really all you need is a dl burner. just look for one in your price range on that site. the burner doesnt have to be top notch. for discs you can also use any brand you want. if you are using cheaper discs tho you should have the fw that reads discs at lower speads. but if you buy nice discs you can use the fw that reads at full spead
In my experience the right burner is THE single most important factor to successfully burning 360 games. I have an LG gsah10n, it sometimes writes verbatims, sometimes they give me unreadable discs and it wouldn't touch Aones. My old sony would write Aones but fail on verbatims. I swapped the sony for a Pioneer 112d and have not had one failed write on verbs or aones.
The pioneer is around £20-£27. There is a reason the pioneer burners are recommended all the time, and that is because they work extremely well for 360 backups. I updated to the latest firmware(1.09) as soon as it was installed to ensure best disc compatibility.Download from pioneers site.
For discs, the best are Verbatim DVD+R double layer, but they are also the most expensive. I'm currently using Aone DVD+R double layer and they are fine. Maybe they wont last as long as the verbatims, but for now they do the same job at half the price.
Have a look round the forums, there are plenty of relevant threads.
1. Which DVD writer would be best...obviousally looking less than £50 either internal or external
I would go internal for sure. I like my BenQ DW1655 a lot, if you can find one. I have also heard the NEC and Pioneer make good burners. But i can tell you so far my BenQ has a 100% success rate.
2. Which discs would you recomend?
one and only one, Verbatim 2.4 to 6X DVD+R DL
3. NOTE MY DRIVE ON 360 is a SAMSUNG so anyone with previous experience with these much appreciated.
I also have the Samsung drive in mine, which really makes it easier since you do not have to worry about booktyping your media to DVD-Rom (although i do anyway) or about stealth patching anything.
anotherthing to consider is if you want to back up games from original discs. If so then you also need to buy a Samsung SH-D162C (IDE) or SH-D163A (SATA) DVD-Rom drive from Ebay either preflashed with Kreon firmware or you can easily do that yourself.
I burn all my back up copies with a free program called IMGburn V2.1
the only thing you have to do is manually set the layer break, and then burn the ISO at 4X
tools-->settings-->write-->layer break. Check user specified and set it to 1913760. Click ok and burn as normal. This is only necessary the first time burning a 360 game
Originally posted by steimy:1. Which DVD writer would be best...obviousally looking less than £50 either internal or external
I would go internal for sure. I like my BenQ DW1655 a lot, if you can find one. I have also heard the NEC and Pioneer make good burners. But i can tell you so far my BenQ has a 100% success rate.
2. Which discs would you recomend?
one and only one, Verbatim 2.4 to 6X DVD+R DL
3. NOTE MY DRIVE ON 360 is a SAMSUNG so anyone with previous experience with these much appreciated.
I also have the Samsung drive in mine, which really makes it easier since you do not have to worry about booktyping your media to DVD-Rom (although i do anyway) or about stealth patching anything.
anotherthing to consider is if you want to back up games from original discs. If so then you also need to buy a Samsung SH-D162C (IDE) or SH-D163A (SATA) DVD-Rom drive from Ebay either preflashed with Kreon firmware or you can easily do that yourself.
I burn all my back up copies with a free program called IMGburn V2.1
the only thing you have to do is manually set the layer break, and then burn the ISO at 4X
tools-->settings-->write-->layer break. Check user specified and set it to 1913760. Click ok and burn as normal. This is only necessary the first time burning a 360 game
is there any DVD writer you would recomend from this website: www.pcworld.co.uk ? Pref. external.
The reason I use pcworld as its just down the road and would be much easier and quicker for me to get a DVD writer for over the easter weekend. Cheers
The current writer I use which I got with my machine is a Phillips 8631; and is meant to be able to write dual layers however when using ImgBurn appears to get stuck at the first stage of writing LeadIn.
ignore my above thread. found a internal BenQ1650 at pcworld for a decent price.
Not sure which firmware has been burned onto my 360 however it appears to not want to play particular disks but does appear to play verbatim and hp from past experience.
I have iso for particular games to backup. is it a simple case of loading this up and burning with img burn and changing the layer break as you say and should work ok?
Originally posted by Memnock:No you need to flash your 360's DVD drive. Read the Xbox 360 Mod/hack stick at the top of this page which is the 3rd one and ask questions after that.
its been flashed but not sure with which firmware as my mate did it. i have txted him to find out
If you are already flashed you can burn the ISO with IMG Burn or DVD Decrypter. Just make sure the burner's booktype is set to DVD-ROM and set manually set the layer break to 1913760 in the settings.
check into Qsuite and see if you can use it with your burner (it is what i use with my BenQ) is is a nice suite of tools that also includes booktyping features so you can set the burner to automatically burn all DVD+R and DVD+R DL as DVD-Rom, which is what you want.http://support.benq.com/front/BenqMain.asp?MenuHead=128&ShowType=program&FileURL=service/driverlist.asp&Dataid=18368&downloadclass=Software&product=3731&langu=null&ops=null&GenMenu=&RootId=undefined
http://www.hardwarezone.com/microsite/benq_dvd/qsuite2.shtml
Hopefully it was flashed with the newest firmware which is Xtreme 5.2
from what i read the DW1650 can use Qsuite
