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It has come to my attention that the Xbox360 has a problem with its laser, causing it to cause damage on your disks on certain occasions. I tried this on an empty disk and I can confirm the laser burns into the CD, giving it a nice, black ring of charred material.

After testing a few times, I noticed the laser reader lacks protection that should prevent this damage to the disk. Some smart-head in Microsoft decided to drop that protection.

So whatever you do, don't move the Xbox 360 while it's running, unless you want a nice accessory to your CD's data.

If you should have ruined a CD already, you may take it to the store and -maybe- it can be saved.

It is also recommended to call Microsoft about the problem and they should be able to help you take steps to prevent this. In the worst case scenario, they can replace your Xbox 360 with a new one - that has this laser protection.


(Probably old news, but I didn't find a post about it here >_>)

It's a good job I have not got an XBox360, I only use PlayStation, I feel there much better.

HOWEVER, if I plan to get an XBox360, I will check that it has got this protection, otherwise I won't get it.

I've never heard of any laser actually burn the bottom of the CD.
Giant circular scratches are the only thing I've seem come out on the CD from moving the 360 around while it's reading it.

Anyways, both of these little problems shouldn't really have risen if people had the common sense to never move a CD drive while it's operating and place any electrical unit on flat surface in an open area for ventilation.

In my opinion, most problems that people report to a company about an electrical product are cases of user error/ignorance/stupidity.

Thanks for the warning. ^^

Yeah I think the xbox360 should have really looked into itself before it was released, I means it's notorious for the dreaded red ring of death and has something like a 40% fail rate for all the 360's sold. Ontopic though my mate accidently knocked his 360 over with a running game inside but luckily he took it to cash converters (Where they can clean and attempt to save a scratched up CD) and thankfully the disc got working again. I just try and be as careful as I can with mine, I've had my 360 for 2 years and I still dread it failing on me :/