Xbox 360 phat - disc drive goes crazy when I connect SATA cable

[IcyFlame]

Hello guys, this is my first post. I don't know much about modding the xbox 360, don't have the skills for it. I know basic assembly and disassembly only.
I have this xbox 360 that I got from a friend that was given to him to throw away(because it's "broken"). So I got it to attempt to fix it to gain some experience since it powers on and the disc drive is jammed.

I searched a lot here and there trying to find an answer to my problem but I came up with nothing so I really need your help.

First thing I noticed when I got it: Xbox doesnt boot to dash and power button flashes green light as it usually does when ejecting the disc. Disc drive will open on the 5-6 time of trying, sometimes it just gets stuck in the middle, sometimes it doesnt open at all. When it closes it does a mean motor spin sound for 1-2 seconds and stops.

What I thought: the Xbox doesnt recognise the disc drive and because of that it doesnt boot, maybe it has something to do with the drive jamming.

When I opened it up: Lots of dust everywhere(including the disc drive) of course, cleaned that.

When I opened the disc drive: I removed the disc tray, checked that the cogwheels are moving ok and that the rubber band is clean, oiled a bit some parts. Laser appeared to be working.

After closing up the disc drive and opening it multiple times -> nothing. Everything still the same, I connect sata and power cables try to boot xbox and still flashing green light.

So I thought, what if I disconnect the disc drive completely? Did that and booted to dash immediately, green flashing light remained flashing.

Now after that, I thought to connect the power cable ONLY and see what happens. It booted to dash again normally.

So I switch off the Xbox connect the sata cable to the drive and again same problem with the flashing light.

When I was about to give up I once again connected the power cable only to the disc drive and booted to dash, then while in dash I connected the sata cable. The xbox then did a reboot and magically it recognised the disc drive! The jamming problems disappeared also immediately. The drive opened and closed perfectly. Tried a disc and I could play a game. A happy accident.

I thought that was it, it is fixed. I closed up the xbox and powered it on for a last test. Green light flashing...and the disc drive started jamming up again!

At this point I'm suspecting a bad cable but I don't know. Also the drive jamming how it is connected with all this I have no idea.

Please share if you know anything about this.

 

[Running4Hippos]

the drive pcb might be malfunctioning. try with a different sata cable

 

[IcyFlame]

the drive pcb might be malfunctioning. try with a different sata cable

Tried a different SATA cable but same problem. Any other suggestions?

 

[gavin_darkglide]

Replace the drive. You will need to dump the DVD key off of this drive, as it sounds like a malfunctioning PCB. you can test this if you have a regular sata DVD drive, as you can plug the sata cable into that, instead of the xbox drive, and with the external drive connected to external power source, see if the xbox boots. if it works, the problem is with the drive, if it doesnt, it is with the xbox motherboard. This is only good for testing, as a stock DVD drive wont read games, but this will rule out hardware failure on the motherboard.

 

[IcyFlame]

Thanks for the replies guys. Unfortunately I don't have any of the necessary items to check this but I gave the xbox to someone who is more experienced and has the tools. Will give you a update about what was wrong.

 

[rghpro]

The flashing of the light in the middle of the ROL indicates that the drive is either ejecting or closing, and its not complete yet, that means, the system has not acknowledged the completion of the tray been closed or opened.

Assuming your SATA cable attempt was a fluke..

This is how you fix the problem, you'll have to remove the tray from the drive unit, its simple, simply eject it manually and pull it all the way open and lift the locking lever and a slight warp of the try will release it completely after that.
On the far left and far right you'll notice some "sensors", pretty crude for this day & age, but they're there, make sure they're clean between the two prongs on each one, because if they don't short on open or close, the console will never acknowledge that the eject or close is complete and continue to rapidly blink.