Has anyone replaced an X-Box DVD Drive?

[Oilers9911]

So my XBox has started giving me a fair number of DIsc may be dirty or damaged errors and from reading up about it online it seems it may be an out of alignment lens. There are instructions on how to re-align it but I would really rather not screw it up completely. I have also found that you can purchase a new drive on EBay and have ready many reviews of people who have done so and it has fixed their problems. The drives seem to run about $40. Has anyone here done this and what were your results? I would rather not send it to MS and pay big bucks to fix it.

[cartman]

I have taken mine out to clean it. If you are comfortable opening up PCs to replace components, then you should have no problem replacing the DVD in your X-Box. There are quite a few places on the web that detail the steps needed to open up the chassis.

[Oilers9911]

Originally Posted by cartman

I have taken mine out to clean it. If you are comfortable opening up PCs to replace components, then you should have no problem replacing the DVD in your X-Box. There are quite a few places on the web that detail the steps needed to open up the chassis.

Cartman. Would you recommend trying to clean it first? Did you have issues with disc errors before you cleaned it and what were the results? What did you use to clean it? Some sort of lens cleaner?

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Oilers9911

Cartman. Would you recommend trying to clean it first? Did you have issues with disc errors before you cleaned it and what were the results? What did you use to clean it? Some sort of lens cleaner?

Yeah, I was starting to get dirty disc errors with a couple of new games. I took the DVD drive apart and used canned air to blow out the accumulated dust and lint from the inside of the drive. It worked for a couple of months, but the errors came back, so I ended up replacing the drive. That was about a year ago, and no problems since.

The thing to watch for is that I believe you have to get a replacement drive from the same manufacturer. Microsoft used 3 or 4 different drives. You can tell who made your drive by the style of the disc tray. There is a site that helps you identify them, let me see if I still have it stored anywhere.

[cartman]

Found it. Here is the drive ID page:

hxxp://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/xbox_dvd_version_comparison.htm

More general repair info is a couple of pages up:

hxxp://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/repairs.htm

[Oilers9911]

Thanks alot Cartman. I wasn't aware you had to use the same brand. This is a big help.

[MacroGuru]

I have replaced mine several times, every time my little ones had broken them...easy, simple to do.

[Oilers9911]

Originally Posted by MacroGuru

I have replaced mine several times, every time my little ones had broken them...easy, simple to do.

Did you replace it with the same brand each time?

[MacroGuru]

Originally Posted by Oilers9911

Did you replace it with the same brand each time?

Nope, I just got the cheapest X-box DVD replacement I could from E-bay

[Oilers9911]

Thanks for the advice. There are a couple on the for about $40 cdn. That sounds not too bad.