Hello,

My Xbox has stopped reading discs, which I believe is a common enough problem. Can anyone recommend a repair service please? I’ve found a fee on the web but if anyone has used one successfully then can you let me know?

Rhid

It’ll be a bit of dirt or fluff on the lens. I cleaned mine about 6 months ago (was out of warranty anyway) and it’s been fine.

There’s several youtube guides, and it’s easy to do. I was skeptical about taking advice from a 12 year old kid – but he was spot on. 😀

Nice one. I did look at a few of those guides. Do you need a load of special tools? Can I get away with my bike tool kit?

My youngster simply went his his sister’s bedroom and swapped his for hers – worked for him, until I found out 😀

Do you need a load of special tools?

Nope. From memory, a torx key, a very small screwdriver and a cotton bud. I didn’t bother with the cleaning agent.

You can change the laser they cost about £7 make sure you but the right one for the drive you have. All you need is a screwdriver. They are not worth paying to have repaired

I’d check whether it’s still under wattanty first. MS introduced an extended warranty, but that may have only been for the red ring of death issue on earlier xboxs

We used consoledoctor.co.uk when our PS3 laser went. They are based round the corner from us in Newcastle so the other half dropped the console off and picked it up a couple of days later. Professional service and seemed like a good outfit. Would recommend if you don’t fancy doing it yourself and don’t want to fork out for a new/refurbished one.

can you try one of the CD DVD lens cleaner discs. i used on in the car the other day. worked a treat!

Took it to bits cleaned the lens and rebuilt it. Still not working though so I’ll give console doctor a go. Thanks for the help

Mine went about 6 months or so ago. I tried all the so called fixes that youtube had to offer and nothing really worked. In the end I bought a new disc drive off of ebay (£22 from memory and make sure you buy the same brand as your current one). You cannot simply change the old 1 for the new one though. The easiest way to get it working is to remove the existing circuit board from the disc drive and swap it with the circuit board that comes with you new one. All you need is a soldering iron.
If your interested i could post a couple of pictures to help. It is really simple.

Old or new Xbox?

Edit: if you’ve had it open the warranty is now duff anyway which poo poos what my suggestion would have been.

If it is an old white xbox I am willing to sell you my drive. It never caused me a problem (I got red ring of death and therefore have a new black one now).

It’s an older white one that I have. Yes once you open it there is a warranty tag you have 2 remove. I was assuming that yours was out of warranty and that’s why you weren’t sending it back to Microsoft?

Edit. Nevermind, already been said…

Its the old white one yes, hence not sending back to MS.

I am not technically minded so, aside from opening it up and cleaning the lens, I am not capable of fixing it!

I’ll send it off to someone who knows stuff to fix.

Thanks for the replies.

If you send it off it might cost more than you can buy another one for. If you have already cleaned the lens then that is just as hard a swapping it out for a new one http://www.amazon.co.uk/replacement-HOP-141x-DG-16D2S-VAD6038-ConsoleParts4U/dp/B004ZWL288/ref=pd_sim_sbs_vg_h__3

Rather than stripping down the optical drive I’d buy this,

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/XBOX-360-PREMIUM-CONSOLE-AV-FAULTY-REPAIRS-3-RED-RING-CONSOLE-ONLY-RROD-/290844306194

…and just transplant the drives. Simples.

Skids
Does replacing the lens etc require soldering? May give it a try!