ok so here goes...I just bought a used 360 off of craigslist..and guy told me the dvd drive is messed up...saying "play dvd" when a game was inserted...so I haven't been messing with xbox for some time (being a ps3 guy) so I went ahead and bought it off of him cheap...anyways I updated to latest dashboard with no problems or errors ...I went ahead and opened it up and saw that my 2008-05-09 console had a 2006 ms25 drive in it...

so my long winded question is...would it be safe to say that the drive keys are matching since I updated and didn't get any errors and I can just get a new ms25 drive and switch out boards and be up and running?

Thanks,
-ph33rzie-

Try a game. If you can play a standard 360 game, then most likely the original dvd logic board has been kept and moved into different drives

And you may not have to replace with another full drive.

Your spindle motor is probably dying. You can replace that for less cost.

I tried a 360 game just goes to white xbox logo screen...tried an actual dvd and played just fine....i have a buddy who has an extra ms25 drive so I guess I'm going to try that route and pray for the best lol I was just hoping that the keys matched but since I was able to update dashboard..think I'm good there

I'm gonna have to say the keys are not matched. I don't actually think it checks for matching keys when the dash is updated. I think it just looks for stock firmware. You'll probably have to get it RGHd (2.0) if you want to recover the key and play games.

Otherwise you have a glorified DVD player lol. And maybe a netflix/hulu machine if you dont get flagged for a ban by having a mismatched drive. I would call up the guy who sold it to you and just ask if he has the original pcb. Worth a shot considering the pain it would be to recover the key.

ahhhh well figures my luck...guess I will have to find someone local who can RGHd (2.0) for me then lol oh well though I guess that's what I get for trying to be cheap ...

Yeah =/

It could be the spindle motor, but with everything else you described, it sounds like its just mismatched keys. And usually if its the spindle motor, it wouldn't even spin it fast enough to read it as a regular DVD. Plus in my experience, spindle motors don't die often, but I guess that is an older drive. If you want to be able to play on Live safely (assuming you arent already banned), you'll want to put the model DVD drive in that the system was shipped with.

I know a guy over at se7ensins that does dvd key recovery for 25 bucks + shipping. I'd say that's the best deal you're gonna get for the service.

could you get in touch with him for me....I just ordered a new lite-on drive according to database that's what mine shipped with...

as far as live goes..I was able to download a couple of demo's from marketplace to giv me something to mess with...so guess I'm not banned as of yet

Yeah I actually just sent him one of my consoles to get the key recovered. I'd prefer to wait for him to send it back before I actually put you in touch with him, just to make sure he's legit and everything.

I found a guy on team xecuter that's close for 25 and will have it flashed...thakns for the info and hope yours turns out good...thanks again