I flashed my 360 after loads of reading a year ago and it went like a dream. Now my nephew wants me to do his. He has just oredered one so I don't know which drive yet. Now I see there are Samsungs, Hitachis and now BenQ drives...
- How do you tell the difference with the latter?
- Can all current drives be flashed ok whatever brand?
- Does this epoxy stuff I've read about ONLY affect mobos for chipping purposes or does it affect flashing drives too?
- Can all current drives work on Live ok without MS being aware?
Sorry if the answers are here but I cannot find them!
2. BenQ drives cannot currently be flashed. The Hitachi 79s also require a chip to be soldered on to flash them. The rest of the Hitachis can be flashed along with the Samsungs.
3. No epoxy is involved.
4. Going on Live is a risk as always, but with the new firmware there have been no new bannings as of yet.
Thank you so much it was just the information I wa slooking for. I have downloaded the software (newest versions) just in case. Let's hope he is buying old stock!
Originally posted by mperagine: I thought you had to solder a chip to the 79 in order to flash, and that something similar needed to be done to the BenQ.
You're right. There's a chip which needs soldered to the 79 board to get it in to mode b. Then the firmware can be read/written. With the Benq, a switch needs installed to bypass some resistors. Then the firmware can be read/written. For those who have ever installed PS2 modchips (the hardest of all consoles), doing this to either of these drives would be quite simple.
So as it stands right now, the original firmware can be dumped for both drives. But there's no modified firmware to be written to the drive yet. So in a nut shell... both drives can be flashed, but there's no firmware to flash them with yet.
