360 + unreadable disc

Echo

So, I finally bought Rock Band 2 and a guitar. LTTP and all that. I played for an hour today, went to take a shower, came back... and now the 360 won't recognize the disc.

Tried other games - they work just fine. Went to a friend and tried my RB2 disc in his 360, and it worked just fine there.

So, do I blame the disc or my 360, and what can I do about it if it's the 360?

edit: what happens now is that the 360 says "Reading" for a few seconds, and then goes back to "Open tray" as if I didn't have a disc in it.

darkgrue

Problem suggests the disc itself is the problem, not your 360. Is the disc damaged in any way?

Had this happen with Infamous - the disc scratched in the tray. (Yes, my 360 is horizontal; yes, I didn't move it) I got a Disc Read Error (DRE) while the game was playing, found a small scratch on the disc, put it back in and restarted, got an even BIGGER circular scratch on it. Other games played fine.

Took it in to the local Play n' Trade to have it resurfaced, problem solved.

Not all scratches are fatal on a disc - but even small ones in the right direction in the right spot can cause the drive to give up. And the 360 drives can eat discs, under the right circumstances.

Your friend may have a different drive (brand and/or firmware - they've switched brands and such several times during the 360's production already) in his 360 that may handle a marginal error better - or you may have not actually tested the part of the game under the damage.

See if cleaning and/or resurfacing the disc makes the problem go away first, as it's the cheapest solution to try.

Echo

Nothing visible on the disc. I've had the 360 vertical, and the first time I put the disc in it wouldn't read it - I moved the 360 to horisontal and then it loaded. Once. Hasn't loaded again since.

Bought my 360 in 2007 and his is that black HDMI model, so it's likely to have a newer drive.

edit: it doesn't even spin the disc up to speed to try to read it.

Echo

'kay. After two dozen turns of opening/closing the tray it decided to read the disc again - this time. Going to install it to the HD, but that won't help if it's something wrong with the disc since it needs to check that the disc is there when I launch it.

ascannerlightly

fyi: the install for rb2 will probably be huge. i know it was for ghwt.

Echo

Huh. Boot it up today and it works on the first try. It's a lot cooler today - tends to get kinda hot in the apartment by the evening. Think it might be heat related?

darkgrue

Echo wrote: »

Huh. Boot it up today and it works on the first try. It's a lot cooler today - tends to get kinda hot in the apartment by the evening. Think it might be heat related?

Thermal problems are always a possibility, although it's still strange other games would work. You really wouldn't expect that.

Could be a manufacturing defect in the disc that your drive doesn't like for some reason. Do you have the option of exchanging the disc, perhaps? Not sure that will help any (since other packages at the store you bought it from have a good chance of being from the same manufacturing lot and may contain the same defect if it's a lot-wide media defect). But maybe it's just the disc is marginal and your drive is just a little too far to one side or the other on the edge of tolerances, and that's why it's showing up as just a problem with this one disc.

Figgy

I can't imagine heat having anything to do with it.

I had a similar problem with a used copy of NHL 09. It looks brand new, but it wouldn't read. I took a cleaner to it and buffed it up as much as possible, and it finally read fine.

You might want to try having it resurfaced, even though you can't see any visible scratches or anything.

matt has a problem

I had Dead Rising do this to me a few times. I took it out, wiped it off even though it looked fine, and didn't have another problem with it.

Erandus

The Xbox is pretty infamous for being very temperamental reading disks.

Is there some sort of approved drive cleaning device? I haven't looked.

Echo

I'll talk to the store and see if I can get a new disc, but I'm just wary of them possibly going "nope, works in our test machine, no replacement for you". But I think they're pretty lenient.

Romero Zombie

My XBOX gave me the unreadable disc error as well, only it was on all of my games. A little research online showed this happens sometimes on the xbox side when the laser becomes misaligned or some magnet comes loose.

GreasyKidsStuff

Romero Zombie wrote: »

My XBOX gave me the unreadable disc error as well, only it was on all of my games. A little research online showed this happens sometimes on the xbox side when the laser becomes misaligned or some magnet comes loose.

My xbox is doing this too, how'd you fix it? Did Microsoft have to send you a label?