How to prevent XBox 360 from eating my discs

mxmarks

I had a mishap a little while ago where I managed to absent mindedly get 2 discs into the XBox disc tray, and then played some arcade games, so I didn't realize it until I smelled burning plastic. I took the discs out, and for a bit the 360 wouldn't play anything. After awhile, other than some slow load times, it worked fine. BUT, it scratched the hell out of the bottom disc, and I'm suspecting it's still scratching discs.

I think, to be on the safe side, I should look into repairs/a new box, but in the meantime, I was wondering how you prevent the scratching. Fable 2 played fine (it was the disc on top) for about 3 days, and now it's unreadable, with the circular scratches that everyone has read about. Throughout the course of playing Fable though, while the system was off, we had moved the XBox from vertical to horizontal (with the disc still inside), twice, as my roomate and I read various accounts of what is best to avoid the scratches.

So any advice here? The system is still working, and we've played an hour or so of crappy games (Perfect Dark Zero!) to test the Box's scratching before we continue to play anything we actually like, and it seemed ok (the box is vertical again). It didn't scratch that game up, so I'm hoping it's safe to play...

Laonar

Dont put two discs into the damn tray?!?! That is obvious... I have never had problems of a game scratching while vertical.

PeregrineFalcon

mxmarks wrote: »

How to prevent XBox 360 from eating my discs

Well for starters,

I managed to absent mindedly get 2 discs into the XBox disc tray

Quit doing shit like that.

we had moved the XBox from vertical to horizontal (with the disc still inside)

Quit doing shit like that.

twice

What did I just say?

So any advice here?

Guess what I'm about to say.

Norfair

I've had stereos and PC drives that would randomly scratch discs before.

My old shitty HP machine had a CD-R/RW drive made by the TSST Corp., the makers of the shitty 360 drives that scratched discs in Euroland 360s, and it randomly ate a Queen CD when I was picking tracks off of it for a mix CD to play in the car. It got the same circular scratches you always hear about. Thankfully, the CD would still play. And no, I wasn't moving my desktop around when it happened. I usually rip at low speed (4x) and forgot to adjust the speed down, so it tried ripping at 48x.

That said, putting 2 discs in the drive probably screwed something up, and moving the 360 with discs in it? Not a good plan. If your drive is messed up, you might have to call Microsoft. If it's not, see if you can get the game buffed somewhere.

mxmarks

Haha

Obviously the 2 discs in a tray wasn't something I regularly do. I had just woke up, wanted to play Fable, opened the tray, put Fable in, shut it, and it closed up just fine. I decided when I smelled burning that this was a bad idea, and I should avoid doing it again at any cost.

When I tested the 2 discs, the bottom one, Rock Band 2, was scratched up bad. I assumed the extra thickness of 2 discs made it get all scratched up, but it still worked. Fable 2 worked fine. Gradually, RB2 worked less and less, and I noticed more scratches. So I tried putting the box horizontal. Things were fine.

Then I noticed scratches in Fable, and looked up things online again, and saw vertical was better. So I shut down the system, moved it vertical, and things were fine. Last night we tried Rock Band again, and put it back horizontal (since RB2 seemed to work better that way). Then we played Fable, and it eventually stopped working. The disc was scratched.

So since I know the scratches showing up are the same ones that I've seen widely reported online, but never saw a real resolution to the problem, I was wondering if anyone knew the best position for the XBox, or any other tips to avoid the scratching problem. Since the only 2 discs that have gotten scratched were the 2 that accidentally got put in together, it may have just been that isolated incident, but I just thought I'd see here if there was any other ideas before I started shredding up games in the thing.

Can't really afford a new XBox right now, but since it still plays games, I'd like to keep using it and want to do what I can to make sure the games stay nice and working.

Svevin

You eat them first! Before the 360 gets to them!

peterdevore

Use the nifty disk ripping feature, duh?

And btw, I heard that moving your 360 from horizontal to vertical or back while the disk is spinning is a good recipe for scratches, so don't forget to turn it off before doing that (like you do already, but people should know).

mxmarks

Are 360 discs able to be fixed with that Disc Doctor type machine? I remember back with my Dreamcast, the GD-ROMs wern't able to be fixed, and I've heard conflicting reports about 360 games actually being helped by those things...

randombattle

mxmarks wrote: »

Are 360 discs able to be fixed with that Disc Doctor type machine? I remember back with my Dreamcast, the GD-ROMs wern't able to be fixed, and I've heard conflicting reports about 360 games actually being helped by those things...

I would say that if the disk doesn't work then you don't have anything to lose by trying the old toothpaste method or the disc doctor.

Also if you don't want your 360 to eat discs then don't throw it up and down all the time. Just leave it in one spot and don't move it.

mxmarks

randombattle wrote: »

mxmarks wrote: »

Are 360 discs able to be fixed with that Disc Doctor type machine? I remember back with my Dreamcast, the GD-ROMs wern't able to be fixed, and I've heard conflicting reports about 360 games actually being helped by those things...

I would say that if the disk doesn't work then you don't have anything to lose by trying the old toothpaste method or the disc doctor.

Also if you don't want your 360 to eat discs then don't throw it up and down all the time. Just leave it in one spot and don't move it.

Its been upright since day 1, but we fiddled with it for a couple days after it scratched stuff to see if either position was better or worse. I have a friend who swears that his runs 'faster' on it's side, so we were just trying a ton of stuff. It's now vertical again, because that seems to be the best position to avoid scratching from the stuff I've read online.

Whats the toothpaste trick?

Evander

Don't put any discs in.


edit: seriously, though, it sounds like you broke the machine. If you're gonna be an [strike]idiot[/strike] risktaker, and keep playing discs in it before getting it fixed, then make sure to lay it down flat, keep it in an area were nothing will shake/vibrate it, and NEVER move it with a disc in it. Yes, all of these things may not have been an issue before you broke the machine, but now that it is broken, you want to be extra careful.

bertholf77

for anyone who dosnt kno the tothpaste trick it is that


STEP 1: apply tooth paste to the bottom of your disc
STEP 2:rub the toothpaste in with your finger untill the entire disc is coverd
Step 3: rinse toothpaste off of dise and dry soon after rinsing off the disc

Lionel-Richie

You don't want to stand the xbox upright either, despite marketing and whatnot showing it standing upright. It's not like the ps3 or wii that hold the disc like a car stereo, it's a tray.

Lay it flat....WHEN IT'S OFF!