XBox 360 will no longer read (or even spin) discs

[MaachaQ]

Most of the tech questions I see relate to PC and PS2, but hey, FFXI is on the XBox too, right? ^^;

Anyway, my husband's XBox had been having trouble reading the POL Viewer disk for some months, often giving us a white screen message saying "Please insert disc into an XBox 360 Console." About a month ago, it refused to read the disc at all. When you put a disc in (any disc, not just the POL Viewer), it just says open tray, doesn't even try to read the disc. Once in a while we can get it to spin the disc, but still get that white screen.

My husband opened the system and checked power to the CD/DVD drive, and all connections seemed fine, so he ended up opening the CD/DVD drive itself and said it looked like the motor for the drive was failing. He did some kind of fix and put the system back together, but still it won't work (though it does try spinning the disc more often now).

My question is, would it be better to buy another system (most likely one of the "red ring of death" systems for cheap) to gut it for parts, or buy a used system that is otherwise fine and put our old harddrive on it? It would most likely be cheaper to buy a "dead" system and put the CD/DVD drive into our XBox (which otherwise runs just fine), but if changing out the drive is not a viable option I should be able to get a used system with no accessories or harddrive for relatively cheap.

Please let me know if you have experience with the XBox 360 and repairing problems with them, any and all advice is welcome. I will point my husband here to read replies, he's a Computer Programmer, so don't be afraid to get technical ^^

[Cephius]

This may have some obvious answer that I missed but.. why didn't you guys just call Microsoft to see if you could get it replaced before opening it up? Might as well take advantage of that new 3 year warranty IMO

DVD drives that have trouble reading discs are usually caused by a broken lens or laser within the system. You're better off just replacing the entire drive, salvaging parts from another 360 would probably work.

[MaachaQ]

My husband thought trying to fix it ourselves would be easier than shipping it from Korea (where we are currently living). I sent an e-mail to Miscosoft support, and just got a standard "clean the disc with a soft cloth blah blah" response, and then directed to their telephone support if that didn't work. I will be headed to the states for the holidays now, which i had not planned on before, so sending it in for warrantee repair is now more viable, if we hadn't already opened the system and voided the warantee ><

Anyway, after doing a few more web searches I see that I can either buy a brand new CD/DVD drive for around $60 or buy a RROD XBox for around the same price to salvage parts from. I'm leaning toward just buying the completely new drive rather than take my chances salvaging parts from another dead XBox, since there is a chance the salvage machine could have a bad CD/DVD drive as well as what other hardware problems it might have...

Still, I'd like more opinions before I go out and buy something ^^

[evilbau]

induce RROD and get microsoft to replace it

[Cephius]

induce RROD and get microsoft to replace it

Pretty sure opening up the 360 and messing with it voids any warranty they might have had on it..

If you're buying the new drive from a store, maybe you could take your Xbox there to see if you could install it onsite and check if everything works. If it fails, you can just not end up wasting money on a drive you can't use. You might try calling Microsoft, maybe it's an issue that they can fix over the phone (unlikely, but again if it works you saved yourself a lot of time and trouble). Otherwise you might just have to buy a RROD system and try to replace what parts you can. But who knows how badly damaged that system would be?

Sorry to say it sounds like a crapshoot any way you look at it :[ The other alternative might be to just bite the bullet and buy a new core or pro system (you can always take your HDD out of your current one) instead of spending a lot of time and money repairing something that may not be able to be repaired. Good luck though!

[evilbau]

induce RROD and get microsoft to replace it

Pretty sure opening up the 360 and messing with it voids any warranty they might have had on it..

who said anything about opening it up? RROD its a general hardware failure usually caused by overheating. put it on carpet and restrict airflow (say put it in a box), let it run for a while. I was actually kidding but if someone were serious about it, it would be quite easy to do...

[Cephius]

induce RROD and get microsoft to replace it

Pretty sure opening up the 360 and messing with it voids any warranty they might have had on it..

who said anything about opening it up? RROD its a general hardware failure usually caused by overheating. put it on carpet and restrict airflow (say put it in a box), let it run for a while. I was actually kidding but if someone were serious about it, it would be quite easy to do...

I'm well aware of what you're talking about, its an easy way to get a replacement xbox via force overheating your system.

However... if you had bothered to read the OP.. you would know that she and her husband opened their 360 in an attempt to fix the DVD drive, thus voiding their warranty and making it impossible to send it back regardless of reason. That's what I was talking about.

[izembo]

they said they already opened it up, which indeed voids the warranty.

the 3year is only for RROD, its 1year for everything else and you void any warranties as soon as you open it up. microsoft won't even service it once you open it.