I have a version 1.1 xbox with the dreaded philips drive in it. I do not have a dvd burner, so all of my burning will be done with a regular cd/rw drive. From my reading it seems like I should just forget modding because of all the trouble with philips drives. Any suggestions far as modchip selection and burning media go?

you can always burn ripped games to cdrw. go with a good brand like verbatim. they cost a bit more than general brands, but well worth the trouble of finding media that will work. but there is always a chance that verbatims won't work. i say verbatim because they are a top notch media.

for chips i would go with a xecuter chip. either lite or pro. the cheap mods only hold a 256 bios. from what i read all the new bios released will be 512.