Gaming Drive tray won't open/close

[Originality]

It's 1am and google searches just aren't helping me. Too many similar problems but with different symptoms/causes/fixes.

I got a RRoD 360 from a friend of a friend a few hours ago. Did the X-Clamp fix, and it worked fine. Didn't even need reheating, but I did it anyway. Fans pointed at CPU, 10 minutes later GPU overheats, turned off, removed the DVD drive, let the whole thing cool down, then put it back together. Still worked fine.

To test its stability, I decided to play the game provided, Ninja Gaiden 2. After a while, fans went crazy then it overheated. E-code tells me CPU at fault, although when I checked, I realised I hadn't put the fans back in properly (silly mistake, but easily fixed). When it overheated though, it immediately ejected the disk. I pulled the plug, let it cool down, pushed the tray back in, then turned it back on. Fans normal, working normal. Then I noticed the middle green light flashing at me and realized the disk tray was "opening". Tried using the controller to make it close, it switched to "closing". No difference. Tried manually pulling it all the way out and trying again, no movement. Pushing it in didn't help either. I did notice that I could make it switch between "opening" and "closing" just by pushing it past a certain point, but it doesn't help.

Next step, I tried plugging it into the connectivity kit for my comp to make it open/close. No help. Tinkering around shows that when it's half open, pressing eject will create a slight buzzing sound but no movement. Entirely open and nothing will happen. Entirely closed, buzzing sound again. I tried opening it up to see if anything looks obviously wrong. Belt intact, looks strong still. Bit of dust but nothing extreme. Tried pushing the white lever thing to "close" it completely, with the thing moving in to hold the disk (as if for reading) and got slightly different results. Pressing eject makes the laser move slightly. Pressing it again makes it blink red twice, but there's no disk movement.

Final step, I tried looking at it through JungleFlasher with it half open. It already had iX1.61 on it (it's a Samsung) so I just clicked intro and it showed me the usual, including "Parallel flash with Status 0x70". Clicked Read and it showed me iX1.61 as expected with the key. EDIT: As an extra step, I tried accessing it through windows. It detects it and shows no problems, but it won't respond after being told to eject. Didn't think it would help, but there was always a chance.

I don't know what I can do from here. General impression I get from google is that its a drive failure and I should "send it to M$ and have them replace it", although that doesn't sound feasible with a 2 year old 360 that's been X-Clamp fixed and flashed. I don't want to accept that it could fail simply by ejecting a disk upon overheating and having the tray pushed back in whilst it was off. To this end, any advice anyone could give?

EDIT: One extra detail that doesn't affect anything: It's got a dashboard version of 74xx, so it's JTAGgable. It's a shame that the drive is failing on it - I'd love to take a shot at running homebrew on it

 

[LittleJonny -Tea]

The eject issue is very common, it is caused by the radient heat from the GPU overheating parts of the overhead DVD-ROM. It is most common on Samsung DVD-ROM's although I have seen it in other drives as well.

Solution: Replace the drive, and make sure you spoof your key/drive info to the new drive.

 

[Originality]

That's what I was afraid of. I can find a replacement BenQ drive for as little as £18, but that's still more than I wanted to fork out for fixing it. I also wondered about swapping the PCB with another drive that has a faulty laser, but they're different makes so I don't think they're compatible.

Well, the Xbox is not mine, so the decision is up to the owner - how much he wants to spend on getting this Xbox fixed. Thanks for your help

 

[LittleJonny -Tea]

No worries.


For the record, sometimes it's the PCB thats at fault....so often replacing the whole drive is the best solution unless you have a workshop full of spares.

 

[Originality]

Well... I do, but most of them are in working condition - I'm just not able to sell them on. Too many people with large university debts to buy a refurbished 360 from me.

 

[LittleJonny -Tea]

The almighty dollar!

 

[tbgtbg]

The al ighty ollar! Ahehehe! I get it!

Aren't there some drives where it's the belt getting worn or something, and can be fixed instead of the whole drive replaced? I don't even remember where I read that, but I remember reading something about that recently.

 

[Rockman GFF]

Just stick that Drive Belt in some Warm / Hot Water for a few minutes and let it dry.

I've done this for a bunch of my Drives and they eject perfectly now. Even an Xbox1 Drive.

 

[Originality]

I've heard the belt thing many times now, although it won't work for me. I checked, and the belt is in perfect condition. There's just something that's preventing it telling the motor to move the tray open/closed. Could be PCB fault, but it can read the firmware perfectly so I don't think it is.