About

*www.yallcenter.com*note: this is the original , manual way to lock your harddrive - xbox software has now been released by Team Assembly (ConfigMagic - no downloadlink here 'cause build with XDK) that can do this for you automatically**

The OEM Xbox hard drive comes from Microsoft in a “locked” condition. This is a privacy mechanism which was intended to prevent you or hackers from looking at the contents of the original disk.

If you place the OEM drive into a PC, the PC bios will be unable to unlock the drive, and the drive will not enter a “ready” state that the PC can deal with.

It should be also noted that if the drive were to be unlocked the PC would still not understand the drives formatting mechanism so it would still be unable to display its contents. Even imaging programs such as Norton Ghost will fail to read or duplicate the drive.

Why lock (or unlock) the drive?

If you elect to put a new hard drive in your Xbox you MUST first already have a “mod” chip in the machine that supports hard drive swapping.

The normal bios and first and second generation mod chips were never designed to support drive swapping. The original unmodified bios code for handling the drive is contained on those bios chips.

Guide: Replacing The Xbox DVD Drive & Laser Assembly

Ok, before we proceed, I would advise NOONE to remove their dvd drive if the Xbox is still under warranty.

Opening the Xbox voids the manufacturers warranty entirely.


A quick note about xbox dvd drives and replacement laser assemblies:
- Both can be found on ebay!
- Complete dvd drives sell for generally between $70-$130 aud. + postage
- Laser assemblies sell for around $40 aud. inc. postage



Now onto the guide....

What'll you'll need -