well as a dead 2nd Gen motherboard that I could rob the improved heatsinks and fan shroud off of. I've now gotten all of that installed. The included DVD drive is a Samsung/Toshiba TS-H943, which I disassembled, cleaned, lubed, and treated the tray belt with rubber rejuvenator. It loads a loaner game disc just fine.

Now, this unit appears to have dashboard version 2.0.6683.0. I've been doing a lot of reading on how best to proceed hacking the unit but am seeing some conflicting information. I want to be able to play backup discs.

I know I'm supposed to wait to flash the drive's firmware until I upgrade to the newest dashboard (or I guess now, the Xbox 'Experience'). But I thought I'd read the original 360 couldn't be upgraded to the newest dashboard because there wasn't enough internal memory. Someone into modding told me that wasn't true. When I do load the newest dash I'm unsure how hackable the unit will still be.

Could someone shed a little light and advice on this situation for me?

Don't update the dash. JTAG it, add a hard drive to play the games from, then if you still feel the need you can flash the DVD drive.

At that dashboard the Xbox is still jtaggable (quite rare these days). This means you can play games from a hard drive and do many other cool things (except play online).

If you want to play online, flashing the drive is a better option. You'd need to update to the latest dashboard first (you need a storage device first, and since the dashboard thats on there didnt support usb drives yet, youll need to borrow a standard 360 hard drive from someone in order to get it updated. Once it's updated, you're in luck. You have the easiest drive to flash in your Xbox. Its pretty much plug in, flash. And the best part is that the drive does not do AP2.5 checks like the other types of drives. What this means is that you don't need a special DVD burner to burn the games! You can safely play "truncated" copies online.

One last thing: Please consider having the Xbox repaired by a professional before that "RROD fix kit" damages the 360 beyond repair. It is a bandaid. That kit can put too much, or uneven pressure on the chips, causing solder balls to crush and chips to crack. It can also flex the board so that the chips stop touching all their contacts, this is hard to correct. For a long lasting fix, you will want to reflow or reball the Xbox's GPU (assuming that's the chip that caused the issue). All the fix kit does is put pressure on the GPU so that the cracked solder joint touches just enough that electricity can flow through the solder ball. It will not last forever. It may not even last a month.

Good luck with that thing and happy gaming.

sadly unlike u i have come across a xenon board that a buddy was throwing out after a baffled attempt at a did drive swap (read fried the board and got passed and slammed it across the room) now my done 360 was an hdmi not sure which as it isn't here with me but good did drive as far as movies go... but with my 14719 dash board im afraid all i have is a pretty dvd player... unless im missing something... probably the case, i don't even think i can get my dvd key from the motherboard at this point

tldnr: i am screwed i believe, but best of luck

RGH2.0 it, run Xell to retrieve the key, then flash back to stock and remove the glitch. I believe that's the only way to get that key.

I know a lot of people offer that service for under 30 dollars on many forums.

Interesting i was under the impression that a xenon with 17419 was un glitchable

It is glitchable from my understanding, but the glitch is so unreliable that the only real use is to recover the DVD key. (I'm taking information from other people, not personal experience)

EDIT: Also I believe that some Xenons don't glitch at all. I've sent them to a guy for key recovery and only about half the consoles I sent would actually glitch for him.

Heimdall, canyonnehastings--

THanks for the good advice. I've JTAGged the unit and flashed XBReboot to it. It seems to work for now, but I noticed a couple of odd issues before the fixes/upgrades and one of them is still present (at least, that I've noticed).

1) After having it off and unplugged for 4 -5 days I bring it up and find myself in the setup/languages menu. The cursor is at the last selection, which I believe is Japanese or Korean. I try to go up the list using the controller and I can move the cursor up one or two selections but it goes back to the bottom of the list on its own. It will also, occasionally, switch itself back and forth between the bottom two selections while I'm watching it.

2) No matter which rez I select I get these horizontal bands with "noise" or "sparklies" spaced every so often down the screen when looking at the XBox's video on my LG plasma. I took a closer look at the video cable (supposedly a component cable, purchased used at the local Gameswap store) and it has 5 RCA phono plugs on it. Two are differently marked (and obviously for L/R audio) but the three video plugs are colored red/green/blue instead of the expected yellow/blue/red. I'm wondering if I have the wrong "flavor" of video cable (wrong output type) since my plasma expects a YPbPr signal?

Also, I've read a lot about the advantages of having a dual NAND system to allow the use of newer games. But I'm a little confused as there are several things on the market now and they seem to offer a lot more than I need/want. I found a "Squirt" board at DealExtreme for about $15, but it sounds like I'd have to also purchase a separate programmer board for it. Is there something like the older PS2/Gamecube boards where they come with a built-in interface to program them?

I'd feel a lot better having the board reflowed but I don't know of a reliable person in this area to do it. From what I've read about the process it takes some skill (which could make the repair cost pretty expensive). I've entertained buying an SMD hot air rework station for myself but I'm not sure if that would be a sufficient means to reflow the video/CPU chips.

An update-- I DID have the incorrect cable. I now have the correct component cable (with TV / HDTV switch on the side). However, I still have the the noisy horizontal lines across the screen that are pretty evenly spaced out (imagine dividing the screen into sixths or so, with a noise line at each position). THey're most visible when the Xbox goes into screensaver mode.

I've just ordered an SMD rework station, so perhaps I'll try blowing some hot air under the graphics chip.