Xbox read errors

[chaswood]

Can anyone here point me in the right direction? I've dug around the net looking for a good hardware tech forum for the Xbox but find nothing of value.

My son's Xbox will no longer recognize a game disk. For a while it would still play a CD, but now won't even do that. Microsoft wants $130 to fix it, but we might as well buy a new one and keep this for spare parts/hacking.

I pulled it apart and cleaned the lens with a soft brush. The mechanism seems fine and it spins up and seeks, but spins down again after a few seconds and says that it cannot recognize the disk.

Some forums hint that there may be a way to format the HD and do a software based alignment of the game disk read head, but I cannot find any details.

If anyone knows of a really good Xbox tech forum or has any knowledge of this problem, their assistance would be greatly appreciated!

 

[scottrico]

Had the same problem, I was lucky that it was only the 2nd week, so I exchanged it.
also paid $20 for 1 year exchange(no questions ask) form EB.
and a month later returned it with same problem and they gave me a new one and it is all good now.
I have a few good tech websites that might help but they are at home (Im at work), so I will post them later tonight.

the problem is the xbox uses its own serial interface and not a regular ata 66/100 cable.

but I heard that they were fixing this problem for free for the japan xbox owners.
maby if you complain more, they will address it.
peace

 

[chaswood]

Thanks, scottrico. Per your suggestion, I contacted Microsoft and whined a bit harder. Took about 20 minutes, but they cut the $130 repair fee in half.

Still very curious about what the problem really is. I pulled the box apart, checked all the cabling, and pulled the top off the CD/DVD drive to watch it access when a disk was inserted. Visually everything looked fine.