Should I flash my new 360 before plugging it into the NET?

[NeoRio]

I'm gearing up to buying a new 360. Is it any safer (to avoid Live bans) to flash the drive before every plugging the 360 into the internet? Any advantage to flashing it before every playing any games on it or even turning it on?

Thanks

[sadalius]

Either way should be fine. I usually test out a new 360 before I take the time to take it apart and flash it just to make sure it works right and don't need to get returned. But if your careful on your taking it apart, you should be fine either way.

[NeoRio]

So no difference on whether you connect to the internet, sign in to Live, play some games on Live and *then* flash your drive?

[sadalius]

Nope, no difference.

[NeoRio]

OK, well that's great to hear. There was a lot of speculation over at Xbox-Scene about consoles possibly being flagged by MS for connecting to Live before flashing, and then being caught after flashing and connecting to Live.

[CoFree]

i would hook up to live to get all the updates then flash

[NeoRio]

But I'm planning on playing on Live pretty much every day...after the flash, why would you update before flashing? You still are not banned from Live, right?--and you play your own backups on Live all the time?

[CoFree]

right but the way i look at it is why do on live with a flash box what you can do on live with a nonflashed box

[lilrevuk]

If I remember from your posts, you have more than one box right?

What cofree is saying is the best defence is to have 2 boxes, one for live, one for backups. All you have to do when you switch consoles is change your HDD.

By the way, it would make sense (to me anyway) to play live with a console before you flash it... If it flagged in this state, then it is with a stock drive with a original game being logged

[CoFree]

all of my 360 are flashed.
i play with flash 360 on live all the time.

im just say.If it a new 360 i would do all the set up.then get on live and get the updates and all even game updates (with orig disc).
just get as many of the updates as you can.
then flash the drive.

ive never done the HD switch to take updates.

[NeoRio]

Good, good. I'll do that...makes sense! Yes, lilrevuk, I do have 2 360s right now, but if I keep 2, I plan on flashing both of them. CoFree's success with Live has given me the faith that the Live bans were really all about bad backups...and I'm pretty convinced it doesn't matter if you play a bad backup while you're connected to the net or not...I think the HD possibly saves some data that helps in the flagging process.

I just lost my 2nd original game yesterday to some kind of circular scratch (viewtopic.php?f=62&t=786) when the 360 was knocked a little bit during game play. I don't know how many other people have had their original games destroyed like this, but flashing is really the only way I see of protecting my investment. I've spent more on software for the 360s than the consoles themselves.

[Bob24601]

When I first flashed my ms28, I tryed it online and worked. Still hadnt been banned. I have purchased a new subscripton as didnt use the free 1 month one that much. Plus it would mean that I have to pull apart my xbox and reflash that again.
I wouldnt go online at the mo, untill at least I have updated to the latest firmware.