Tutorial written by : Omar
Last edited: June 14, 2004

Things you need:

* One x2 lite ext. switch and the cables that come with it, (works with the new 2.3lite(s)[+]) you can buy these spare switch from www.baldbouncer.co.uk and other mod shops.
* a spare ide cable or some wire (preferably different colours, red for 5v and grey/black/blue for ground)
* 1 Y HDD power splitter (4 molex connections can be connected direct to original power cables but i recommend a Y splitter, that way if you mess up just buy another splitter)
* 1 Soldering iron (preferably 15 watts for a nice non destructive installation, others will work, but cannot touch for too long or you'll overheat the wires and circuits)
* some solder
* Stanley knife (craft knife)
* insulating tape!! (vital!)
* Tools to open up your xbox: Torx 10 and Torx 20 screwdriver

 

Lets begin...

First off all lets run through what we are doing. Basically it all started when i wanted a easy HDD led mod for my xbox, i had actually bought the LED's and resistors, but then i looked around my room and found my old broken x2 switch. I thought great, i'll use that. After a bit of investigation, loads of smoke and numerous multimeterings i found the easiest way to get hdd activity, and with a choice of colours :-D.

Right basically we are getting 5v through the red wire on the Y power splitter and for the actual hard drive activity we are connecting direct to wire 39 on the ide cable.

The wire i used in my tutorial are from an old IDE cable, I used the red wire 1 cable for the 5v (helps identifying the cables) and a standard grey one for the ground/HDD activity. These are nice little discreet wires that will easily carry the current. Here is the circuit layout for easy clarification.

Right first grab the xecuter external switch and cables. Plug in the pin head connected to the cables. Now look at the little board with the LED facing away from you flat down. There are five wires on the pin header, identify cables 3,4,5 by looking at the diagram below.

Hold wires 3,4,5 and follow to the other end of the cable, the white header pin. Then one by one carefully pull out these cables of the white header and tape them all up together in a bunch, these wont be needed as they only control the other switches. Now you should be left with 2 wires still connected, the wire 1 and wire 2. Put the switch and cables to one side.

Now grab the Y power splitter, find the middle of the red wire and carefully cut away the outside plastic coating, so you are left with a small bit of bare wire showing. This cut only has to be a few mm big, enough that you can wrap another wire all the way around. Wrap our red ide cable wire (or your purchased wire) around the red 5v cable and then solder. Then make sure you cover up the connection with insulating tape (very important).

Now get the xbox case off, i am presuming you know this already, if not check other tuts on opening. Unhook the ide cable out of its little black hook and place a think piece of card above the dvdrom and below the ide cable.

Now we need to pick out cable 39, which is second from last. You should be working on the opposite side of the red ide wire. Now carefully free the 39 wire by using your knife. You do not want to remove the cable, simply life it up above the others, see diagram below.

Then you need to really carefully cut the plastic surround so you can see the bare cable as shown below. Then get our ide cable which is ground (or wire you have bought) and connect/wrap it to this IDE cable as shown below ready for soldering

The we need to cover this up with insulation tape!!! Vital that you do this. It also helps to tape the ground wire to the rest of the IDE cables as it reduces stress on the solder joint.

Now lets attach our 2 cables to the pin header cables. This is very simple. Grab the switch and cables again and connect cable 1 to our red ide cable (5v going to the red cable on the Y power splitter). Twist it round then solder and cover with insulation tape.

Then grab our cable coming out of the IDE cable 39, and wrap it around pin 2's cable, solder and wrap in insulation tape. See below

Next make sure no power is plugged in and then disconnect the hdd power cable (multicolored cable, red black, black, yellow). Then connect our modified Y power cable to the connection that just came out of the HDD. Then connect the Y adapter to the HDD. I would recommend connecting the non soldered part of the cable to go into the HDD. Then make sure everything is connected properly, plug in the power and turn it on, to give it a quick test. You should notice your led should now come on and flash! Turn it off, then simply unplug the white pin header from the switch and run the cable through the RF shielding.

Then tear off the plastic on the bottom of the switch and stick it on the bottom on your box. The reconnect the white pin header to it, tidy up the cables in the case and it should look like this:

Put the case back on and enjoy your new HDD activity LED. You can also change the colour of your HDD led by simply flicking the switch directly next to it :-D way cool. hehe. Also depending on which switch you get, there are at least these choice of colours, xecuter 2.3 lite switch has Red/Green and X2 switch has bright blue :-D

Enjoy!!

Tutorial written by : Omar