For 360 [us or jp system] shmup players...

[kid aphex]

i went to play Futari today and found that at some point my 360 had carved the infamous circular scratch into the disc.

my system has only done this once before---to ridge racer 6---some two years ago.

does anyone know the exact cause of this? i've read as much as i could on the subject, and found conflicting opinions.
(my system is flat and always totally stationary)

how do you all deal with this? do you all install your games?
i mean, at this point i'm having a hard time holding back an extremely long, vitriolic post about the quality of microsoft's hardware.
it's one thing to have to deal with waiting on their warranty service---
it's another when their hardware damages your property.

i guess i just don't understand why this isn't a larger issue.

[emphatic]

Is it a Jasper unit? I have all my games installed on the HDD. I only own 4 games though, so I guess it's easier for me.

[yosai]

A GRAW disk in my first machine started to crack from the inside out only discovered this when the game started to freeze.

Could be down to the machine though. I knocked over my elite (wired controller go caught on something) with a R6V disk spinning inside and it didn't scratch up at all.

[Ganelon]

This should be in hardware or off topic. Anyway, Jaspers weren't around 2 years ago although this issue has been brought up since the days of the original Xbox. There are 3 main possibilities:

1. You have large enough dust or a particle on the disc that as the disc is starting to spin, the dust grinds into the disc until it falls off.
2. You have large enough dust or a particle on the tray that as the disc is spinning, it's getting scratched by the dust.
3. You may not have placed the disc perfectly flat into the system (maybe didn't go in one of the clips) and it scratched against the trap as it was re-aligning itself.

[lawnspic]

This happens when you move the unit when it is on and the disc is spinning from vertical position to horizontal or vice versa. Make sure not to move it while powered on.

[astro city ninja]

I used to work at a game crazy and I had customers come in with this problem at least twice a day...no exaggeration. they offer a disc buffing service that can most of the time repair deep scratches. its 2 bucks to try and you need to make sure you get an employee that knows how to properly use the machine...there's kind of an art form to it..I had it perfected.

anyway, its usually the laser that hits the disc it is only caused when the system is on and has been jostled by something... tripping over the cord, bumping the entertainmetn center, even as much as a heavy footstep can be enough sometimes.

[gray117]

It is/was a known hardware fault... it's just less publicised than rrod; I believe there was even a European Union investigation into the issue (?) ...

Not covered by warranty ; but there is a disc replacement system originally setup I think to cover microsoft game studio games - not sure if this extends to others now... Eitherway try complaining, you never know you might get lucky?

Moving the system while on will typically cause a much more irregular scratch or scuff: The perfect scratched ring that many quote on this issue has, I suspect, something to do with an actual mechanical part - perhaps even drive make specific - I've no idea how these scrathes align (/do not align) with 360's tray or mechanical parts ... Again, whilst the number of reports of this fault seem to be down I never saw any info as to whether this is due to a particular [old?] drive type or even combination of drive type/situation and firmware...

... gutted is the result for sure...

[Ed Oscuro]

This should be in hardware or off topic. Anyway, Jaspers weren't around 2 years ago although this issue has been brought up since the days of the original Xbox. There are 3 main possibilities:

1. You have large enough dust or a particle on the disc that as the disc is starting to spin, the dust grinds into the disc until it falls off.
2. You have large enough dust or a particle on the tray that as the disc is spinning, it's getting scratched by the dust.

Seriously? Discs are lifted off the tray with enough clearance that something would have to be really big indeed to engage the surface of the disc without the disc spinning out and hitting the tray. I saw tray strikes at my old work where some laserdiscs (which are considerably larger and more prone to be unbalanced as a result) played horizontally would spin unevenly and hit the tray underneath, leading to some nice black polish marks (they still played though). Also, how is a piece of dust supposed to hang in the air while also engaging the disc with enough friction that it grinds a perfectly circular patch into the disc? A nick would be more likely (still unlikely I think) as the particle gets spun off. I call bogus on those two explanations.

What's most likely to be happening is that the disc is actually coming into contact with the lens housing. This is either due to the disc moving closer to the lens, or the lens moving closer to the disc.

In fact that's happened (very gently) to some original Xbox games I own on one of the infamous (and failing) Thompson drives.

[astro city ninja]

thats what I meant lens not laser duh...lol I'm telling you I saw it at least twice a day. it carves a perfect circle in the disk...sometimes its so perfect, you can only see it in certain light.

[Ganelon]

Also, how is a piece of dust supposed to hang in the air while also engaging the disc with enough friction that it grinds a perfectly circular patch into the disc? A nick would be more likely (still unlikely I think) as the particle gets spun off. I call bogus on those two explanations.

I know from experience that dust on horizontal tray drives is a common factor in causing scratches of all sorts. Even though discs are propelled when they're being read, as they're being raised by the spindle and start spinning (or as they're stopping), they can make contact with the dust.

This was exactly how my earliest music CDs and PC CD games from the mid-90s received scratches on them even though I carefully moved it from case to CD drive and back. After I realized the issue during the late-90s, I made sure to wipe the tray clean every time and the scratches suddenly stopped and I've never gotten scratched CDs since. So you may want to actually do some testing before going out of your way to write an erroneous paragraph based off speculation about something being inaccurate.

[undamned]

This happens when you move the unit when it is on and the disc is spinning from vertical position to horizontal or vice versa. Make sure not to move it while powered on.

Who does that? That's like "Be sure you don't spread peanut butter on the USB cord before you insert it."

I know from experience that dust on horizontal tray drives is a common factor in causing scratches of all sorts. Even though discs are propelled when they're being read, as they're being raised by the spindle and start spinning (or as they're stopping), they can make contact with the dust.

Most (not all!) trays are designed well enough, that the outer perimeter is molded at a 45 degree angle so the bottom of the disc can never actually touch the tray, only the outer edge, no matter how you slide the disc around.

I once had a DVD player that etched perfect rings on some of my CD's / DVD's I dismantled it to look for what could possibly be touching and come to find out, the ribbon cable on the lens sled would sometimes bend in such a way that it made contact w/ the disc. I had a friend w/ the same exact unit and he never had that problem. I don't know how close the lens can get to the disc, but it does move up and down (perpendicular to the disc) to focus the laser and it may be possible for it to touch down on the disc if something went wrong. Only takes a few revolutions to etch a ring on a disc.
-ud

[evil_ash_xero]

My last one would do that when I put the disc in while the system was on it's side.

I don't do that anymore, and haven't had it happen again.