So a friend of mine is willing to sell me an Xbox 360 he dropped a plasma TV on for cheap. He says that the system boots fine into the dashboard and such, but the corner of the TV hit the top of the case (apparently above the DVD drive) and dented it and now the system refuses to read any games he puts into it. What's it going to take to repair this thing? Am I going ot have to buy an entirely new DVD drive for it (I read something about needing to dump this one's firmware and get some key to flash onto the replacement, couldn't find specifics, though) or is there a chance that this think can be fixed without a whole new drive?

Either way, I'd appreciate it if some of you guys could steer me in the right direction. As far as the whole new drive thing goes, I already mentioned everything I know about that process and I couldn't find any real details for a start-to-finish of swapping the drive out. As far as repairing the drive that's in there, I've seen stuff about pot tweaks, cleaning the laser, "rubber band trick," etc. Unfortunately, I'm really new to this stuff and couldn't find what I was looking for in the stickied tutorial threads or anything.

So yeah, any help you guys could throw my way would be awesome. I should be able to give you a full and more precise description of what's wrong with it by tomorrow.

If all it it's doing is not reading games it could be something simple, like the lid being dented and not letting the disc spin, up to the laser being bad and needing replaced, but I doubt the entire drive is shot and needs replaced. If it is yes you'll have to extract the FW and get the key from it for the new drive to play 360 and XBOX games, and depending on the actual drive that's in it the method will differ somewhat, or be impossible if it's say a Hitachi v79 or a BenQ drive.

how much is he going to sell it to you? if you can't fix the drive you could always scrap everything else

When a disc is inserted into the 360, it immediately ejects it. Even if I close the drive and turn the system off, the drive still ejects after the system is shut off (notice the ring of light in the video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpJfFva3pR8

Judging by the tray, I think it's a Samsung TS-H943A:


Here's a shot of the physical damage to the case, you can see where the TV landed and the indent to the left of the mark:



So I assume I need to open this thing up?

It could be a damaged sensor in the drive.

What sensor would cause it to automatically eject the disc like that, but keep the tray closed when there's no disc?

It isnt a sensor. The drive cover is dented inwards and is stopping the tray because the clamper is hitting the edge of the disc. Open up the drive and you will see what I mean. You can either bend the cover back or replace it.

I didn't see this post until after I took the system apart and fixed the problem, but you were exactly right. I've taken DVD drives apart before so I have a mild understanding of how they work. Anyways, apparently the TV landed directly on the center of the DVD drive where the magnet clamper is. The clamper was fine, but there's a metal disc above it separate from the drive which stops the clamper from ever flying out. It was dented and forcing the clamper down. I got it out and tried the drive without the top and just manually putting on the clamper immediately after inserting the disc. It worked fine.

So I took the dented disc outside and beat the crap out of it with a hammer to get it completely flat again. Then I slightly adjusted the metal DVD drive shell (it might've been a bit dented in, not sure) and put the clamper and the cover back on. The system works perfectly. I had just honestly never expected it to be so simple, I had it set in my mind that something complicated in the drive was broken.

Anyways, the next step is going to be to flash this thing. Unfortunately it's a Samsung TS-H943A H/W: 007 and the dreaded FW: ms28. So I have to brush up on how to handle an ms28 Sammy and try my first flash. Can't be too bad, right?

Anyways, thanks everyone Turns out this was the best $50 I've spent in a long time.

Thats a hell of a deal for $50! Congrats!

Told ya first.

The ms28 isn't hard to flash at all, just get yourself a Via chipset SATA PCI card ($20 or so) and you'll still end up with a 360 for well under $100. Remember to backup your orig.bin file in like 3 different places as well as write down the key on paper and save it in a .txt file somewhere too. It sounds like overkill, but crap can happen and as long as ya have the key somewhere safe you'll have yer arse covered if something were to go wrong during the flash process or if the drive fails later on.

Yeah you were right too, just didn't have that clamper detail I love how the only thing needed to fix a $400 piece of electronics was a good old low-tech hammer to smash the clamper cover flat again.

I gotta see if I can find one of those chipsets at a Best Buy or something so I don't have to wait for one to show up in the mail. I don't like leaving the unit open, and I had a heck of a time getting the stupid tabs in the back to pop (tried both jewel case key and screwdriver) and I'm sooo not doing it another time if I don't have to. Backing everything up shouldn't be an issue, I'm pretty OCD about that kind of stuff and have a CD, floppy, and HDD copy of all my important info on my original Xbox - the 360 would be no different. The only thing that worries me is:
1. Swapping cables and powering on an off the Xbox.
2. Getting the timings right in doing this while setting the flash up.
3. Grounding the metal shell of the Xbox to my PC's chassis.

No point in getting a card that may or may not work, best to wait a few days for one to show up ya know will work and not brick yer drive. If ya can find one with a Via chipset though you'll be fine.

1. Pretty sure ya can handle this part.
2. You'll already have the flash and everything setup, there's not really any "timing" thing to deal with, the "10 second trick" can be done in 3 seconds or 7 seconds.
3. Can be done with a wire and a couple of aligator clips and isn't technically necessary since the ground will be connected thru the SATA cable.

I use the Xecuter X360USB kit (only the power board) to do Samsungs and haven't had any issues thus far, save one drive that was shot and gave me fits making me think it was my setup causing it.

Looks like my brother's crappy Compaq has a VIA VT8237 SATA chipset, so I might go try flashing the drive later. The only problem is that the whole room has a carpeted floor. However, the PC sits on a wooden desk which is on a plastic mat for a rolling desk chair to move across. Would it be safe to do the flash, or am I way too static prone?

Unless you're getting jolted every time you touch something metal sitting there then you'll be fine.

I've decided to forget about flashing the drive. Turns out Compaq locks out the SATA capabilities of that specific motherboard with their BIOS and there weren't any fixes available when I looked. Seems odd they'd waste a perfectly good SATA chip, maybe the higher-end models had the same motherboard but a different BIOS that utilized the SATA capabilities so they'd only need to pay Asus for one model of motherboard. On top of that, the whole Live banning thing is not very appealing. The thing is, I really wanted wanted to make legitimate backups of my games so I didn't have to swap the discs out every time my little brother wanted to play a game (you should see what he's done to the GameCube games). Oh well.

Anyways, after reassembling the system, it passed an 8 hour long text of Gears of War with no lockups or strange noise or anything. Good news. However, I'd been running it in the horizontal position. I later tried to run a game on it vertically, but there's a god-awful rattling noise whenever the disc starts spinning. It booted Guitar Hero like this, but I decided to eject before it damaged a disc or something. What do you think is causing this? I'm pretty sure I screwed everything back together properly when I reassembled the system. There was no damage to the game and it did boot, so I have a feeling it's just the drive rattling around.

The only thing I did to the drive was put some electrical tape on top to stop the manufacturer label from peeling off. I'm thinking maybe I didn't completely screw the drive's metal shell back on or maybe the screws holding the metal 360 case to the plastic case need tightening. If neither of those does it, do you think it'd be a problem if I stuck a piece of foam in there on top of the DVD drive to keep it steady once the top shell is on?

You guys have been great so far

You're better off running it in the horizontal posistion anyway. Since the DVD drives cover was bent, it's either still off by a shade or something is loose. Stuffing someting in there may or may not fix it, ya don't want to add any more pressure to a spot that really needs less of it. Make sure everything is good and snug, doesn't need to be tightened down insanely at all, and see if it quits.