Question about Purchasing a "Modded" Xbox

Hello. As a Christmas gift to myself, lol, I want to purchase a modded Xbox so I can re-play the various games available on this site. I wants me some Onimusha and Outrun! Ha ha ha. I enjoyed playing them way back when.
However, I want a decent system. By "decent" I mean working parts and in great condition (I don't want a console that looks like it was dragged through the trash heap).

I did find this website/seller:
http://sprinkleboutique.com/

I need help gaming gurus! Are their consoles okay to go ahead and purchase one? Which do you recommend?

I have tinkered with some emulation in the past, mostly Magic Engine and MAME but quite frankly, I know little, if anything, about their companion software installed on the HD.

Whatever positive input you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

Just had a look at that "Sprinkle Boutique" link: an overpriced 'service' IMHO where their $200 'budget' Xboxes may not be fully functional (on/off buttons and even the DVD drive not working) and, worst of all they're not chipped or even TSOPed. That would have just about justified the price but no, they're all softmodded no doubt using one of the softmodding packages freely available online.

They expect you to pay up to $320 for a 2TB softmodded used Xbox, a controller, SD and cheap power cables. The rest is just window dressing, essentially more freely available software easily found at places like this or elsewhere. They'd be making a profit selling it for $100 less even with shipping costs; you're paying that extra for the time it took them to install free software.

Either find a place that installs a still decent chip or does TSOPs but I'd suggested softmodding a Xbox, upgrading the HDD and installing everything yourself. It will take a bit of research, work and time though. But if you get a good, fully functioning Xbox of eBay or similar and new HDD + SATA/IDE adapter and 80 wire IDE cable, Molex power x2 splitter and a Xbox compatible flash drive + USB adapter, Component cables etc you'd probably have change from $150 and half of that would be the cost of the HDD.

Fit a cheap 320GB IDE HDD if you can still find one and the total cost could be half that again.

DIY and you'll learn a lot more than buying a 'package' like this off the shelf and TBH unless you really just want to to play games the whole Xbox modding/upgrading scene is still very active and a great way of widening the scope of your gaming activities.

Depends on where you are. I know in the USA it is illegal to sell specifically sell a modified XBOX as it enables piracy. That said, your best bet is to find out if you have a local shop that buys, services, and sells refurbished XBOX consoles. Typically they will use softmod software to get all the parts working together and you might be able to get one with the software still on it, in which case you will simply need the right game to unlock the softmod's functionality. That's how I got mine.

As for the rest of it, putting emulators on, I can't help as I only used it for playing games ripped to the HDD. It is commonly recommended to not use the XBOX DVD drive if you can help it since that is the part most prone to wearing out and breaking.

If not, you will save yourself a LOT of money by simply buying the game and adapter you need to install a softmod, which is much safer than a modchip and very easy to do yourself.
My local shop sells original XBOX for $40, the rest of the kit can probably be found for another $40, saving you $120+.

Modding isn't illegal here as it enables other regions.

Magic Engine is a PC only emulator though I am sure there are PC Engine emulators for Xbox, MAME is also on Xbox but it is based on old versions so there will be games that will work on PC but not on Xbox

32GB is a bit small for a XBOX HDD replace, I was running low on space with a 120GB drive I found that my 750GB drive was maybe a bit too much though but with a few of the recently modded emulators they can take up alot more space especially if you have all the art packs ect

For soft modding anyway 2TB drive has little use as you can not access all the space, I can't be 100% sure you can with 1TB anyway due to the Xbox HDD format limits

32GB? 320GB is what I suggest would suit many users but 1TB are often fitted for other reasons (see below), particularly if the use of the Xbox extends beyond gaming to multi-media stuff.

I use 320GB, 160GB and 120GB HDD fitted Xboxes. The IDE 120GB is getting pretty full (about 25GB free) but that's enough for another 5 - 10 original Xbox games and more than you'd need for a large selection of homebrew games, emulators and ROM sets. The 320GB HDD (SATA with IDE adapter) has about half of my 40 -50 original Xbox games' discs ripped to it, my old CD music collection, a recently installed large emu collection, including MAME and Hypervision, homebrew game packs, multiple dashboards, skin collections for every dashboard, applications and a backup clone of the 120GB HDD. That has about a dozen other Xbox games on it yet I still have over 75GB of free space left.

A ITB formats and works fine if you use the correct tools (XBPartitioner v1.3 or the latest version of Chimp: Chimp 261812) to adjust the cluster size (64K) used for the extended partitions (F/G). You also must split the space equally between the two with a HDD of that size.

Fitting a new 1TB has long been the sensible choice for the Xbox on £/$ per GB cost grounds alone. Only if you are on a tight budget or want to risk using a second hand HDD can the smaller sizes work out usefully cheaper. That is not always the case anyway, I've even seen a used 500GB IDE HDD listed at twice the price of new ITB SATA one.

2TB is overkill but people do use them; it's stretching my knowledge, but from what I have read its not much different from setting up a 1TB and, AFAIK, there's no loss of space.

Thanks to all of you for replying! Lots of info in ur replies that I have read several times. I think I am going to try 'softmodding' an Xbox. I'll keep ya posted (I'll prob have more questions and pics to post as I progress, if that's okay).
To begin my project, I was thinking of getting a decent, used Xbox from here:

https://www.lukiegames.com/xbox-systems

It seems a bit pricey, but they are refurbished and tested.

Then I am going to follow these instructions:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...ox...for-FREE/

I just gotta stop in to MicroCenter, which sells all kinds of computer do-hickeys, and pick up the special screw driver.

NOW, I'm kinda leery of opening my gaming rig and connecting it to a powered-on Xbox but I'll give it a go - I'm just backing up everything just in case.

This is my PC:

Attachment 53975

I think I have the necessary connections/equipment, but I am using an external USB CD/DVD drive.

Avoid any 1.6 consoles (Not sure if that the seller would know if any are a 1.6 or not) well avoid it if you ever want to use component cables otherwise it should be fine, but some games on a 1.6 will not work correctly via component and 480p as the image will scramble even if the game actually supports 480p (That is only an issue with a few games but enough for it to be an issue)

Problem there is it uses IDE ports you can't use Sata ports with the linux boot CD and looks like you have no IDE connections on that PC, I have a realy very very old PC that I would use for IDE ports (The PC itself is not worth anything really junk really but comes in handy for this sort of thing or for me it was just upgrading the HDD and because I dumped the key I can lock and unlock without having to hotswop/hotswap)

the screw drivers are easy enough to find had one from my local pound shop (yeah I live in the UK but I'm sure you will have a cheap shop that sells junk near you also)

If you can get the software working OK though you can just mod the system then do a hotswap directly inside the xbox to install a bigger HDD that way (research the other methods before going ahead with any single method)

for any softmod you will need a lockable drive as not all are and those that don't will not work (there is a guide to drives online (might of linked that in my HDD upgrade guide I forget))

EDIT http://xboxdrives.x-pec.com/?p=list

Apparently there are XBMC loaders you can use to fix 480p issues on v1.6, not sure if all troublesome games are covered and I haven't tested it myself.

Code:

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https://github.com/Rocky5/XBMC4Gamers

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All versions except v1.6 have issues with clock capacitor leaking, but if you're getting refurbished hopefully that has been dealt with already.

A chipped console would mean you don't have to worry about HDD upgrade steps so much (you don't need to use a PC). Most chips let you just throw in an upgrade HDD and use a boot disc (like Slayers etc) to format/rebuild HDD, and at least one chip has a format utility built in iirc. You can use just about any HDD (I've never come across one that didn't work but I've only ever used IDE) so no need for sticking to any compatibility list for lockable drives.
If your HDD dies or starts becoming partially unresponsive at some point you can replace it easily without the wailing and gnashing of teeth :P

Don't use my 1.6 now but found work rounds for most of the games using various loaders (kinda lite versions of other dashboards)

I might be pulling it out again at some point

Yeah it's no fun trying to replace a HDD on a softmod especially if you don't have a backup EEPROM

Crikes! In all honesty, this looks like it is going to be more web research/time/money than I previously expected! But I will prevail! (with ur help if possible).

I want to create an Xbox multimedia beast for me this Christmas, lol!

Yeah, my comp is all SATA.

Maybe I should check out what's available on eBay and go from there? I can make additional modifications.

As deadlegion says the v1.6 480p issue has, mostly, been fixed by Rocky5's XBMC script. You have to have XBMC as an app or main dash to be able to apply it, obviously. But once done because it adds a loader to the problem games' folders whatever dash you use the 480p v1.6 fix still works.

The list of games supported by the script isn't comprehensive but if another game is found not to work in 480p then you can try applying one of the loaders from another of the patched games manually.

The loaders themselves are mostly other dash/game launchers or in-game exploits, like the one from Panzer Dragoon Orta. A good first stop with any unlisted problem game is to try launching it using an old version of the EvoX dash installed as an app. For whatever reason that has no trouble getting some of them to run in 480p on a v1.6 when the more popular UnleashX and XBMC main dashboards refuse to do so.

To be honest the last few times I used my chipped 1.6 I never used component anyway. I only ever recall having issues with one Xbox game I wanted to play from HDD, which was Still Life but I ended up getting a retail copy so didn't bother trying to sort it out. Probably just long file names issue idk.
Most of what I was doing just before I stopped playing stuff on it was TES III goty mods.

I've got any earlier version there that isn't modded at all, probably 1.4 but I can't remember now. I've had a few of them over the years but only ever had one die on me (psu failure and it was under warranty), the others I sold on but kept these two. The unmodded one has had little use and CiB.