The easy way to read CDs on your Xbox.

Or: How to get around all the troubles caused by owning a Thompson.
I've seen several people have trouble just getting Evox loaded on their Xbox. Almost invariably they have a Thompson drive and it seems no matter what tutorial they follow, or how many different types of media they try to use, they just end up with a pile of coasters. This quick little tutorial (more of a quick hint really) addresses that.



Ok, so here's the rub: you want to install Evox (or some other dashboard/SW package) on your Xbox but you have a Thompson drive and no matter what you do, the POS refuses to read any disk you give it. Here's how you get around that.

1) Get yourself the following items:
1a) A spare CD-ROM (or DVD) drive.
1b) A standard power "Y" adaptor for a PC.
1c) Your install disk (may I recommend this).
2) Disconnect the power connector for your Xbox hard disk and insert the power "Y" adaptor.
3) Disconnect the IDE cable from the Xbox DVD drive (leave the yellow cable attached).
4) Connect the IDE cable to the replacement CD-ROM drive.
5) Power up the Xbox by hitting the Eject button (the Xbox DVD drive should eject it's tray).
5a) Microsoft Dash should come up (don't need to wait for it though).
6) Eject the spare CD-ROM drive tray, insert your boot disk, and close the tray.
7) Place a game disk in your Xbox DVD drive tray and hit the Eject button. (DVD tray should close).
8) Wait for Xbox to recognize and "start" game disk, your boot disk will start instead.

Hopefully this was helpful to you. If it was I'd appreciate a rating to the right and/or comments below.