Oh what the FUCK (360 discs)

Harrier

So I've had my Xbox 360 for over a year, maybe close to a year and a half. And it's never given me any trouble in any way.

Then, last week, I find my copy of Mass Effect lying shiny side down on the bottom of my dusty TV cabinet, put there by my sister and her friend while they were attempting to use my 360 as a DVD player to watch a movie. Putting the game in later, it seems to stutter as it runs, and eventually it starts to freeze at random points while I'm playing. Taking the disc out and examining it, I see what appear to be small scratches at random places on the bottom of the disc.

This aggravates me, because Mass Effect is the 360 game that I actually play on a regular basis, at least until Fable 2 comes out. After griping to my sister to be more careful, I use some Best Buy gift certificates to help me buy a new copy of the game. Secure in my future use of the game, I make the final push from Virmire to the endgame and get the long-desired Renegade ending. I then download Bring Down The Sky, and plan to play it the next weekend when I'm home from school.

Yesterday, I relaunched the game with my old character, and again, everything seemed fine.

Tonight, I tried to resume playing my new-old file, but it froze on me three times. This may have resulted in me tapping the top of the 360 in frustration. The third time, I open the disc drive only to hear a grinding sound as the tray slides out. And there is now a crescent of scratches around the outer edge of the bottom of my new disc.

What the hell happened to my disc drive between this week and last?

Zek

Harrier wrote: »

Putting the game in later, it seems to stutter as it runs, and eventually it starts to freeze at random points while I'm playing.

I don't know about you, but that pretty much sums up my experience playing Mass Effect brand new :P

Legacy

Harrier wrote: »

What the hell happened to my disc drive between this week and last?

Mass Effect is pretty buggy and some tiny scratches led to more problems and you 'tapping' the top of your Xbox, opening it during operation and having the system scratch your disc to shit. So it seems.

Harrier

Legacy wrote: »

Harrier wrote: »

What the hell happened to my disc drive between this week and last?

Mass Effect is pretty buggy and some tiny scratches led to more problems and you 'tapping' the top of your Xbox, opening it during operation and having the system scratch your disc to shit. So it seems.

But how could it have happened to one disc so quickly after the other? Just bad luck?

Legacy

Harrier wrote: »

Legacy wrote: »

Harrier wrote: »

What the hell happened to my disc drive between this week and last?

Mass Effect is pretty buggy and some tiny scratches led to more problems and you 'tapping' the top of your Xbox, opening it during operation and having the system scratch your disc to shit. So it seems.

But how could it have happened to one disc so quickly after the other? Just bad luck?

Oh, you bought a new copy of the game. I missed a paragraph there.

Yeah, bad luck. Try playing other games and see if it starts to grind them. Or don't and just call microsoft and tell them your drive is starting to grind your games up and see if they will replace it.

ChewyWaffles

Is your 360 vertical or horizontal?

acidlacedpenguin

my 360's dvd drive is starting to fail :_( I hope it doesn't completely fail, since its not covered under the warranty.

greeble

He is out of warranty as far as the drive goes. 3 years only covers RRODs. I think its $125 or so to get it fixed but I've heard if you bitch enough they might reduce it.

UnbreakableVow

It's probably from the tapping. My friend's mic stand fell over and even though the tip of the stand caught the top of the 360, it was enough to put perfect-circle scratches on the bottom of the disc, rendering it unplayable.

Kagera

My Mass Effect started stuttering badly at the Rachni hive in the mine in that sidemission with transports carrying rachni everywhere. When I leave after finishing the mine everything just slows to a fucking crawl and I have to get out of there quick if I don't want it to freeze.

This pisses me off because the only place the disc has been is in it's case and in the 360, and yet I noticed the disc has one or two scratches on it.

I don't know if that's the reason for the stuttering but if it is that's pretty shitty. I'm not a perfect disc maintainer but I'm not a five year old chewing on it either I hope it isn't going to crap out on me this fast.

Harrier

UnbreakableVow wrote: »

It's probably from the tapping. My friend's mic stand fell over and even though the tip of the stand caught the top of the 360, it was enough to put perfect-circle scratches on the bottom of the disc, rendering it unplayable.

So... is the disc drive, like... floating in there? Is it hanging by string?

Santa Claustrophobia

Harrier wrote: »

UnbreakableVow wrote: »

It's probably from the tapping. My friend's mic stand fell over and even though the tip of the stand caught the top of the 360, it was enough to put perfect-circle scratches on the bottom of the disc, rendering it unplayable.

So... is the disc drive, like... floating in there? Is it hanging by string?

Sort of... A spindle is raised to lift the disc out of the tray. But due to the nature of DVD/CD media, it cannot hold much more than the center ring. If the disc is off center and this is not corrected sufficiently by the spindle, it can become wobbly with the revolutions. In most cases, the laser lens is far enough away that this doesn't matter, but if the 360 itself isn't in a stable location or position (such as on a table horizontally) the disc itself may wobble so much the lens scratches the surface.

On some disc drives (not just 360s) the lens is by default too close to the disc anyway and then it wouldn't matter how you have the unit positioned.

Kagera

If only DVDs were as durable as CDs.

greeble

Kagera wrote: »

If only DVDs were as durable as [strike]CDs[/strike] Blu-rays. Fixed

From wikipedia:

Because the Blu-ray Disc data layer is closer to the surface of the disc, compared to the DVD standard, it was at first more vulnerable to scratches. The first discs were housed in cartridges for protection. Advances in polymer technology eventually made the cartridges unnecessary.

TDK was the first company to develop a working scratch protection coating for Blu-ray Discs. It was named Durabis. In addition, both Sony and Panasonic's replication methods include proprietary hard-coat technologies. Sony's rewritable media are sprayed with a scratch-resistant and antistatic coating. Verbatim's recordable and rewritable Blu-ray Disc discs use their own proprietary hard-coat technology called ScratchGuard.

This coating really works. My 2 year old has ejected my CoD4 disk from my ps3 twice. And I've found it face down on the floor. No scratches on it. I think all Optical media should be coated with this stuff.

Santa Claustrophobia

So I guess the natural questions that follow is 'How much does this add to the cost of the discs?' and a follow up of 'Why isn't this applied to CDs and DVDs?'

greeble

Durabis is kinda expensive (couple of bucks per disc retail, probably less in volume). However Sony's and Panasonic's hard-coat technologies are significantly less expensive, though not as tough. (but still much better than standard cds and dvds) Some dvd manufacturers are looking at Durabis, especially the rental industry, but they would be applying it after manufacturing.

ginguskahn

I have ex rental ps3 games from blockbuster that don't look like someone frisbee'd them down a concrete path, this is unfathomable to me, as I once rented a game on release day (no one could have rented it before me) that looked as though a dog had been chewing on it for some time.

Kagera

greeble wrote: »

Kagera wrote: »

If only DVDs were as durable as [strike]CDs[/strike] Blu-rays. Fixed

From wikipedia:

Because the Blu-ray Disc data layer is closer to the surface of the disc, compared to the DVD standard, it was at first more vulnerable to scratches. The first discs were housed in cartridges for protection. Advances in polymer technology eventually made the cartridges unnecessary.

TDK was the first company to develop a working scratch protection coating for Blu-ray Discs. It was named Durabis. In addition, both Sony and Panasonic's replication methods include proprietary hard-coat technologies. Sony's rewritable media are sprayed with a scratch-resistant and antistatic coating. Verbatim's recordable and rewritable Blu-ray Disc discs use their own proprietary hard-coat technology called ScratchGuard.

This coating really works. My 2 year old has ejected my CoD4 disk from my ps3 twice. And I've found it face down on the floor. No scratches on it. I think all Optical media should be coated with this stuff.

Hey if it's tougher than CDs (some of which have survived a whole lot over 10-15 years) then I'm all for it.

UnbreakableVow

I remembered hearing about that before the PS3 ever came out. I always considered it a pro in the PS3 column, as I'm generally a nervous kind of guy about buying used games.

FanciestWalnut

Seriously wondering how retarded one has to be to scratch a disk(not counting those with young ones), also check your local gamestop/gamecrazy/etc. they may have a buffing machine and might fix it for free(I used to).

Zombiemambo

A lot of minor scratches are repairable with a disc doctor or the equivalent, it's the scratches on the top of the disc that can't be fixed, since the laser bounces off of the bottom and reads the top.

Kagera

FanciestWalnut wrote: »

Seriously wondering how retarded one has to be to scratch a disk(not counting those with young ones), also check your local gamestop/gamecrazy/etc. they may have a buffing machine and might fix it for free(I used to).

That would be a good point except it's already been stated that the 360 can do a good job of doing it for you while you're playing.

Santa Claustrophobia

Well, the best way to fix a scratch is to fill it in. Brasso seems to be the best solution. I've heard toothpaste as well, but I think that was for scratches in other objects. I've never liked Disc Doctors because all they're really doing is replacing the bad circumferential scratches with better for the laser radial scratches.

Of course, barring accidents, the best way to handle discs is to not treat them like coasters or sandpaper. Then you have the mental defects who don't take care of rental discs because it's not theirs so they don't care. Fucking ignorant hillbillies... SONS OF BITCHES! BUMPASSES!

Renzo

My drive was making small circular scratches on my discs as well as making grinding noises, so I sent it off to get repaired. It's still in Mexico. I'll tell you how it went when I get it back.

FanciestWalnut

Kagera wrote: »

FanciestWalnut wrote: »

Seriously wondering how retarded one has to be to scratch a disk(not counting those with young ones), also check your local gamestop/gamecrazy/etc. they may have a buffing machine and might fix it for free(I used to).

That would be a good point except it's already been stated that the 360 can do a good job of doing it for you while you're playing.

Having owned 3 separate 360's, and many friends who own them I still remain skeptical.

The_Scarab

Dont move your 360, or any optical drive system, while on and with a disc inside.

Also, keep it horizontal.

Thor1590

My XBOX 360 likes to do this horrible trick where it creates deep, game-ruining circular scratches on a disc. Rock Band was one of the two this happened to, which is soul-crushing. I haven't been around when this happened to it, so I don't know exactly how it happens. Is there a way to prevent this? Something along the lines of "Don't let idiots near my machine."?

Edit: After reading a little more, it seems this just...happens. So, the only solution is to send it in, and/or keep it horizontal/don't mess with it while it's running?

Edit newsflash: Apparently my brother was letting my 5 year old sister spin around in a chair next to my XBOX, which was for some reason vertical, causing it to fall over, causing it to ruin a disc. The fuck.

UEAKCrash

My cat has a very nerve wracking habit of using my 360 as a landing pad. Only twice has it been on, and both times I got some really nasty grinding noise out of it and my game froze up. Luckily it didn't get scratched (one of the times it did a bit, but not much), so my games contiue to work.

Anyone take the oppourtunity to get Halo 3 replaced with the free disk replacement thing? I got the collectors edition and it was loose with a bunch of scratches when I got it. Then the above cat incident happened to it and a few other seperate incidents of friends taking it out and setting it on top of the console for movies. By that point it was pretty banged up and I sent it in about 2 days before the deadline.

Now I have a nice shiny new disk and am getting ready to put a sign up by my console saying "PUT THE GODDAMN GAMES BACK WHERE THEY BELONG!"

Kagera

FanciestWalnut wrote: »

Kagera wrote: »

FanciestWalnut wrote: »

Seriously wondering how retarded one has to be to scratch a disk(not counting those with young ones), also check your local gamestop/gamecrazy/etc. they may have a buffing machine and might fix it for free(I used to).

That would be a good point except it's already been stated that the 360 can do a good job of doing it for you while you're playing.

Having owned 3 separate 360's, and many friends who own them I still remain skeptical.

Come on, COME ON

see cuz you've already owned 3 360s and that says something about it's abilities to fuck up already.

UEAKCrash

Kagera wrote: »

FanciestWalnut wrote: »

Kagera wrote: »

FanciestWalnut wrote: »

Seriously wondering how retarded one has to be to scratch a disk(not counting those with young ones), also check your local gamestop/gamecrazy/etc. they may have a buffing machine and might fix it for free(I used to).

That would be a good point except it's already been stated that the 360 can do a good job of doing it for you while you're playing.

Having owned 3 separate 360's, and many friends who own them I still remain skeptical.

Come on, COME ON

see cuz you've already owned 3 360s and that says something about it's abilities to fuck up already.

I'm on #3 now. The best part is I get a free month of Xbox live everytime!

I hadn't paid for quite awhile, since they sent me another free month when I replaced Halo 3.

Harrier

So the consensus from the thread seems to be that this just happened, right?

Should I go out now, and buy my third copy of Mass Effect?

Santa Claustrophobia

I though Microsoft replaced copies of games that were scratched by the lens. Especially their own. Have you tried that instead of spending more money on a new copy of a game you already bought?

Harrier

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

I though Microsoft replaced copies of games that were scratched by the lens. Especially their own. Have you tried that instead of spending more money on a new copy of a game you already bought?

They'll only replace games published by Microsoft itself, which does not apply to Mass Effect since it was published by Bioware. At least, Mass Effect is not listed among the games they'll replace on their website.

But replacing the game isn't the most pressing point. Why bother, if it's just going to get scratched again?

Admittedly, my moving the console around may have exacerbated the damage. But prior to that, the game froze on me three times; something was fucking it up without any intervention on my part. And there's the matter of my original copy getting scratched up, which didn't involve me moving the 360 around at all.

Is there officially a problem with my disc drive?

Fireflash

I think pretty much everyone has had Mass Effect freeze on them a few times. It's constantly accessing the dvd, moreso than any other 360 game.

Santa Claustrophobia

Harrier wrote: »

Santa Claustrophobia wrote: »

I though Microsoft replaced copies of games that were scratched by the lens. Especially their own. Have you tried that instead of spending more money on a new copy of a game you already bought?

They'll only replace games published by Microsoft itself, which does not apply to Mass Effect since it was published by Bioware. At least, Mass Effect is not listed among the games they'll replace on their website.

But replacing the game isn't the most pressing point. Why bother, if it's just going to get scratched again?

Admittedly, my moving the console around may have exacerbated the damage. But prior to that, the game froze on me three times; something was fucking it up without any intervention on my part. And there's the matter of my original copy getting scratched up, which didn't involve me moving the 360 around at all.

Is there officially a problem with my disc drive?

Probably. Check with MS about their policies. If your out of the one year warranty and you haven't told MS specifically about your issue, then call them and buy a new warranty. Then tell them about your problem. Otherwise they tend to like to charge more than the extended warranty costs to fix stuff like this. It's an issue that isn't going to get better by itself.

Plus, simply exchanging the 360 for a new one could cause issues with any DLC you may have purchased. If MS swaps 360s then there is a kind of solution, but you're SOL if you just replace it on your own.

Also, I'm pretty sure ME is published by Microsoft. The logo for Microsoft Game Studios kind of gives that way. BioWare was the developer.

JerikTelorian

Fireflash wrote: »

I think pretty much everyone has had Mass Effect freeze on them a few times. It's constantly accessing the dvd, moreso than any other 360 game.

Mass Effect and Oblivion freeze on me every once in awhile. It never bothered me too much; after years of Win98, game freezing seems commonplace, and the occasional 360 hang, to me, feels like it comes with the territory.

Regarding the OP, I would suggest not "tapping" your console. I can only imagine that, in frustration, what you had done was not in the least gentile, and I am sure that contributed to your problems.

greeble

Just buy Mass Effect for the PC and be done with it. Don't have to worry about scratched disk there. (at least till you install)

victor_c26

Great, I just bought a 360 with it running vertically, and once I ejected the game after playing GTA IV for the first time, I find an arc scratch close to the outer rim of the disc.

I really don't want to return the system I just bought, Literally, a day ago, especially now that I've put some time on GTA.

I had it vertically, so next is trying it horizontally.

How good is Microsoft's disk replacement plan if the worst comes to occur/this keeps up?

greeble

$20 to replace MS published discs. And never, ever run your 360 in the vertical position. (Do current ads still show it vertically, cause if so they really shouldn't?)

Forever Zefiro

FanciestWalnut wrote: »

Kagera wrote: »

FanciestWalnut wrote: »

Seriously wondering how retarded one has to be to scratch a disk(not counting those with young ones), also check your local gamestop/gamecrazy/etc. they may have a buffing machine and might fix it for free(I used to).

That would be a good point except it's already been stated that the 360 can do a good job of doing it for you while you're playing.

Having owned 3 separate 360's, and many friends who own them I still remain skeptical.

Having worked at a game store for quite some time, I can tell you that 360's can in fact give a disc a circular scratch if it's moved while the disc is spinning. I've seen plenty of them when people try to trade them in. I'm not sure why it's more prevalent on the 360 though, compared to other systems.

So yes people, keep the 360 flat and don't fuck with it while a disc is spinning.

greeble

Forever Zefiro wrote: »

I'm not sure why it's more prevalent on the 360 though, compared to other systems.

I think its because the 360 spins them so fast, its also why the drive is so loud. (But on the plus side it loads fast.)