I'm new to this forum and I'm not sure if this is the place to post this particular subject. Soooo... I am looking at buying a new Xbox for a christmas present for my son. I went to Toys R Us and talked to the guy about the system and various options. He warned me about the issue with the 3 different hard drives and how people have been getting burned after a few months of owning their systems. Is this still a valid issue? Do I need to ask to see a unit before purchasing and see what drive is installed? Has Micro$oft fixed this problem? Thanks in advance!
you mean the dvd drive. Yes its an issue with SOME thompson drives, the guy from toys r us probably didnt know much. the GOOD thing is, the thompson drive is also the cheapest to get a hold of, the bad news is, its made the cheapest. you can pickup brand new thompson drives on ebay for $30 shipped. OR you can get an xbox, check the dvd drive (using the holes in the tray etc) and if you arent satisfied with a thompson drive, take it back til you get a sammy or philips, Walmart will let you, I know a guy that did it, kept getting another xbox, til he got a samsung drive. Having said that, not ALL thompson drives are like that, I think that their QA is lax personally, thats why "iffy" ones go through. If you are able to see the xbox opened first, then by all means do! check out the pics on LLAMMA.com for the dvd drive tray differences. Also, theres a very decent laser cleaner you can get now too for the dvd drive(s) I cant give you details on the forum, but if you want to know where to get it, pm me.
djboogie thanks for the reply. I wasn't even aware of any issues regarding the xbox drives until, like I said, the salesman filled me in. In fact, he recommended going to Future Shop (like Best Buy in US) and seeing what they would do for an extended warranty. I guess Toys R Us don't offer an extended warranty. I would just hate to drop a couple of hundred bucks and then end up with a piece of junk. It's concerning when a guy that sells the units is warning you about them! And for what it's worth, he did seem to know his stuff. Having said that, I've also been looking at the PS2 as an alternative. I'd prefer the Xbox because from what I've seen its better graphically and the games look better as well... BTW... I am interested in that link you mentioned... how can I PM you?
the thing is, if yo uthink about it, aside from the dvd drive, theres really not too much to go wrong , parts are EXTREMLY easy to replace for xbox. check your pm (goto your account, check private messages)
There are less thompson drives in the new xbox's compared to the early xbox's. I have a v1 xbox and it has never let me down and it has a thompson drive in it. Its not really a big issue only a few drives are defective. If it is being modded and you want to play cd-r/rw then you wont want the thompson. Try and get them to show it you first if it is possible and as djboogie said have a look at llamma.com to see which dvd drive is in the xbox.