I softmodded my Xbox about 9 months ago, and I've recently had more and more trouble getting it to read discs, until now it just won't at all. When I put in a disc (purchased game, backup game, divx movies, whatever) it says "Init" for a few secs, then "Checking" for a while, then "No Disc" -- sometimes it spends longer than others reaching this conclusion, but always the same. The Evox dash works fine, ROMS still work, the one game on hd works fine. My Xbox power cable is kind of funky -- it almost always works, but sometimes it goes out or flickers power if you touch it or pull at it accidently. I don't know how this might affect the disc reader, but it happens. What are my options? Is a cheap cleaning disc the answer, or do I have to open it up? I avoided tampering with the guts by doing a softmod, so I'm reluctant to screw with it unless there's an easy way to go about cleaning/replacing something. Thanks for your help. EDIT: I should add that ironically, I've never once gotten a "Dirty Disc" error of any kind. My discs all seem great, it's like the drive itself stopped working effectively.
Odds are the lens is going bad on your DvD Drive. You can easily install a new one with the proper tork screw drivers. As for the drive, they are pretty cheap on eBay. There are other sites available too, PM me if eBay doesn't seem promising.
