Submission + - Console Preservation
sick_em writes: I remember being the proud and amazed owner of an original Xbox, having secured one on the launch date of Nov. 15, 2001. That was nearly ten years ago, and I have had to perform Frankensteinian surgery to keep it working: softmod with AID, replacing the worn out 8GB hard drive with a 120GB WD, fixing a blown power supply, replacing the original fan with a new working one. These mods are merely delaying the inevitable though, and I fear that one day I will wake up to a dead Xbox with my years (literally in some cases...my Morrowind save hasn't even began the main quest, Tribunal was distracting :) ) of gamesaves and my legitimate backup collection (dvd drive burned out on year 5, gave away all the scratched up discs) simply gone. I am somewhat aware of the emulator scene, but from what I know Microsoft has made it extremely difficult to emulate the Xbox, which I feel would be the best way to preserve my collection. My main question is, what methods would you recommend for saving everything I can in a way that is hopefully usable in the future? Also, is it possible to continue the life of my system through emulation? The only thing that comes to mind right now is to copy all files over using FTP, since the file system is some wonky FATX that can't be read by modern systems, but a fat lot of good that would do me, with no way to play the games on my PC. While this question is specific, its applications can be useful and applied to other consoles, as this current generation will face the same problems once they are abandoned by their companies.