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?