Softmod Original Xbox Without Action Replay (Covers Basic to Advanced Steps) LINKS FULLY UPDATED

In this instructable I will be trying my best to take out the stress and frustration of many people who want to softmod their original Xbox in the year 2011. I found trying some of these other tutorials slightly aggravating because:

1. Links, files, recent upgrades etc were COMPLETELY OUT OF DATE
2. No one responded to my questions and many other peoples questions as well
3. I hadn't done a softmod before this, and there were many things that the tutorials would assume I knew that, unfortunately, I didn't
4. Lastly, there were many people who suggested the use of the Action Replay Software, or the Action Replay Kit. Both of these are quite frankly either expensive or a giant pain to use/download.

So, using this instructable I hope to keep the Xbox sofmodders up to date, and also be able to help people out.

Good Luck!

Step 1 Things You Will Need:

Here's a list of things you will need. Many of these items have alternatives, and I'll do my best to list all that I know:

1.A FEMALE USB to XBOX cord, which can be bought on ebay here   (NOTE: there are several alternatives to buying this item, all of which require soldering and wiring experience. As soon as I have time, I will make a instructable on how to make a homemade one, because that's what I did, using an old rockband usb hub from my wii)

2. A PC (I hope this was obvious) with internet connection. The 2A, 2B, etc will be the programs you will want on your computer: Some of them are 30 day trials, so if you aren't planning on soft-modding right away, I would hold off.
2A. xplorer360 is a free program which you will use to write the softmod to the usb.
2B. An IRC client. I highly suggest MIRC's 30 day trial  but other programs could work, such as the plugin for Firefox called ChatZilla
2C. An FTP Client: I actually had trouble using FileZilla on my computer, so I eventually went to CuteFTP which worked great
2D. 7ZIP or any other compression type program that will open up zip files.

3. An Original Xbox with an updated Dashboard. My Xbox had an old dashboard from being stored up in a box for a while, so  I had to borrow a newer game (I got Unreal Championship 2 from a friend) and then, with or without an internet connection for my xbox, simply "try" and access the multiplayer interface. It should update for you from there. To check your Microsoft Dashboard model, simply go to settings, system, and let the xbox scroll to the bottom. There should be a 5960 in your D: drive if it is up to date.
4. A copy of 1 of these three games:
Splinter Cell (The Original, it can be a platinum hits version, but make sure its the original game) (I Went with this one because many say its the most reliable)
Mech Assault Original
Older version of 007:Agent Under Fire

5. A USB Drive. This one is tricky. There are some drives (apparently) that do not work with the XBox. I got lucky on my first try, picking up a little SanDisk Cruzer Edge 4 gb Drive that worked great (see picture above) but most of the lists are really quite out of date in terms of what is actually being sold in today's world.

6. An Ethernet Crossover Cable (this is sort of optional, considering you don't need it to get the original XBox Softmod going, but I used it to transfer my XBMC files over and Emulators, so I highly suggest getting one)