This drive has been flashed and played on nearly three weeks. It's a hitatchi 47 with xtreme. This specific drive has never been opened and it's POT hasn't been touched. This morning I went to go play a game (an original) and it gave me the option to open the tray once the xbox was on. Well, I checked the disc position and ect. and put it back in. I could hear the drive spinning up to full speed and suddenly stop. No noise followed and the tray showed "reading."

I don't think it's a problem with the motors since I could eject and the disc position changed after each attempted read. It could be the lazer but I don't know.

Here's some things I could possibly do to troubleshoot it;

• Restore the drive and check for functionality (Then reflash)
• Swap out the spindle to make sure its "clamping" the disc properly
• Swap out the drive's circuit board. This would be my last resort and I would definitely need some assistance or practice.

Please let me know what I should try and/or what my problem might be. Thanks for reading through my situation and thanks in advance for your replies.

When the drive displays 'Reading' is it only for a couple of seconds when the drive shuts?
Does it make any attempt to read the disks / make a noise?

Make sure your sata cable is properly plugged in.. Pull it out and plug it back in.. That is the only thing i can come up with

It makes an attempt to read the disc. So yes, it does make noise. It's abnormal though since I'm used to doing the eject button trick after the "two clicks." Sometimes I can hear the lazer going back in forth like it's scanning it. That's like 1/10 tries. 9/10 the disc will spin and increase speed but then suddenly cut off. Following that the "reading" is displayed for a couple more seconds.

I had a similar problem and my Hitachi died suddenly. A few other people also saw this happen. Which version firmware did you use? There is some speculation that earlier versions (before 1.3) might be causing drives to fail because it was set to spin at the wrong speed. Supposedly, version 1.3 fixes that issue.

In my case, I bought a replacement drive.

(There is another thread about this issue with more details)

Thanks, and sorry again for the double post. I just checked and I flashed it with verson 1.2 of garyOPA

Before going through such extreme measures as replacing dvd drive circuit boards, try cold booting your games and the HD switch trick.

I tried the HDD cold boot and clearing my cache. Any other suggestions before I open this puppy up?

topics merged.

Thanks.

So to clarify things. If I restore my drive... then reflash it with an earlier version of garyOPA I have a chance to fix it?

well , if its a hardware failure .... reflashing it wont fix anything

Give it a try - but it does sound like a hardware failure...

I tried to reflash mine, and it did no good. In fact, your symptoms sound exactly like mine:

* Worked for about 2 weeks
* Wont read originals or backups
* Makes clicking sounds and brief spin up sounds, but never to full speed

If you are up to it, you might get away with replacing parts in the drive, but in my opinion,
it is easier and more efficient to replace the entire drive. Be sure to use 1.3 next time,
it works better anyway (no need for the eject trick).