Hardware I really need help figuring out what's wrong: Can a bad game destroy a disc reader?

[TripleSMoon]

So some of you may know that recently my Xbox 360 Pro died, so I replaced it with a used 360 Slim. But less than a week after buying the Slim, I've started having the exact same problems my Pro did. Allow me to explain. I know it's a long read, but please bear with me, as I'm giving as much info as possible so someone can hopefully tell me what's wrong and what I should do.

My girlfriend and I were playing Gears of War 2 (the limited edition that comes in the steel case, if that matters) via splitscreen co-op. Over the course of a couple weeks, we played up until Act 2, chapter 6 (the one where you go inside the worm) without issue. Then, one day, we continued where we left off. We spent thirty minutes finishing off Act 2, chapter 6 without issue. Then, only minutes into Act 3, chapter 1, the game froze.

At this point I turned the 360 off, waited a few minutes, then turned it back on to try again. This time, it froze up as soon as player 2 signed into her profile from the Gears 2 menu. I tried about 5 times, and this happened again every time. I looked up the symptoms I was having, and learned this was usually a sign of an impending RRoD. It was an old console, so I figured it was time to replace it. So I picked up a 250 GB slim from a local pawnshop last week.

I transferred all my data over, and at first, it worked fine with no issue. I test drove it with Bayonetta for about 20 minutes, and used it for YouTube a few times. Earlier today, I played Sonic Unleashed for a couple hours and everything was working great. Then just an hour ago, my girlfriend and I sat down to play Gears of War 2, since we once again had a way to do so.

I couldn't believe it. Just like the Pro, as soon as player 2 signed in, the game froze. I tried this twice more with the exact same result.

I was getting extremely frustrated by this point. I heard her profile might be corrupted, so I did some tests. Sure enough, starting the game with her profile signed in as player 1 froze the game as soon as the Epic logo showed, and signing in with only me as player 1 (and no player 2) caused no freezes. I even played the game for a couple minutes just to make sure everything was working.

I deleted her profile and redownloaded it from Microsoft, in hopes that would fix it. But guess what? Now the Xbox just doesn't read the disc for some reason! I tried 6 times, and each time it takes anywhere between 30 seconds and 3 minutes to read before saying either "unrecognized disc," or else simply saying "open tray" as if there's no disc in it. I tried two other games, Sonic Unleashed (which I played earlier without issue), and Bayonetta (which I also played earlier without issue), and got the same results.

Finally, the Slim now takes a rather long time to boot... Anywhere between 1 and 3 minutes (it's longer if there's a disc in the tray). I made sure to wipe the cache, too. Also, my girlfriend's profile works great for digital games, and doesn't seem corrupt.

So, what do I do? What's wrong? I'm getting so many conflicting problems so I can't figure out what's actually wrong! When the discs were being read, the game would only freeze when a particular profile was signed in, and all of a sudden, no discs are read no matter what, and on two different Xboxes! What do I do from here? The pawnshop I got this Slim from has a finnicky "no returns" policy. I'll try, but it's been almost a week, and I have no idea whether they'll listen to me...

 

[Sicklyboy]

Does it read music CDs? It sounds like your laser may have coincidentally died on the new console, having been a used unit. Music CDs may still read (I'd give a new laser a shot anyway)

 

[DinohScene]

Laser is prolly dirty.
Good job on redownloading the profile btw!

Anyway, I'd say your laser is dirty.
You could get a can of compressed air and blow it in the open tray.
Or disassemble it and clean it properly.

Or you could just give up on the DVD drive and opt for a ODDE ;p

 

[TripleSMoon]

Does it read music CDs? It sounds like your laser may have coincidentally died on the new console, having been a used unit. Music CDs may still read (I'd give a new laser a shot anyway)

I just tested a music CD, and it won't read that either.

Laser is prolly dirty.
Good job on redownloading the profile btw!

Anyway, I'd say your laser is dirty.
You could get a can of compressed air and blow it in the open tray.
Or disassemble it and clean it properly.

I'm going to try to return it tomorrow. If that doesn't work, then I'll try the compressed air and open cleaning.

Anyway, thanks for the responses guys. I just find it weird that it coincidentally seems to have both had a corrupt profile error, and disc drive failure at teh same time...

 

[DinohScene]

An N64 has fewer moving components then a 360's DVD drive ;p
So there's bound to go something wrong at some point.

If everything fails then you could also opt for buying a replacement DVD drive and swapping the DVD PCB over to the new drive.
Or if you fancy a bit of fiddling, replace the laser assembly.

No prob tho ;]
Hope it works out!