im just getting into modding and making backups and i have read alot of thte tutorials on this forum and i have a few questions. 1.do i need an external dvd burner? if so, where might i get a cheap,quality one? 2.do i need alot of hard drive space on my PC? if so, how much? 3.about how long does it take a game to copy?(from xbox to pc to disc) 4.about how much data is an xbox game and what type of media is the best to use? thankyou very much for helping me with this.
also, what is flashing and i plan to soft mod my xbox. do i need to 'flash' it? is flashing harmful? sorry if im being a "noob" but i dont want to make any mistakes.
ok here's the thing: if you're going to softmod your xbox then you won't have to get involved with flashing anything...that's only for peope with mod chips. you also don't have to worry about anything called bios either - also for people with mod chips. to answer question 1: you need a DVD Burner, whether internal or external you DO need one. if you don't have one get one from your local computer store(Radio Shack, Circuit City, Future Shop, BestBuy ect...) to answer question 2: you should have at least 9 or 10GB of HDD space on your PC. the reason being you need space for the game files and also the XISO that you create with these files. to answer question 3: everything you need to do should take about an hour, depending on the game size it could be less, probably no more. to answer question 4: the average game is about 2.5GB, but there are many existing ones that are bigger. also, some games might be over the 4.7GB limit, but when FTP'ing you can cut out some of the files (diferent languages, xbox live ect...) hope all this helps and get back to me if you need anymore info. also, my how to FTP and make an xbox backup game is stickied, and also in my sig.
sorry, one more question. how do i tell if my PC has a DVD burner in it already? and also, i copy the game to my PC's hard drive and write it to a disk. after i write the game to the disc, will my PC get all that space back and will it run as fast as it did?
Your dvd drive should say RW on it if it is a rewriter. in answer to your other question you may have ticked a box in the programme you are using to burn that says 'delete image after burning'. That may explain it.