Xbox 1.0 DVD drive > 1.6 DVD drive?

[gunrock]

My nephew came over from the Fatherland (yeah, he's German, on my wife's side) for the Easter weekend and as usual, we try to get some time to play some games together.

Anyway, he opts for Halo 2 as he's never had an Xbox and we used to play Halo both multiplayer and co-op and he wanted to play as far into Halo 2 co-op as we could in the time. Before we did that, I unwrapped my copy of Rogue Trooper just to see what the co-op modes on that were like (very average) and we played that for a bit.

So, I grab my Halo 2 Limited Edition tin, whip out the game disc, put it in my Crystal Xbox (the limited edition one with two S controllers) and got the 'disc is dirty' message. Took the disc out, looked at: nothing, it's perfect. I've only played it for about 4 hours in total! I clean the thing, and still get 'dirty disc'. I try booting up with the disc in the drive, the same. Then I try Rogue Trooper again and that works fine. I dig out another game, Strangers Wrath, that works fine. WTF is going on?

Finally, I dig out my old v1.0 black Xbox. This console has the original Thompson drive (wholly unreliable I'm led to believe) and has had many, many more play hours that my newer Xbox. Guess what? Works first, frickin' time!

Any ideas as to what this could be?

[bootmonster]

It's a DVD9 AFAIK, good chance the dual layer reading part of that particular drive is knackered. To double check, try Jade Empire or another DL game.

[gunrock]

Cheers for that. I have Jade Empire I'll give that a go..... Funny how that could be knackered. The newer Xbox has only a fraction of the hours of playtime I put in with my old black unit....

[smouty]

Out of all the xboxes I've had, the v1.6 has the worst drive in it. I think it is a hitachi/LG drive. It worked OK with the metal cover removed but the mechanism seem so flimsy and plasticky. Never had a problem with the other models (1.0 - 1.4). Pick up a 2nd hand xbox with a working DVD drive and use it to repair your crystal. I bought one recently for £11 on ebay.

[Shinebi]

Hmm, yes the 1.6 has two different models of DVD drive: that Hitachi/LG and the other one is a Samsung/... (some other Jap brand, can't recall which one though). Both work with CD-R(W) and most brands of DVD-R, so there not the worst IMO.

[captain binman]

I know it sounds odd but I had the same problem and was able to fix it by putting in gta3 and let all the intro videos play, after that everything worked

[gunrock]

Xbox 1.0 DVD drive > 1.4 DVD drive?

Actually, looking at t'internet and my Amazon order history. I got my Crystal Xbox in April 2004, so it's more likely to be a 1.4 xbox. Are the drives of the 1.4's known to be unreliable?

BTW, thanks for all the replies.

[bootmonster]

My 1.4 drive can be picky with dvd-r's, occasionally movies skip for a second if the drive has been allowed to spin down. (i.e paused in xbmc), and I have to reset the xbox.

My drive is a Samsung according to this rather informative website.

Also has a good guide on getting rid of Dirty Disc errors.

[gunrock]

Ok, tried another DVD9 disc, Jade Empire, and it works fine. Also (sad git that I am) tried the GTA III intro movie suggestion of Cap'n Binman.

Next I'll try clean the DVD laser with a CD cleaner and we'll see what happens.

[Spark]

All original xbox games were on dvd9, well the official copies of them were anyway.

[EvilBoris]

My crystal xbox had a similar problem, but not with Halo 2, it was with Enter the Matrix, it just wouldn't work even though the game disc was mint.
DVD9 that'd be why

[randombs]

boris, was your xbox modded and set to ntsc? uk etm would only work if your machine was set to pal

cos like spark said, all original xbox games were dvd9 (part of the 'numerous' security measures). mind you, i'd guess there would be slight discrepancies in the layer thicknesses and the like, causing less-stable drives to have issues?

my xbox v1.1's samsung is starting to conk out. i've got a laser for it sitting here ready in an emergency, but one of the things with the samsungs is the damn drive tray - after a while it gets stuck. mine gets stuck almost every time - ejecting is usually fine, but when you close it it gets stuck and needs a little tap...