Modifying the Xbox . Making a USB Cable
I’m thinking of turning my Xbox into a media centre, it isn’t used much any more so it might as well become useful (or die trying).
I don’t have a mod chip, I don’t want to take the Xbox to bits (and I’m too tight to pay someone else to do it) so my remaining option is to ’soft mod’ it.
Let the games begin…
Building a USB Cable for the Xbox
First off, we need to copy some files from a PC onto a USB stick and then transfer them to the Xbox. To do this we need to make a cable capable of attaching standard USB devices to Microsoft’s proprietary version of the USB interface.
Assemble the following items:
1) Second hand Xbox controller (£4.99 – Gamestation)
2) A copy of Splinter Cell (we’ll need that later) (99p – Gamestation)
3) USB extension cable (A couple of quid)
4) Cornish Pasty (75p – Cooplands Bakers)
Start eating the pasty.
Now take a pair of scissors and cut the Xbox controller cable at a point close to the controller unit.
While continuing to eat the pasty, cut the USB extension cable. Bear in mind that you should keep the total length of your final cable to less than 5 metres (probably less than 3 given my dodgy soldering skills).
Finish the pasty.
After stripping the wires back, note the configuration. We don’t need the yellow wire, the straggly bits of tin foil or wire thread inside the cables so we can cut these back. Fortunately joining the cables together is quite simple. Connect black to black, green to green, white to white and red to red.
With a dab of solder carefully link the cables together. Do one at a time and take your time. If like me you’re a soldering newbie, check out the advice here. It’s worth following.
Now marvel at my rubbish soldering! Note the yellow wire left over. Chop it off and ensure that you trim the silver foil and mesh back ( you don’t want them connecting together, it may cause a short).
Finally, get some insulating tape and carefully insulate each wire from its neighbour, finishing up by covering the whole lot in a protective wad of tape.
And that’s that. You now have an Xbox USB cable. It can be used to attach a USB Keyboard and mouse or storage device to the Xbox via the controller port. If you need to attach more than one USB component to your Xbox I’m led to believe that a USB hub would work (which would save you the hassle of making another cable of course!).
I’ll touch upon installing the softmod in another post. I’m not going to go into great detail (hey, you’ve got to have some fun finding stuff out) if nothing else other than some of it seems ‘quasi legal’ to me. Keep your eyes peeled if you’re interested though and feel free to drop me an email or a comment if you want any help.
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 6:47 pm and is filed under Tags: hardware, XBMC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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January 27th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Hey Chris, Looking forward to the next post. This is something I have looked into doing in the past, but a) don’t have a soldering iron b) couldn’t find a game with the right code number to soft mod and c) didn’t own or want to buy a memory card (instead of point a, I believe). I may therefore, have to try and get to a HullLUG meet after you have completed your experiment and bribe you with beer to let me borrow your kit!
January 27th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I’ve actually installed the Xbox media centre software itself now and it’s pretty cool.
I found a soldering iron in the office (must have been from back in the days before the health and safety police stopped us using ‘em!) so thought I’d give it a bash.
I did have to install Windows XP on a PC at home to do most of the mucking about stuff though. All of the software is kinda Windows based.
I’m always bribed easily with beer lol
January 27th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Oh, nearly forgot to say. You can’t do this with a memory card itself, as you’ve got to download a file off the ‘net and transfer it to the Xbox. Unfortunately the Xbox connectors are different from a USB interface.
I hunted down the various bits of software now though, so I could always pass it on to you too.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:45 pm
[...] Just Uber Dancing with Nerds « Modifying the Xbox . Making a USB Cable [...]
June 28th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Hey Chris … I like your style lol
Ive just read your webpage on the xbox mod cable .. Ive got that bit but later you mention how you have some software to transfer from PC to xbox … any advice or help would be most welcome!
Any chance of a hand pls … p.s if your in or around Newcastle the beers on me ! lol
June 28th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Hi Don,
I’m glad you found the post useful mate.
Which bit of the process are you having bother with? Once you have the softmod installed, you can use FTP to transfer files to and from the Xbox itself. Before you install the softmod, then all you can tranfer to it is savegames (including the hacked savegame which installs the softmod) by using the xbox mod cable.
I did write some other posts which go through all of the steps of installing the softmod. You will find them here (start at the bottom of the page and work your way back through the posts)
http://www.justuber.com/blog/tag/xbmc/
If you’re still having bother then just post a comment
July 5th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
I have done everything you said.i cut the wire for the xbox controller and for the usb cord.and t twist them together.but the only problem is how do get the computer to recognize the xbox so i can have access to the xbox.all the computer say unknow device.please help me
July 6th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Hi xplayer,
It sounds like you’re trying to connect your computer to your Xbox using a USB cable.
Unfortunately, that’s not what the USB cable is for. It’s actually designed so that you can use a standard USB thumb drive to transfer files between them.
Read through the other posts (start at the bottom and work back) to learn more about setting up an Xbox Media Centre. –> http://www.justuber.com/blog/tag/xbmc/
October 1st, 2008 at 9:47 pm
hey,
is it possible to convert my old original xbox into a working external hard drive via usb??
my xbox cd-rom drive broke so i don’t know if that would be a factor, so i figured if it’s just sitting around i could turn it into an external any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
thnks
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:03 am
Hey I see you like tinkering around with xbox mods whether it be software or hardware… I Have been doing it for quite some time now as well (5-7 years give or take) and theres slim to nothing I haven’t attempted or done yet…
If you need any help or have any questions feel free to e-mail me ^.^
PS: as far as guides go… I love your style dude… informative as well as to the point with a dash of comedy 9/10
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Hi there – thanks Chris
Chris
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:33 am
[...] a soldering iron, two Xbox extension cables (one spare) and a USB extension cable in order to create an Xbox USB cable for connecting normal USB devices to the Xbox. I also bought a silent fan and a cheap Dremel clone [...]
August 8th, 2009 at 2:33 am
[...] Just Uber » Blog Archive » Modifying the Xbox . Making a USB Cable [...]