"Unreadable Disc" All Discs Xbox 360 - Questions

[SteppinRazor]

Oh man, my first unhappy moment with my 360:

I thought I might play a little today, so I turned the unit on.

I got the green/white xbox console startup wipe.

Then landed on the dashboard -- thats out of the ordinary, I know I have a game disc in the tray.

I look at the 'disc tray' section of the screen, and instead of "The Orange Box" I see "Unreadable Disc".

Fudge!

So I do all the normal trouble shooting steps.

No red lights at all.

Disc is clean and beautiful.

Other discs don't work.

I jump online, read that clearing the cache sometimes works.

I do the x,x,LB,RB,x,x 'maitnence' thing, still no luck.

I check the MS knowledge base page, and having eliminated most of what they suggested already, I read that I should try booting a game w/o the HDD attatched.

I remove the harddrive (first time ever), still no luck.

I disconnect all cables and connections and reconnect them.


Still no luck.

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So, googling my symptoms, I think I might have a bad laser, or a laser out of alignment. I bought my 360 in late September of this year and have had no problems until today.

I'm so bummed, I was really looking forward to playing some games this holiday break.

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So my questions to you are:

1) Have you had this happen, do you know what the problem is?

2) Does anybody know a DIY fix that doesn't void warranties?

3) How long would it take to use the MS warranty return service stuff?

[stonefeet]

mine does the same sort of thing, only it's in game (mostly EA sports games and GH3) the best work around is instead of turning the xbox on with the controller or pressing the power button, open it by opening the disc tray, mine hasn't kicked me out of a game since i started doing this, i think it's something about how it spins up the disc when you start the xbox up that muffs it up

[SteppinRazor]

Hmm, I've been trying all three ways of turning it on with several different discs, and I end up on the dashboard with "Unreadable Disc" every time.

Thanks for your suggestion though, but that doesn't seem to be it.

[Culv3r]

1) Sorry, never had this happen before.. only the red rings of death.

2) You'll have to look around but they have lens cleaners.. looks like a cd but has a soft brush like almost that gently cleans the laser. Basically put it in and when it tries to read it will clean the lens. If it reads it and pops you into XB's media player let it play the song that is on it.. and then try another disc.

3) XB Support normally takes anywhere from 1 week to 1 month to either repair or send you a refurbished XBox.

Hope that helps.

[Jimmik]

I have had the exact same problem with my Xbox. I was so sad >.< My Xbox has been in the mail for about three days now, so I can't help you estimate how long itll take, but I can share your pain in the meantime :P

[SteppinRazor]

Thanks.

Yeah, its looking like I should just fill out the forms and get it mailed off ASAP, I suppose nothing will start happening until Monday anyways.

[AdamBomb629]

This used to happen to me and the key for it was not turning the console off with a disc in the drive. Start it up empty and you may be good to go.

[dshiznat]

this happened to my bro thursday open your xbox there should be 2 cords connecting the motherboard to the dvd drive it is mostlikely broken go to best buy buy it for 20 bucks

[SteppinRazor]

This used to happen to me and the key for it was not turning the console off with a disc in the drive. Start it up empty and you may be good to go.

When you say 'used to happen' do you mean the problem fixed itself, or that you eventually had your unit repared/replaced?

As far as the other suggestion RE: opening the unit, I'm not into that right now. I've performed surgery on my fat PS2 when the cog/worm gear thing was kaput, but my 360 is just two months old, and I'd just as soon maintain my elegibility for warranty service as long as I can. Thanks for the suggestion though.

[masterx1918]

I've had that happen to me. Call microsoft and tell them you have a faulty disc drive, they'll send you the box and you ship it off to get it fixed.

[Cutlass]

If this is only happening with Rock Band you should check out the support website and get another disc through the warranty.

[drno830]

It isn't working on "all discs Xbox 360"

[SteppinRazor]

I've had that happen to me. Call microsoft and tell them you have a faulty disc drive, they'll send you the box and you ship it off to get it fixed.

Righto. This is what I will do.

Thanks everybody.