We've got to get our Xbox field-stripped all the way down to the motherboard. This isn't too hard of a job; the engineers that designed the enclosure did a stellar job, and it's not terribly different from plinking around inside a PC (albeit a very cramped one). Please keep in mind that all of these instructions apply only to the specific type of Xbox I happen to own – do your homework before tearing yours open.
To start with, flip that Xbox over. There are a number of long Torx head screws that secure the outer casing. Four of them are hidden under the rubber feet at the corners, so you'll have to pry those up first. Two more are under the serial number sticker and the “Xbox Video Game System” sticker, respectively. You can either peel up the stickers as I've done here or just punch through with your screwdriver, warranty be damned! Use a #15 Torx bit to take these out and set them aside.
Now flip the box back over. With some gentle persuasion, the top lid should separate from the chassis, giving you something that looks like this:
Now, we're going to take out that hard drive. Disconnect the IDE and power cables. They're standard-issue PC connectors, so they pop out easily. The power cable runs along a channel on the right side of the hard drive carrier – unthread it and let it hang off the side. There's a single #10 Torx screw that holds the hard drive carrier in place, so remove that too. Then grab the carrier by the corners, wherever you can get a good grasp on it, and pull it straight up and out of the chassis. The carrier sits on little tubular supports that mate with molded plastic studs on the chassis. You may have to gently work it left and right before it pops loose.
It would be convenient to replace the hard drive now, since we've got it open, but the software we currently need to boot the Xbox lives on the drive that it came with, so set that aside for now.
Take out the DVD drive in a similar fashion. Keep in mind, it dosen't have a standard Molex power connector, but rather an odd little yellow cable which feels rather delicate. Take it out with some care. Take the DVD drive and its carrier out and set them aside.
Now that the drives are out of the way, remove the IDE cable and the yellow DVD cable from their headers on the motherboard. Now, unplug the power supply connector from the lower right corner of the motherboard. Next, remove the cables from the front-mounted controller connectors. I happen to have a very old (Version 1.0) Xbox, which has a small daughterboard that plugs into the front of the board, and the controller ports plug into that. If you have one of those, it's easiest just to unplug the whole daughterboard and set it aside. Also, disconnect the rear cooling fan's plug from its connector on the back of the board. Now we're clear to remove the board. It's secured with nine (FACTCHECK) gold-colored screws with #10 Torx heads. Remove them all and set them aside. Now, grab the board and lift it straight out and set it on a flat stable surface. Now it's time to heat up that soldering iron.
