Tutorial: LG DVD-ROM Drive GDR-8163B into a Xbox with full media

Tutorial: LG DVD-ROM Drive GDR-8163B into an Xbox with full media abilities:
LG 8050L owners may use the VRCD upgrade for their drives too (not tested yet)
The Poor Boy’s Drive
Thanks to Wenid who published the firmware,
also thanks to TruBB for his great work, his good ideas and checks on my bad spelling.
Version: 1.1
Date: Tuesday, 24 May 2005
Author: menelik / mitschnacker@gmx.net
Powered by:
http://www.paccforce.de/
This is the first drive which doesn't have any media problems. It will read CD-R(W), DVD-R(W),
DVD+R(W). It also allows you to read original Xbox games, game backups and custom apps. As you
might already recognized English isn’t my native language so please don’t bug me with my bad spelling
I won’t be responsible for any damage done to your Xbox, your drive or yourself, this mod is
fairly new, so I don't guarantee anything! If you don't like the advertisements... don't read it!
This tutorial includes many pictures, my intention was that even an illiterates may use this.
What we need:
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LG DVD-ROM Drive GDR-8163B.
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4 1k Ohm Resistor 1/4 Watt, I advise 1206 SMD resistors. 3 of them are non-essential, but are
good for current protection and 1 is essential for the CD Support.
Soldering Iron, solder and general supplies like wire and some hobby skills.
A PC with the right firmware to flash the 8163B.
Metal saw and/or a pincer (wire cutter).
A hot-melt adhesive and glue gun (recommended).
First we flash the drive with the right Firmware. Get the firmware from the usual places, its called
8050L_FW_Flasher_FIXED.rar
There is older unfixed version out; this version is faulty, so get the fixed one.
Make a bootdisk (I won’t explain this part deeply), set your 8163b to master and plug it to the secondary
IDE Channel. Start from the bootdisk and flash the drive with:
sf8163.exe 8050L.dld 2 /f /c /p /o
If something went wrong and the flash is empty or corrupted you should take a look on the /r option.
You can flash your drive back with the same procedure; just use another flash file instead.
After that you open your drive:
And take out the main PCB and you’ll see:
To know which wire goes to which point on the Xbox Mainboard you need this sheet:
01 GND
07 GND
02 +12V
08 +5V
03 Tray Out
09 Data
04 Tray In
10 CD-RDY
05 GND
11 Eject
06 +12V
12 +5V
You can ignore the power wiring if you’re going to use a Y-Splitter.
Now you have to connect +5V to 08, +12V to 02, GND and GND to 01, 07, or 05. Note that these points
normally need stronger wires, the hard drive power cable is a good one for example. The wires I used
aren’t this strong but I had never problems with them. Take this note seriously!
Wire Eject with 11 and connect VRCD and GND (you can use the GND point on the left bottom) through
a 1k resistor. Note: I tested 30, 50, 100, 500, 680, 1000 and 10000 Ohm, I got reliable results on 1k and
680 Ohm, that’s why I choose 1k here.
I placed my SMD resistor on GND and soldered VRCD to it.
This pictures show how it might look after:
Now we take care for the other points and flip the PCB:
Now we place a resistor on each point, these are used because the original drive uses them, I don’t think
that the drive will get damaged without them but they don’t hurt it though.
After that we connect the resistors to the right points:
Ready => 10
Tray-In => 04
Tray-Out => 03
It should look like this then:
Now we are already finished with the mod and can reassemble the drive. You put the cables like this into
the drive, it worked perfectly for me:
Btw, I used shrinking tubes to connect my yellow Mainboard Connector with the drive, a very easy and
clean method. Now we got to take of the Xbox Case. First you got to saw off this part of the Drive-Stand:
After that we cut off this part of the top case, try to leave a bit of it so that you may use the screw further:
Now cut off the screw mounts, you don’t need them anymore, cut them off completely:
Moreover we got to take care of the Drive Cover. I assume that you wired you drive correctly so that you
can put it into you box and start. Now eject and take of the power of your Xbox so that the drive stays
ejected. Just clip off the covers and you’ll see this, cut only 1 mm; if it doesn’t fit later you may cut
another mm, if you cut too much the cover won’t fit right:
Now you got two options:
First option:
Cut of the parts marked with the red line, then take your saw an cut as deep as the red line goes here:
The advantage of this is that you can use your cover 1:1 as you can see here:
The disadvantage is that the drive will get to deep into the Xbox case; it’s just 3 mm but it might be
annoying.
It looks like this when you’re finished.
So you can choose the second option which I didn’t and of
which I don’t have pictures of.
Take your glue gun and don’t cut anything of your drive,
just glue the cover on the drive, this should give you 3 mm
more than option one. This method isn’t clean as the first
option but the drive fits perfectly in the case.
And please don’t tell me about xy options, be creative, you
also could saw of some metal and plug the cover on like in
option one explained, use what you think the best is. I tried
to show you the easiest options.
So we just have to do one last step, place your drive into
the Xbox and fix it on these points with the glue gun:
Do the same on the opposite reassemble your Xbox and
here you go!!!
You can proudly say that you got the first drive without any
(sure to 95%) without any media problems anymore. We’ve
searched really long for such a thing; I bet that Thompson
owner prayed for it ;)