Looking for assistance - broken SATA port on Liteon DG-16D4S

dnpaddy

Hi guys! This is my first post in this forum.

Warranty on my Xbox Slim 4GB expired recently, so after reading this forum I decided to get it modded too. As a first step I wanted to dump its DVD drive key/firmware files. The drive is Liteon DG-16D4S (v0225) and I was going to use JungleFlasher and SATA connection with my PC. Unfortunately when I tried to remove SATA cable on the back of the DVD drive the whole SATA port got stacked into the cable and its several connectors were broken. (Apparently the SATA port issue on Liteons is not so uncommon - some people reported similar problems- for example here and here).

I’ve tried to solder the port back and initially it worked OK as I could play games on the box. However, I was not able to extract keys as JF would not recognise the drive. On top of that, my soldering was not strong enough and the port got broken once again.

Thus, having learned my lesson in a hard way:o, I’m now looking for professional help to replace the SATA port and also to extract DVD keys and NAND, so later on the box can be modded with either xKey or RGH.

Please PM me if you can assist and I will call you to sort out all other details. I live in Balbriggan and will deliver the box to your place in Dublin over weekend.
Thank you so much in advance!

Mods, I do know there is Modding and Repair service thread up there but I would really appreciate if you could let this topic to stay for at least couple of days.

Jimbobjoeyman

Check the modding sticky.
Plenty of people there.

Its a pretty simple repair.
You don't even have to repair the port if you dont want to.
You could just remove the port completely and then get a new slightly longer sata cable and strip it and then solder the corresponding wires to the pcb and plug the other end into the console.

Job done

Reamer Fanny

This would work afaik there's only 7 pins on the sata cable so it's just a case of wiring the right pins to the pcb

dnpaddy

Jimbobjoeyman and justryan,

Thank you for the repair suggestions!

Today I tried to re-solder a piece of SATA cable instead of the port. After that I checked with a tester each wire between soldering points on PCB and connector pins on another end of the cable. They all were OK so put the drive back into Xbox.

The Xbox now starts normally. I can select usual menus and can see an internal HDD which is connected to the second SATA port.
I can also open and close a tray from both the console and a remote.

However, Xbox cannot read any disks.
I can hear that disk is spinning and there is a message “Reading” but after a while it gives a message “Open tray”.

Guess my only option now is to contact Dublin guys from “Modding & Repair” thread for a proper disc drive repair.

Reamer Fanny

Congratulations on getting the drive working, you now have a new problem it seems, the "Open Tray" error message relates to a worn out laser you can either tweak the DVD pot for a short-term fix, or replace the laser completely for a long-term fix.

dnpaddy

Thank you justryan!

Please check my message in your PM.

Jimbobjoeyman

justryan wrote: »

Congratulations on getting the drive working, you now have a new problem it seems, the "Open Tray" error message relates to a worn out laser you can either tweak the DVD pot for a short-term fix, or replace the laser completely for a long-term fix.

I'd check that the sata cable has been wired up to the correct points first.
Could be worth double checking before messing with the laser

Reamer Fanny

Jimbobjoeyman wrote: »

I'd check that the sata cable has been wired up to the correct points first.
Could be worth double checking before messing with the laser

I've checked that out the laser isn't the problem, will solder on a new sata port and it should work fine