My X-box Died, Yay!

[The Shawn]

The original X-box that is, not the 360.

So I went in to play some more Call of Cthulu and the disk sounds like it's being mashed around in there. Got the "Does not recognize game disk" message, The the "Dirty disk" message.

So naturally I tried a bunch more, all with same grating sound and message.

Anything I can do? Other than suck it up and go pick up another one at EB for $60......

[SnowKitty]

The original X-box that is, not the 360.

So I went in to play some more Call of Cthulu and the disk sounds like it's being mashed around in there. Got the "Does not recognize game disk" message, The the "Dirty disk" message.

So naturally I tried a bunch more, all with same grating sound and message.

Anything I can do? Other than suck it up and go pick up another one at EB for $60......

you can try tweaking the laser pot, but if it's making alotta noise you might wanna see if any gears are missing teeth or broken

[mercarian]

The original X-box that is, not the 360.

So I went in to play some more Call of Cthulu and the disk sounds like it's being mashed around in there. Got the "Does not recognize game disk" message, The the "Dirty disk" message.

So naturally I tried a bunch more, all with same grating sound and message.

Anything I can do? Other than suck it up and go pick up another one at EB for $60......

Maybe try a disk cleaner kit?

[The Shawn]

Thanks for the advise.

I looked it up on-line, and it has all kinds of "fixes" but nothing I'm willing to get fried on and also void the warranty (If there still is one that is).

Anyway's I got mad and punched it a couple times and it seems to be working again for a while. (Who knew?)

[ssjlance]

Violence is the answer.

[SnowKitty]

Thanks for the advise.

I looked it up on-line, and it has all kinds of "fixes" but nothing I'm willing to get fried on and also void the warranty (If there still is one that is).

Anyway's I got mad and punched it a couple times and it seems to be working again for a while. (Who knew?)

if it's an original xbox the warranty was over long ago. just take it apart if it acts up again :P you got nothin to lose. also, punching stuff does seem to fix some things XD

[The 1 2 P]

Thanks for the advise.

I looked it up on-line, and it has all kinds of "fixes" but nothing I'm willing to get fried on and also void the warranty (If there still is one that is).

Anyway's I got mad and punched it a couple times and it seems to be working again for a while. (Who knew?)

First try transfering all your saved game data to memory cards. That way you'll still have it in case you do need to get a new Xbox. Theres nothing worse than starting from the very beginning of a game that you either had a heart attack while trying to conquer it(Ninja Gaiden) or spent 40 plus hours beating it(Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2).

[mercarian]

Violence is the answer.

I take back the cleaner kit, just kick the thing and hope for the best lol O_o

[TheDomesticInstitution]

I'm still on my 2nd original XBOX, and had my disk drive go out (even though it was the Samsung). I opened it up and of course voided the warranty. Even so, I sold it in broke condition on ebay for $80. You could do one of 2 things. Buy a new one for $60 or replace the drive... which is pretty easy, even if you haven't seen a tutorial. If you can find an xbox for really cheap I'd try relacing the disk drive to avoid having to transfer all your saves to a memory card, then to another xbox.

Hurray! Microsoft makes an unreliable product, but we keep coming back. Although it has always been a lot cheaper to replace an original xbox vs. a 360. Wasn't the original $175, by this time in it's life span?

[bangtango]

How stable is the hard drive on the old Xbox? I don't game online so I've never been on Live. I also typically use it 2-3 hours to a time, the longest stretch I've ever played consecutively would be 8-9 but those are a rarity (only done that twice in the 16 months I've owned it). So it has never been left on for 2-3 days straight or even overnight.

I've given some thought to backing up my saved games on a memory card, just in case. Can someone tell me how much the memory cards typically run on the old Xbox and the best ones to get (for both space and reliability)? A link, even to an auction or store listing, would be great. I'd like something that can capably hold my usual diet of Madden, NBA Live and other similar series in the genre.

[The Shawn]

Yeah, I read the tutorial over at Llama Videogames on how tio fix it, that's why I mentioned getting fried, as it states "There's 2 big pots that can hold electricity for years and dump them all in one shot, and we are not resposible" Or something like that.

Anyway's I feel pretty confident that I could switch the drive out if necessary, and I did save all my info on a memory card allready just to be safe. The things like 6 years old anyway's, but alway's had good luck with the original X-box and never heard of any problems with them?

It seems to be working again today so all is well in X-box land for the time being...

[The Shawn]

How stable is the hard drive on the old Xbox? I don't game online so I've never been on Live. I also typically use it 2-3 hours to a time, the longest stretch I've ever played consecutively would be 8-9 but those are a rarity (only done that twice in the 16 months I've owned it). So it has never been left on for 2-3 days straight or even overnight.

I've given some thought to backing up my saved games on a memory card, just in case. Can someone tell me how much the memory cards typically run on the old Xbox and the best ones to get (for both space and reliability)? A link, even to an auction or store listing, would be great. I'd like something that can capably hold my usual diet of Madden, NBA Live and other similar series in the genre.


Well I think I paid $20 beans for mine, and that's a second party one, but a while ago they were selling Microsoft brand at K-mart for only $5 on clearence!

I didn't pick one up as the one I have still has plenty of storage on it, I would think that you could pick one up at EB right now for like five bucks though as all their original X-box shit went way down in price...

(I mean their X-box systems went down to $59, I called the dude yesterday to see...)

[The 1 2 P]

You can get used Xbox memory cards for under $15. However, if you really want to move alot of data at once, you can regularly find third party cards that hold 4 times the normal amount of data on one card.

[SkiDragon]

Unfortunately some game saves, for example Ninja Gaiden, can't be transferred to a memory card.

[The 1 2 P]

Ninja Gaiden is the only well-known game that has this issue. I'm sure there are others but this is most likely the biggest title that has it.

[SkiDragon]

I see. That happens to be one of the only games I ever tried to transfer, so I guess I have a skewed view of things.

[Greg2600]

Not an Xbox, but I got a 27 inch TV/VCR/DVD combo from my sister, and it was pretty dirty. The DVD drive did not work, wouldn't read any discs, but worked months earlier. I took it apart, blew all the dust out with canned air, and cleaned off the lense/eye and put it back together. Has worked fine ever since. If there is nothing mechanically wrong with the DVD drive, in terms of eject, spin, etc., just try cleaning it out yourself. Usually works.

[The 1 2 P]

Not an Xbox, but I got a 27 inch TV/VCR/DVD combo from my sister, and it was pretty dirty. The DVD drive did not work, wouldn't read any discs, but worked months earlier. I took it apart, blew all the dust out with canned air, and cleaned off the lense/eye and put it back together. Has worked fine ever since. If there is nothing mechanically wrong with the DVD drive, in terms of eject, spin, etc., just try cleaning it out yourself. Usually works.

I just sold my 27 inch tv/dvd/vcr combo for two reasons: the dvd drive stopped working probably and I was not carrying that thing back down three flights of stairs when I move out of this apartment(it's since been replaced with a 32 inch lcd for less than I originally paid for my 27 inch). But had I known about your fix, I could have fixed the dvd drive and sold it for more money. Oh well, but thanks for the info anyway.

[The 1 2 P]

I see. That happens to be one of the only games I ever tried to transfer, so I guess I have a skewed view of things.

The creator of Dead or Alive and producer of Ninja Gaiden (Itagaki san) disabled the option to transfer Ninja Gaiden saved files because he felt that some unsavory people would start modding the save game data. I could perhaps understand if he did this with DOA to prevent nude codes and such, but I never understood doing this with Ninja Gaiden. Unless he was trying to avoid people making the game easier thru modded save data.

[The Shawn]

Just a quick update, the thing DID finally die a few months ago. I get some red screen that's in Japanese. Is that the Drive? Doesn't sound like it...

Kinda sucks cause I was using it as a big I-pod for the gameroom and had a lot of music ripped onto it.

[TheDomesticInstitution]

I also used my first XBOX to play music. In fact after my DVD drive died, I could still use it as a jukebox... But I didn't have the room for 2 Xboxes. I was in a pawn shop the other day and they had a Christmas special for $29.99 used XBoxes. It's a great deal, but we already have 2.

[spoon]

It's super easy to swap out a hard drive. You could just get a new system and swap them. This way you don't have to worry about loosing any save data.

It will take you all of 20 minutes, if that.

You can clean it out and mess around with the broken parts if you want.

Just be sure and have torque drivers handy. Can get an el-cheap-o set at Lowes or Home Depot.