Old Xbox 360 problem: I would appreciate advice

[Willinium]

Hello everyone. I decided to come here to the forums to see if anyone here can help me in this affair. To put it simply about a year ago my old 360 (original model) seemed to just stop working. Killing time today I decided to attempt some work on it to see if I can get it back to working condition. Here is the crux of the problem.

When turning the system on it is slow and takes over a minute to get to the main screen. When heading over to the console memory settings the 120GB HDD hardrive that came with the device shows up as un-formatted. Following instructions from the support forums I formatted the drive myself, and yet it continue to show as un-formated. When starting the system without the drive connected to the console the system starts up instantly and the Disc drive now opens without fault( if not able to read the discs put into it) and the system is much much faster. I am hoping that someone among you will have some good advice/instructions to help me in this endever. Thank you.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Ew, I hope the SATA control circuitry didn't give out before the usual RRoD problem. Have you checked the HDD connectors for bent damage, oxidation, or foreign debris? Are you able to try the HDD in a different console? Have you or are you willing/able to open up the case? Maybe an internal connector is loose or a the chips are covered in dust causing errors.

You could try another DVD drive to see if that's the problem, as a last resort, if you have a way to get another DVD for free/cheep. I hear the drive's serial number is linked to the system. So if you try a different 360's DVD drive, either the console will be perma banned from Live or it won't work at all. Still worth a shot if you don't spend any money.

My old Xenon 360 had a cool looking graphical glitch, just past that extra warranty, were everything looked like static, but you could see obvious shapes, like every texture file was replaced with an image of static. I'd bet the RRoD was about strike, so opened it up and blew out the dust, cut an extra vent hole in the top and stuck extra fans inside. I might even still work after I gave it away and got a brand new unopened Jasper 360 for $100 less than retail.

 

[C_sector]

I dont know how helpful my reply will actually be to you but my advise is to take your xbox 360 to one of those console repair shops to get it serviced (assuming the warranty has expired). I actually know two shops like that near my house that are about an hours drive.

I've had issues with my xbox (the original black one), basically mine just stopped reading my game discs and interestingly enough, my extended warranty expired a few onths before my problem. I took it in to one of those shops, they had a look at it for a few hours and when that was done, they informed me that the laser had burned out and they replaced it for me. We tested it in the shop and took it home and it has been working ever since.

 

[Rozalia1]

You got a spare hard-drive you can throw in there (with the file systems on them of course)?

I had to fix my PS3 once (disc reader died) years back, but this sounds easier to fix.

 

[votemarvel]

Seems pretty clear that it's the hard drive is faulty and somehow become corrupted.

Personally I wouldn't bother trying to get it working again, if you did somehow get it working then its life span would be greatly reduced and would likely die again soon.

I would buy either buy a replacement hard drive or make use of USB sticks http://support.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-360/accessories/usb-flash-drive.

That's let you use the console at least as a digital gaming machine.

You'd have to get a bit of kit to read the key from the DVD drive to inject it into a replacement, the price of the tools can mount up quickly.

To be honest either taking it to a repair shop to see what they can do, or buying a new 360, would be a cheaper option.

 

[Willinium]

So an update, and a thank you to those that have replies such far. Since my last post I am now running my system off of a 4gb thumb-drive with a plan to switch over to a 3 terabyte Seagate external hard-drive. So while the former hdd is dead as a rock. I have no idea on what to do about the cd drive being unable to read disks, but with luck I should be able to re-download some items from the marketplace. By either Black Friday or Cyber Monday I should be picking up the newest 360 model but for now I shall make do. I thank you all for your assistance thus far. ^_^

 

[Willinium]

Ew, I hope the SATA control circuitry didn't give out before the usual RRoD problem. Have you checked the HDD connectors for bent damage, oxidation, or foreign debris? Are you able to try the HDD in a different console? Have you or are you willing/able to open up the case? Maybe an internal connector is loose or a the chips are covered in dust causing errors. .

Forgive my ignorance but SATA control circuitry? I do not know what that is. It might be worth noting that this 'old man' of an machine has never had the RROD problem that so many have.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Ew, I hope the SATA control circuitry didn't give out before the usual RRoD problem. Have you checked the HDD connectors for bent damage, oxidation, or foreign debris? Are you able to try the HDD in a different console? Have you or are you willing/able to open up the case? Maybe an internal connector is loose or a the chips are covered in dust causing errors. .

Forgive my ignorance but SATA control circuitry? I do not know what that is. It might be worth noting that this 'old man' of an machine has never had the RROD problem that so many have.

It would just be a bunch of stuff (small ICs, capacitors) on the motherboard around both drives that controls them. The RROD problem shouldn't affect anything like that, though. You might have just gotten one of the miracle machines, who's most likely part to die lived longer than another more robust part.

I've heard of minor glitches because of dust messing with capacitor circuits (and dust is definitely bad for cooling fins). Did you say in your first post that the dvd drive was acting up, too, even after the HDD was removed? I just mentioned the SATA thing because of a slight chance it might been one of your problems. I bet you've already got the latest update from Live, but that might help if you didn't.

Try out all the others' advice before listening to the ramblings of this nutjob, who will try to fix everything out of warranty himself. (Hey, it works with cars, PS3s, major appliances, etc.)

 

[Willinium]

Ew, I hope the SATA control circuitry didn't give out before the usual RRoD problem. Have you checked the HDD connectors for bent damage, oxidation, or foreign debris? Are you able to try the HDD in a different console? Have you or are you willing/able to open up the case? Maybe an internal connector is loose or a the chips are covered in dust causing errors. .

Forgive my ignorance but SATA control circuitry? I do not know what that is. It might be worth noting that this 'old man' of an machine has never had the RROD problem that so many have.

It would just be a bunch of stuff (small ICs, capacitors) on the motherboard around both drives that controls them. The RROD problem shouldn't affect anything like that, though. You might have just gotten one of the miracle machines, who's most likely part to die lived longer than another more robust part.

I've heard of minor glitches because of dust messing with capacitor circuits (and dust is definitely bad for cooling fins). Did you say in your first post that the dvd drive was acting up, too, even after the HDD was removed? I just mentioned the SATA thing because of a slight chance it might been one of your problems. I bet you've already got the latest update from Live, but that might help if you didn't.

Try out all the others' advice before listening to the ramblings of this nutjob, who will try to fix everything out of warranty himself. (Hey, it works with cars, PS3s, major appliances, etc.)

I actually was able to download the latest update onto the usb/ part-time hardrive so now everything is working.. . except for the cd drive not being able to recognize anything put into it. I do thank you for the advice there.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

So an update, and a thank you to those that have replies such far. Since my last post I am now running my system off of a 4gb thumb-drive with a plan to switch over to a 3 terabyte Seagate external hard-drive. So while the former hdd is dead as a rock. I have no idea on what to do about the cd drive being unable to read disks, but with luck I should be able to re-download some items from the marketplace. By either Black Friday or Cyber Monday I should be picking up the newest 360 model but for now I shall make do. I thank you all for your assistance thus far. ^_^

Not sure if that would work. Last I checked using external data storage has limits on the Xbox 360. If you're not using an official Xbox 360 HDD you can still use external storage devices, but only up to 16 gigs. Your 4 gig thumb drive works fine, but if you plug a 3 terabyte external HDD into your USB port you'll still only get to use 16 gigs of it.

Now I'm not sure if it's still like that, but a few years ago when my xbox was running out of space that's the way things worked. I just bought a bunch of cheap 16 gig thumbdrives and used those until that xbox died on me.

 

[votemarvel]

Not sure if that would work. Last I checked using external data storage has limits on the Xbox 360. If you're not using an official Xbox 360 HDD you can still use external storage devices, but only up to 16 gigs. Your 4 gig thumb drive works fine, but if you plug a 3 terabyte external HDD into your USB port you'll still only get to use 16 gigs of it.

Now I'm not sure if it's still like that, but a few years ago when my xbox was running out of space that's the way things worked. I just bought a bunch of cheap 16 gig thumbdrives and used those until that xbox died on me.

They upped the space you can use to 32gb.

His external would work but of course he would still have a 32gb limit on it for 360 storage.

 

[Willinium]

So an update, and a thank you to those that have replies such far. Since my last post I am now running my system off of a 4gb thumb-drive with a plan to switch over to a 3 terabyte Seagate external hard-drive. So while the former hdd is dead as a rock. I have no idea on what to do about the cd drive being unable to read disks, but with luck I should be able to re-download some items from the marketplace. By either Black Friday or Cyber Monday I should be picking up the newest 360 model but for now I shall make do. I thank you all for your assistance thus far. ^_^

Not sure if that would work. Last I checked using external data storage has limits on the Xbox 360. If you're not using an official Xbox 360 HDD you can still use external storage devices, but only up to 16 gigs. Your 4 gig thumb drive works fine, but if you plug a 3 terabyte external HDD into your USB port you'll still only get to use 16 gigs of it.

Now I'm not sure if it's still like that, but a few years ago when my xbox was running out of space that's the way things worked. I just bought a bunch of cheap 16 gig thumbdrives and used those until that xbox died on me.

Honestly the system won't even recognize the device. . . at all. Thankfully within the next few weeks I will be able to pick up a 500 Gb brand spanking new 360. So I thank you all for the advice given to me.

 

[votemarvel]

The 360 will only see drives formatted as FAT or HFS+. So if you have the drive formatted as NTFS, your console wont see it.

I didn't know the 360 had a 500gb version. I thought the largest size you could get was 320gb.

 

[Willinium]

The 360 will only see drives formatted as FAT or HFS+. So if you have the drive formatted as NTFS, your console wont see it.

I didn't know the 360 had a 500gb version. I thought the largest size you could get was 320gb.

I was surprised myself and yet there it was. For further comfermation I saw a physical copy of the bundle at the PX.(http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Xbox-360-500GB-Holiday-Value-Bundle/productID.308100200)

Will be heading to go pick it up for myself in. . . .today's Thor's day so. . . Sunday?Maybe.