Need help with fixing OG Xbox

[guygus09]

Found my brother's old Xbox under some things in his closet. I decided to open it up and fix it. While trying to boot it up, I keep getting an error code [7]. Looking this up online, it seems to be fixable by trying to firmly reconnect the ide ribbon cable on the board and the hdd. But for the life of me I still can't get it to work.
Is there a way to tell if either the cable or the hdd still work? Or am I just missing something? Also is the board being slightly mildewy very harmful to the console? Its kinda hard to clean it out from between all the parts. Thanks.

Oh and my bro also said something about the disc tray not opening when the eject button was pressed, which is why he dumped or in his closet in the first place. Thoughts?

[oldgamerz]

Found my brother's old Xbox under some things in his closet. I decided to open it up and fix it. While trying to boot it up, I keep getting an error code [7]. Looking this up online, it seems to be fixable by trying to firmly reconnect the ide ribbon cable on the board and the hdd. But for the life of me I still can't get it to work.
Is there a way to tell if either the cable or the hdd still work? Or am I just missing something? Also is the board being slightly mildewy very harmful to the console? Its kinda hard to clean it out from between all the parts. Thanks.

Oh and my bro also said something about the disc tray not opening when the eject button was pressed, which is why he dumped or in his closet in the first place. Thoughts?

Mildew I think will ruin the console's guts. Because it contains moisture, and it may or may not contain corrosion on the electronic guts, if it is somewhat rusted on the inside. I would not trust turning on this console. I wounder if you found it inside a basement closet on the basement floor. you can try to air it out but I don't like the fact that it even smells like mildew because that is never a good sign.

Mildew could mean that water made it on the inside of the console and we all should know that water and electricity don't usually mix vary well as far a safety goes. I doubt it will work. but you may be able to give away of some of the parts of the console.

[dashv]

Definitely let it dry out if it’s damp.

Take it all apart and wipe out any mildew/mold with paper towels.

Be careful when touching the power supply!

Next use an old tooth brush and gently brush off the motherboard.

If you are getting error 7 the cable could be loose or the hard drive could be totally dead.

If it’s dead there is not much you can do. The drives are paired to the console and the only way to swap in/pair a new drive requires the old one to be still working.

[thecrypticodor]

If reseating the cables doesn't work than it's possibly a bad hard drive or IDE cable. If your hard drive is bad that means you’re boned unless you can do some basic soldering to install a modchip. These Chinese clone Aladin XT boards are widely available and are super dirt cheap. I've used them on both my Xbox's and they are rather simple to install.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Aladdin-XT-4032-Machine-Readable-XBOX-Original-Mod-Chip/122774594237?hash=item1c95efa2bd:g:5HwAAOSwVlVZ8cpr

Not nearly as likely as a bad hard drive but it also could be a bad IDE cable. The original cable is a 40 wire cable that can actually be upgraded to a 80 wire IDE cable such as a ATA100 or ATA133 that increases read right speed of the Xbox HDD by 25%. With a modchip installed and a 80 wire IDE cable its actually possible to use any SATA hard drive with a PATA to SATA adapter.

I’ve used this cable myself it’s a bit short side but just long enough and it’s dirt cheap. https://www.ebay.com/itm/E-IDE-UDMA-ULTRA-ATA-133-HARD-DISK-DRIVE-RIBBON-CABLE-DVD-c37/221657613778?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

[pacgamer89]

The disk tray is most likely just needing a new band around the wheels that open the disk tray.

[guygus09]

So I've cleaned out every little corner of the system and let it dry. I then took out the hdd and plugged it into an older computer. The computer recognizes the drive and I can hear it still work. I also tried using another ide cable I know still works. I also put in another hard drive just to see what would happen. With every try I've still been given an error code 7 from the thing. Nothing has yet to work and I suspect it could either be the ide connector or the dvd drive somehow. Seeing as the DVD drive doesn't open when the eject button is pressed and the hdd still not detected, I would guess it's the ide connector but I'm not sure how I should move forward with it all.

[thecrypticodor]

Have you checked for cracked solder joints under the IDE connector on the motherboard?

The disc drive not opening is actually a very common problem. Its means the belt is streached out or worn and no longer providing enough tension and needs to be replaced. Tapping the top of the drive at the same time as hitting eject can sometimes get them to open.

You can't just stick another hard drive into a Xbox. The hard drive is locked and the bios looks for a file that contains a security key if it's not there if will refuse to boot. You can't just clone the drive or simply copy the file either because the drive is software locked and won't let you read from it's partitions. Only the Xbox the drive is paired with can unlock the drive to read write to it. There's a method to change the hard drive but requires a softmod that also requires the drive to be functioning in the first place. The only way to change a dead hard drive and use one that is unlocked is with a TSOP mod or a mod chip. MS did this because they cared more about preventing piracy than your right to repair.

[oldgamerz]

I think you will need another OG Xbox console or a Working Xbox 360 or maybe even an Xbox One. given at this point in time.

OG Xboxes I heard are like $20 for the console but I could be wrong as we all know how things change when someone mentions a cheap price on Youtube.

but I do know on most PC DVD and CD ROM drives under the tray has a tiny hole with manual switch that you can stick a needle into to manually open the disc tray up

 while the console or PC is off only