sick of disk read error

Nico0020 · Post by **Nico0020** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:05 pm

so ive had my xbox about a year now and I keep getting a dirty disk read error durning games. Failed to load map on Halo 2, or half the time it thinks its a DVD movie. So anyways, I searched it up online and followed instrutions on how to clean my disk lense and mirror. did just as it said, and the problem still remains the same.I have also used dvd lense cleaners which do not relieve the problem. I have the well known tomphson dvd drive. I have seen replacement drives of the same model that I could switch into my xbox for like 20 bucks. There are more expensive ones like the samsung model, does it matter which type i put back in, or must it be the same model? Anyway, I was wondering if this is a wise thing to do, or is there any other advice to follow?

DCFan2004 · Post by **DCFan2004** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 8:44 pm

It doesn't matter which drive you replace it with, so you could replace it with another tomphson or a samsung or a phillips, whatever you want. When my thompson crapped out I replaced it with a Phillips drive. It reads a lot of the media I throw at it, and haven't had one DDE for the year I've had it. Your other option is the Samsung which is capable of reading most of the media out there with the exception of one or two things. Stay away from another tomphson, unless you dont wanna shell out the extra cash to get a better drive.

Caboose · Post by **Caboose** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:55 pm

^^^
Samsung is the best.

DCFan2004 · Post by **DCFan2004** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 10:41 pm

Crazy Caboose wrote:^^^
Samsung is the best.

But according to your sloganizer it says caboose is the best

Caboose · Post by **Caboose** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 7:13 am

I meant the best DVD Drive you can get in an Xbox. If you haven't opened your xbox or done anything to void the warranty, I suggest you just send it to MS. If you threaten to call the BBB they will replace the drive for free or a cheaper cost than $80~. I remember reading on a forum about a lot of people with the same problem and they called MS and told them that this is a defect and the customer shouldn't have to pay for it. If the customer support person gave them trouble then they'd threaten to call the BBB and that solved hte problem in most cases

. I wouldn't suggest getting angry at the customer support person though, since they don't make the policies and it's not the best way to get what you want.

Just what I read on a forum (I think it was the official xbox forum from xbox.com).

Raijin Z · Post by **Raijin Z** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 11:20 am

Most owner-operated game resellers do XB repairs. Hell, the local Splitstone Entertainment store will replace PS2 motherboards/DVD assemblies, you name it. The last time I was there, they were working on someone's Dreamcast. o_o

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 1:20 pm

Strange as it sounds, a new DVD drive might not fix your problem. I replaced my friend's drive with a new one, but the problem of DDE/not loading persisted. I'm not sure what the problem is, and I doubt it's two bum drives that act the exact same way.

MKE · Post by **MKE** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 3:22 pm

it all depend if your xbox is modded or not.

if it's not, the only real difference between the 20$ thomson drives and the 100$ samsung drives is that samsung you can load music on your xbox from cdr's....

but if it's modded, the samsung drive plays dvd-r media ONLY and the thomson plays dvd+ and - r.

DCFan2004 · Post by **DCFan2004** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 10:59 pm

MKE wrote:it all depend if your xbox is modded or not.

if it's not, the only real difference between the 20$ thomson drives and the 100$ samsung drives is that samsung you can load music on your xbox from cdr's....

but if it's modded, the samsung drive plays dvd-r media ONLY and the thomson plays dvd+ and - r.

my philips takes music from cd-rw's and DVD+R (haven't tried - yet though)

MKE · Post by **MKE** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 11:24 pm

DCFan2004 wrote:
MKE wrote:it all depend if your xbox is modded or not.

if it's not, the only real difference between the 20$ thomson drives and the 100$ samsung drives is that samsung you can load music on your xbox from cdr's....

but if it's modded, the samsung drive plays dvd-r media ONLY and the thomson plays dvd+ and - r.
my philips takes music from cd-rw's and DVD+R (haven't tried - yet though)

i have never gotten a philips to mess with. every xbox ive bought has either had a samsung or a thomson, so i dont know.......

Frosty-E · Post by **Frosty-E** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 7:08 pm

my samsung plays everything and anything i throw at it (except maybe dual layers(havent and wont try))

MKE · Post by **MKE** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 9:17 pm

samsungs will not play dvd+r unless you use a bitsetting/booktyping dvd firmware hack...in wich case you can burn the dvd and it will be read as a -r, rom, ram, etc...

Alexvrb · Post by **Alexvrb** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:03 pm

MKE wrote:the only real difference between the 20$ thomson drives and the 100$ samsung drives is that samsung you can load music on your xbox from cdr's

Excepting of course how many Thompsons kick the bucket early in life.

MKE · Post by **MKE** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:36 pm

i dont know, i have 2 thompsons here from 1.0 xbox's that are working perfectly, a lot better then my samsung drive that get's the dre and it's from a 1.3 and has seen much less use...

i like the thompsons....ive had 3 samsungs, and the only thing there nice for is formating new hard drives, and that's because theyll read any cdr so you can burn the slayers, ff disk, avalaunch, whatever and go...wich is the only reason i bought them..

for the money, if all your doing is playing xbox games/xbox backups, thompsons are what you want...if your doing a lot of cdr homebrewing and stuff, samsungs are what you want, if your doin both, philips/hitachi are what you should go for...

DCFan2004 · Post by **DCFan2004** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:47 pm

MKE wrote:i dont know, i have 2 thompsons here from 1.0 xbox's that are working perfectly, a lot better then my samsung drive that get's the dre and it's from a 1.3 and has seen much less use...

i like the thompsons....ive had 3 samsungs, and the only thing there nice for is formating new hard drives, and that's because theyll read any cdr so you can burn the slayers, ff disk, avalaunch, whatever and go...wich is the only reason i bought them..

for the money, if all your doing is playing xbox games/xbox backups, thompsons are what you want...if your doing a lot of cdr homebrewing and stuff, samsungs are what you want, if your doin both, philips/hitachi are what you should go for...

Off topic but I saw you were posting so I thought I'd ask you something. I have a v 1.0 box that I had modded (TSOP flash and MA exploit). Well when I went to have it modded originally the thing would power up but i'd get no video, i looked around and it was what was called a "coma state". Basically one of the bios banks had been corrupted so I had to jump it to the next bank (v 1.0 had 4 256K banks). Everything was good up until 2 days ago, I'm back to the same problem. I was wondering If I just get a new mobo and flash it, If i put my HD in will everyhting be back to normal or do I have to do something else as well?

MKE · Post by **MKE** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:49 pm

im not sure. i ve had that problem when i did a 2 bank switch a while ago, but i think it was because i was switching the bank's when the xbox wasnt completely off, and it was erasing/corrupting the bank.

ive never done a 4 switch one, so i dont know if you can re-flash them with 256k bios's or if you have to do the 1mb multi bios thing.

but, it soundls more like a bios problem so im not sure if you put your original hdd in tehre if it will fix it, maybe someone else here or if you post it at xbox-scene.com will be able to help ya more.

DCFan2004 · Post by **DCFan2004** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 3:03 pm

MKE wrote:im not sure. i ve had that problem when i did a 2 bank switch a while ago, but i think it was because i was switching the bank's when the xbox wasnt completely off, and it was erasing/corrupting the bank.

ive never done a 4 switch one, so i dont know if you can re-flash them with 256k bios's or if you have to do the 1mb multi bios thing.

but, it soundls more like a bios problem so im not sure if you put your original hdd in tehre if it will fix it, maybe someone else here or if you post it at xbox-scene.com will be able to help ya more.

Well i just figured as long as I get a new mobo and flash it then it can be used with any HDD, at which point I can put in my 200 gig one that has all the dashboards and apps on it.

Frosty-E · Post by **Frosty-E** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:26 pm

if its unlocked it should work

but if its locked u would need to unlock it with the now eeprom pw and re lock it with the new eeprom pw

sixteen-bit · Post by **sixteen-bit** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 9:03 pm

MKE wrote:my philips takes music from cd-rw's and DVD+R (haven't tried - yet though)

My philips reads DVD-R, RW (can't remember if it was -/+), CDRW and even CDRs as long as they're not cheapy silvertop discs.

Alexvrb · Post by **Alexvrb** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 9:40 pm

MKE wrote:i dont know, i have 2 thompsons here from 1.0 xbox's that are working perfectly, a lot better then my samsung drive that get's the dre and it's from a 1.3 and has seen much less use...

Sorry, I've seen too many Thompsons develop problems to recommend replacing a bad Thompson with another Thompson. They don't always get DREs, either. I used one with sporadic problems loading things, rarely gives a DRE, and once it loads the game its mostly ok. Still, you never want to have Ninja Gaiden lock up when you're doing good. It sucks.

I had some issues with a samsung, but all it needed was to be cleaned. Anyway, if you do have a problematic Thompson, you can always try to revive it through cleaning and tweaking the laser. You could also just replace the laser and not the whole thing. Places that buy dead drives off you do it for a reason, and its not because they're technologically advanced enough to actually remanufacture the unit. They fix them and sell them again.