yep that happens to me all the time. if you have had your hotswap for at least a month it builds up dust and effects the laser just blow into the disc tray if that doesnt work after a while due to the xbox being open its gets more sensitive because some dust can carry static and mess up the motherboard so unless the disc is brand new it could have trouble reading it the first few times

Your laser is probably broken dude.

The disk reader may be getting jammed it will work every now and then if it doesn't you can always do what i did and open up the case and give it a nudge and try again.

i know its not the best solution the only other options are send it to microsoft or replace the drive

push it closed..


problem solved.

Its to do with your laser

What my brother did was take his xbox apart, then move the laser switch back to where it was.. It happens when it moves back and forth causing it to not work.

My best advice is play the xbox while its apart and if the problem occurs again all you have to do is move it forward without no effort at all.

My friend's girlfriends Xbox does that.
She just smacks the top of it a couple times right after she puts in the disc. It works 90% of the time.

I had the same problem with mine, all i done is took my xbox apart and got a cotton bud and spat on it then cleaned the laser , it now works perfectly. look on youtube to see how to take it apart without breaking it.

when mine did this to get rid of the dust i put a letter in the tray when it was closed and moved it and loads of dust came out

Smack it on the side works most times for me

There are a two things you can do.

1: Turn off the machine (with no disc in)

2: Turn on the machine by opening the disc tray

3: Physically force the disc tray back in with force. Not so much that you snap the thing or knock it off its runners, but enough that the motors stop retracting the tray.

The tray should stop ajar for a few seconds before the machine composes itself and continues to retract the tray.

4: Reboot the xbox and the drive should function normally.

Unsure exactly why this works but my best tech head says that the controller for the drive gets into a bit of a tizzy and doesnt realise that the laser is incorrectly calibrated. Forcing the tray this way makes the drive perform some sort of self-check in which it re-calibrates itself and works.


If that doesn't work then take your Xbox apart and clean the laser.