No, I'm not talking about the "burn" rings that every idiot got from moving their xbox from horizontal to vertical. I've been searching all over for an answer but its like no one has experienced it. I think the laser in the disk drive is scorching the reflective surface of the disk. No signs of damage on the label side, but definite dark rings on the "shiny side" that werent their before. Its worse if I try to install the game. I mean heck, I can't even play my games unless its an original xbox game for some strange reason. It gives the disk scratched/dirty error, which is kinda null and void considering all my disks still have that perfect mirror finish from the factory. Im wondering if this is even possible or am i just tripping hard.
While I've mostly heard about the RRoD on the fat 360's, I do know some folks that have had optical drive issues involving scratching. I recall you can replace the drive, too. I'm kinda assuming your unit is out of warranty anyway. You do need to jump through a few hoops, however. https://www.google.com/search?q=360+optical+drive+replacement&aq=f&oq=360+optical+drive+replacement&aqs=chrome.0.57j0l3j62l2.7922j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8]This is the Google search I did.[/url] The hardware part isn't a real issue, so much as pairing a key to the motherboard and the new drive if you want to game on the system anymore. From what I understand, the new Slim versions resolve the major issues, and so far, mine has worked fine. However, if everything else is fine and you don't feel like dropping the cash on a new slim, look around for places that do that work. A drive seems to run in the range of $20-40 USD, and if the labor and time isn't too crazy, it might even be cheaper than snagging a used fat model.
well ive resolved the issue, but now its back to the old problem i had before, random freezing. i know my 360 is free of dust and all that, i saw to that myself. i am a very thorough duster of electronics. it sure does get alot of hot air out of the system, which means the components themselves are getting cooled off. im wondering that maybe, just maybe, that its my hard drive. ive had the hard drive from my original 360 since 2008. my original system RRODed on me and was under warranty, so they gave me a new one. of course they tell you to keep all your peripherals and hard drive. havent formatted my hard drive ever, so could that be the problem? do i need to start off with a clean slate? could the hard drive be so fragmented that it causes the cache for each game to make my 360 crap out? its funny because i can play a original xbox game and the problem doesnt present itself nearly as much. i also know that, for example, Trials HD even freezes. the game isnt more than 50 mb in total storage space. My 360 also has frozen on the dashboard, and in the bootup splash screen. this thing is pissing me off.
Well, I'm not sure it's a hard drive issue. It might, but with the PC, a freeze was more along the lines of the processor getting too hot or corruption in the RAM. I'm sure the 360 hard drive could be defragmented, but I don't know if there's a program you can put on it to do so. You could hook it up to a computer (assuming you can remove it from the housing) and use a 3rd party software package to analyze it. I suppose it would hurt to back up the drive elsewhere and start fresh (back up is never a bad thing). If it's not still under warranty, I would see how the GPU & CPU are fairing with cooling.
