My crazy Xbox Toshiba Sticky Drive Fix

[orbytel]

Hey All,

I just thought id share my fluke fix with you guys... it may come in handy for someone with the same issue!

I had just fixed an RROD issue with a 360, and had it running in my lounge overnight to make sure it was all good. The only thing left to fix was the sticky disk tray (with the sticker on the spindle trick). My 2 year old son decided to try and put on a dvd or 3 (in my absence...) at the same time.

I came back to the console later, and found the 3 dvds stuffed in the tray, and the xbox wouldnt read any disks.

I cracked open the toshiba dvd drive, and found that the disk on the spindle which spins the dvd (i dont know the exact name for it, but lets call it the 'spindle disk') on the drive motor had broken free and was stuck to the top of the case (as its magnetised).

I attempted to superglue it back in place, but it was unbalanced and it ended up making a grinding noise, as the spindle disk was cracked at the base.

I decided to mess around with it, and see if I could patch it up at all (as worst case scenario- id just buy a replacement drive and change over the circuitry).

I had an old sony cd drive laying around, and cracked it open, and took the 'spindle disk' out of it and attempted to fit it to the motor in the toshiba. I was a perfect fit, but the radius of the disk was about 4mm wider than the original, and it was made of solid steel so I couldnt trim it, without some time-consuming dremelling, and I didnt want to chance unbalancing it. The only real issue that I came across was the lens casing grazed against it when it moved. I decided to trim some of the plastic casing around the lens to make some clearance for the disk- and it stopped the grazing completely.

The next issue I had was the spindle disk on the toshiba. The original disk is magnetised to align it to the white plastic piece at the top of the case - whereas the sony spindle disk was opposite (the white plastic on the top of the case was magnetised).

I found that the top piece of optical drive casings have a circular plate under the labels which gives access to the white circular plastic piece (really descriptive of me, eh?). I ended up taking out the circular plating out from both drives and swapping over the white plastic pieces- and jb-welding a small piece of steel over the top of the hole to secure it in place.

To my suprise it works a treat, the disk drive doesnt make ANY noise anymore (whereas before it would make a hell of a racket while it was reading, like most toshiba drives), the drive doesnt stick at all anymore, and I saved myself $80.00 on ebay for a replacement drive...

If anyone is interested I can include pictures. I have a few sony drives laying around, which all seem to have an identical setup to the sony drive I used if anyone is interested (theyre either dead or useless as theyre about 6-7 years old).

All in all, what seemed to be a pain in the backside ended up resulting in a permenant fix for the noisy drive and the sticking tray. I never did feel like the issue had been completely resolved with the sticker on the spindle trick...

[project_failure]

Nice work! This could definitely come in handy.