Comments on: "To play this disc, put it in an Xbox 360 console."

Question: "To play this disc, put it in an Xbox 360 console."

GriffX — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:56:54 -0800

My Xbox 360 is just over a year old, and out of warranty. Naturally, it starts acting up. Whenever I insert at game disc, I get the message "To play this disc, put it in an Xbox 360 console."

From research I've done online, it seems that the unit is now dead, and I have to cough up the hundred bucks and ship it back to Microsoft, but the weird thing is, it will still play movies just fine. This leads me to believe that it's a software problem, as if the laser or DVD-ROM were dead, it probably wouldn't play DVDs, right?

Has anyone experienced this problem, or better yet, gotten around it without sending the unit in for repair?

What I've done so far:

Tried it with multiple games. They all throw the error. They're also mostly in pristine condition, but I have cleaned them nonetheless, to no avail.

Turned the console on and off, unplugged it, left in unplugged for extended periods of time.

Made sure it's not overheated - it is currently on end on a hardwood floor, but I've also tried it on horizontally on a small table by itself.

Tried booting without the hard-disk attached

By: GriffX

GriffX — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:58:10 -0800

Er - I should clarify - I think that it's a firmware problem, not a software problem. I'm certain it's not the games.

By: Kellydamnit

Kellydamnit — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:59:32 -0800

Didn't they extend all warranties to three years?

By: GriffX

GriffX — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:06:13 -0800

Not for all of them - I think my unit falls into an unfortunate valley because of when I bought it (i.e. not one of the first generation fault-prone ones). Anyhow, Microsoft says I'm out of warranty, and I don't see them budging on that, myself.

By: mphuie

mphuie — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:17:06 -0800

Have you tried cleaning the laser in the 360 drive?

By: GriffX

GriffX — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:20:11 -0800

Using one of those CDs with the little brush on them from Radio Shack? That always looked like trouble to me - have you used that on yours, or do you have another method?

By: swhitt

swhitt — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:26:33 -0800

From the warranty:

The term "Warranty Period" means: (i) as applied to the Console, a period of one year (three years for conditions that cause three lights on the ring of light on the front of the Console to flash red)

Any way you can make Three Red Lights appear? :-)

By: mdbell79

mdbell79 — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:35:09 -0800

Actually, if you tell them you have the red rings of death (I'd use the online form rather than the phone), they'll just send you a box. If it's anything like my experience, they'll be too backlogged to take the time to check what's actually wrong with your box and just send you a new one. (I had a DVD drive error too, but a different one than you).

By: rhizome

rhizome — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:39:22 -0800

Do not under any circumstances use CD cleaners with the little brushes on them. Ever, on any device. They should be taken off the market like lead as a candy ingredient. Get a can of spray-air/data-duster.

By: subtle_squid

subtle_squid — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:57:39 -0800

this sounds like the sort of message you'd get if you put the disk in a dvd player. If you boot in to the OS with a disk in the drive does the bar at the bottom display the name of a game or say "play DVD"?

By: i_am_a_Jedi

i_am_a_Jedi — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:06:39 -0800

Seems to be a problem that I've heard more about recently. I'd try to induce RRoD and send it in.

By: influx

influx — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:46:51 -0800

I'm currently on my third 360, and the first two started out displaying this error message, then progressed to randomly crashing and freezing, then finally died with the unholy trinity of red lights. My current unit just recently started displaying this message again occasionally, so I'm sure I'll be sending this one back within weeks.

By: heresiarch

heresiarch — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 07:26:07 -0800

I know this is probably not the case for you, but I've had this problem with a single disk before. It can be disk specific, even though this particular instance of the problem seems general. Have you tried swapping disks with a friend to see if their disks play in your 360 and yours in theirs? This will probably show that the issue is with your box, but might also provide New Data on the issue.