Well I wouldn't recommend hotswapping at all. So your best bet is to either flash or buy an xKey. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

xKey:
Advantages:
-Don't need to burn ISO's to a disk.
Disadvantages:
-More expensive and you will need the same equipment to flash a drive (to extract the key) plus an xKey

Flashing:
Advantages:
-Pretty easy to do
-Relatively cheap
-My preferred method
Disadvantages:
-Have to burn games to a disk. These disks (Verbatim Dual Layer) aren't cheap. About $1 a disk.
-Need equipment to burn disks.


In all, the xKey and Flashing both have advantages, and if you burn enough games / put them on xKey, they are both about the same price. It's up to you. But I personally would go with Flashing

Well I wouldn't recommend hotswapping at all. So your best bet is to either flash or buy an xKey. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

xKey:
Advantages:
-Don't need to burn ISO's to a disk.
Disadvantages:
-More expensive and you will need the same equipment to flash a drive (to extract the key) plus an xKey

Flashing:
Advantages:
-Pretty easy to do
-Relatively cheap
-My preferred method
Disadvantages:
-Have to burn games to a disk. These disks (Verbatim Dual Layer) aren't cheap. About $1 a disk.
-Need equipment to burn disks.


In all, the xKey and Flashing both have advantages, and if you burn enough games / put them on xKey, they are both about the same price. It's up to you. But I personally would go with Flashing

Thanks for the reply
Whats wrong with hotswapping? Other than potential disc damage.
I know xk3ys are about 70$ for the basic one but how much does it cost to flash my drive? ( Is this drive easy to flash or does it require alot of soldering etc?)

Thanks for the reply
Whats wrong with hotswapping? Other than potential disc damage.
I know xk3ys are about 70$ for the basic one but how much does it cost to flash my drive? ( Is this drive easy to flash or does it require alot of soldering etc?)

The problem with hotswapping is that you need to keep you xbox taken apart, which is really annoying. The other problems are that you need to install the disk to your hard drive, doing this for every game you want to play will take up a lot of space and you won't be able to play the original game while its on your HDD. And hotswapping methods get patched a lot. It's good if you only want to occasionally mod WaW or something and play online. I would only recommend if you want to play on xbox live with your console.

I forgot to mention that when you flash, you should not go on Xbox Live because there is a chance of getting banned. I also did not see that you only wish to mod. Occasional modding is great for hotswapping.

I'm not sure, but with the drive you say you have, you will need to purchase an unlocked PCB to allow you to flash. Here is a tutorial [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] or [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

I am sorry for not paying close attention! But if you wish to only mod games every now and then, then go ahead and hotswap. If you wish to dedicate your xbox to playing burned games and staying offline, then flash. For you, hotswapping will be cheapest and easiest.

The problem with hotswapping is that you need to keep you xbox taken apart, which is really annoying. The other problems are that you need to install the disk to your hard drive, doing this for every game you want to play will take up a lot of space and you won't be able to play the original game while its on your HDD. And hotswapping methods get patched a lot. It's good if you only want to occasionally mod WaW or something and play online. I would only recommend if you want to play on xbox live with your console.

I forgot to mention that when you flash, you should not go on Xbox Live because there is a chance of getting banned. I also did not see that you only wish to mod. Occasional modding is great for hotswapping.

I'm not sure, but with the drive you say you have, you will need to purchase an unlocked PCB to allow you to flash. Here is a tutorial youtube.com/watch?v=jSlgBGf7XHA or thetechgame.org/forums/showthre...hp?t=67582

I am sorry for not paying close attention! But if you wish to only mod games every now and then, then go ahead and hotswap. If you wish to dedicate your xbox to playing burned games and staying offline, then flash. For you, hotswapping will be cheapest and easiest

I don't want to get banned and want to be able to play online, I'm thinking if I just pay the 70$ one time and install it then I can mod or even play backups if I wanted to since I already have a 1TB hard drive with alot of space. The xkey also doesn't require soldering on a slim which is a plus, is the only problem with it the price?

flashing because simple and xkeys break alot