Finnicky Xbox-drive or disc?

[YoshiM]

Over the last few months, my Xbox had been degrading when it came to playing discs. It would lock up a lot or give me "dirty disc" errors. So I buy a brand new drive and I swap the hardware out. The system works better than before but seems to have a mind of its own when it comes to playing a game I *really* want to play.

-GTA: Vice City (bought used): Most of the time refuses to run due to "dirty disc errors". Cleaned and boiled.

-Outrun 2 (bought new): Most of the time it doesn't want to play due to "dirty disc errors". This was purchased from Wal-Mart several months back and has hardly been played.

I tested other games (Soul Calibur 2, Sid Meier's Pirates, Karaoke Revolution) and those fire up great. It got late so I didn't get to test my other titles. For kicks I'd pop in my trouble games and they'd fire up like new but then fail when I shut the unit down and wait a few minutes before firing it back up.

Kinda pisses me off that the system lasted only 3 years with moderate use. Could these trouble discs just be bad discs, did I get a bad drive or could it be something else dying on my Xbox? Buying a new system is kinda out of the question because I purchased all the Karaoke Revolution songs off of Live and it's not transferrable. I'd be out of even more cash. *groan*

[ProgrammingAce]

I'm guessing your replacement drive was made by thomson? Those drives have a harder time reading newer discs due to new copy protection schemes (it's actually less copy protection, more data redundancy type thing)

[YoshiM]

I'm guessing your replacement drive was made by thomson? Those drives have a harder time reading newer discs due to new copy protection schemes (it's actually less copy protection, more data redundancy type thing)

Yeah, it's a Thompson. I was debating between types but the gal from the Xbox repair site (she sells drives) said it didn't really matter what drive you get in regards to lifespan.

[ProgrammingAce]

lifespan, eh, not really any differance. Readability? Big differance. The firmware on a thomson drive isn't able to handle the newer style xbox games very gracefully, which results in a higher occurance of disk read errors.

[YoshiM]

lifespan, eh, not really any differance. Readability? Big differance. The firmware on a thomson drive isn't able to handle the newer style xbox games very gracefully, which results in a higher occurance of disk read errors.

I got a bid on a Samsung model now so hopefully I'll be able to get back to playin' on that system soon.