What do I do if Halo 2 doesn't run on my X-Box
 

Well, it's my friends X-Box, first off. He gets an invalid disc error almost every time he tries to run Halo 2. Other games work for him. He's got the X-Box with that thomson drive or whatever, the first generation, purchased soon after the consoles initial release. When he gets the game to run, he can only go to the fifth stage, then the game quits on him. He doens't have Live, but I've heard theres some firmware update that comes with it. He called the X-box 800 number, but they said he'd have to send it in for repairs, and he doesn't want to do that. Right now he's considering buying a new X-Box because of this. Does anyone here know anything that could help him?
thanks all

frist off take the disk back to where he got it and exchange it for another copy. Its not all too uncommen to get a bad copy of a game, if that dont work he will eather have to send it in for service or get a new system. Thats about it.

Trade in that Xbox (At EB or something), and get another. If he has an old Xbox, it isn't uncommon that they have trouble reading many of the new games out there. I also have a couple of friends whose Xboxes have died on them after long Halo 2 sessions, one bought a new Xbox, the other sent his in to get the DVD Drive swapped out on it.

i agree with this member.

he's on his second copy
the first didn't work at all

trading in his xbox gives him half off the price of a new one, and he doesn't have the money for that, he just spent it on Halo 2

If he's got a mod chip, rip it out. Halo 2 comes embedded with security software that causes crashes and other malfunctions on Xbox systems that have been illegally modded.

Heh... it must be hit and miss :cool:

nope, i had always told him to get one, but he never did.

I have the Thompson drive, and I have had virtually no troubles with Halo 2, unlike KOTOR. Is the disk scratched? Does your X-box require cleaning? Is it well ventilated? Make sure that it is not in an enclosed cabinet.

what sort of cleaning can you suggest? What was wrong with KOTOR?

I have a Thompson drive and have almost zero issues. Yes, sometimes a disk registers as dirty, or I have to reset a DVD to play. But never has it crapped out during a game. Consider myself lucky I guess.

The Thompson drive is a total piece of shit. Pay 30 bucks and replace it yourself. It's not that hard.

um... no it doesn't

My thomson drive is works fine (xbox is only year old), but my friend has one of the first xboxs and a thomson and barely works at all. Buy a new drive online, it's a lot cheaper than Microsoft fixing it.

Good advice, but I'd definitely make sure the drive is the issue before you go spend money on a drive that may not be the solution..

In terms of installing the drive, can this be done by the user, or do you have to take it to a shop?

It can easily be done by the user, the drive is right on the top, just unbolt, unplug, remove, and replace. However, I think it voids your warranty, but if you can work with PC hardware at all, you won't need it.

Strike that, the 1st gen Xbox Thompson drives were total pieces of shit. Mine blows ass, and I've had it since the release year's Christmas.

I have a v1.0 xbox with the Thompson drive.... no problems to report here. There are resources available to guide you through the drive swapping process.

www.xbox-scene.com

-BD

BoltedDown, and those of you who have old Thompson drives that haven't had problems- how often do you move your console??? I only know one other person that got a first gen Xbox apart from here, so I don't have much to compare against. I'm talking about taking your box to LAN parties and such. This may have an impact on the lifespan of the drive.

replace it yourself, eh?
Does the drive have to be from microsoft, or can it be any ol' dvd rom?

Technically, any DVD ROM drive would work, but I'm not sure if the Xbox uses standard 72 pin bus cables, or if it will physically stay in the case itself.

Look up a Samsung Xbox drive on ebay. You can find one there. Phillips is the other supported drive, but Samsungs read more media types and are overall better.

Just found the motherload of info on this stuff:

http://www.llamma.com/

Wow, guess I forgot replacement drives sell for so much. I guess unless your friend wants to use ebay, he'll be spending a lot to fix it no matter whether it be buying a replacement drive, sending it to Microsoft, or trading it in.

I have Halo 2 and a modchip. No crashes or other malfunctions playing it either with the modchip enabled offline or on live with the chip off. Halo 2 has nothing to do with the bannings on Live, some people have been banned despite not playing Halo 2 and not having the modchip on. Basically there are still lots of theories why people are getting banned all of a sudden.

I've taken my Box out of the house 2 or 3 times. It does get contantly moved upstairs to downstairs.

-BD

I'm having problems with my Halo 2. This is the version that's on my HD on my mod box, I keep the real copy safe so I don't like to use it, but what keeps happening is all of a sudden in mulitplayer and single, the player would just start moving extrememly slowly, as if they were crouching. Any suggestions as to the problem? Haven't played with the actual disc much, so can't comment on whether or not it happens then.

Well... first off, try the original disc, since you have it handy. Second, try playing with a different controller. To clarify: The game as a whole is not slowing down, right? Just Master Chief/Arbitor?

-BD

hey ,
don't know for sure but remember reading this somewhere
by replacing the original disk drive you could get a ban on x-box live
again don't know this for sure !

and i had the same problem with ninja gaiden just return it the new one should be fine

fred

There are kits that you can buy to clean the laser emitter on your CD/DVD drives. It could be dusty, or there might be some finger-prints on it. KOTOR gave the most read-errors of any game I own. There was just something about the disk, and the constant need for accessing information on the CD gave it more chances than any other game to pop a read error. Nothing worse than kicking Calo Nord's ass and then getting booted off your XBox. I don't know anything about being banned from Live, I'm not even online yet.

My copy of Halo 2 gave a few errors when botting up, and so did DOA:ultimate. After wiping off the disc a few times, it actually works fine now. Should I be alarmed or just brush it off?

Unless you see obvious fingerprints or cheese-doodle residue on the disc, never wipe it. Optical media is very fragile. I usually just open the tray, and close it again. It will work eventually.

hehe.. cheese-doodle
Ripsaw, I think i'll give your way a shot, and maybe get some compressed air too

Not having to deal with the Thomas drive is one of the perks of waiting until 2 years ago to get an Xbox comes with. If I had held off a couple months more I could've gotten the green Xbox that's allegedly much faster, but the lure of KOTOR was too strong.

Go outside and play? :rolleyes:

Inconceivable!

Hey everyone, i'm that friend that T3m3st is talking about, i've never cleaned or touched the cd cause i know the consequences of it, although i used to take my xbox to a lot of my friend's places and t3mest was telling me that by moving the xbox, you might change the configuration on the dvd-rom. However when i got the second halo cd, the first time it loaded up it loaded almost instantly and i just tried playing again and it started at 49% and went up by 2% until it reached 100% which took a lil while. The problem that i'm having is that it won't read the stage metropolis but then after a while it did and i got up to gravemind b4 it wouldn't read again, and then i got to the next stage (after 1 hour of trying to make it read) and then it wouldn't read again, so i have no clue what's going on and sometimes it won't even go to the loading screen when starting up the game.

im almost positive its the drive. ive got a thompson vintage 1.0 xboxen, and presently its dead for all intents and purposes. the problem with those drives was something to do with the register and refracting mirror, and a lense that was too protective for its own good. basically the laser light is too low to be very consistent with reading multiple layer media, such as a halo 2 dvd and some (read: most) of the newer games. however youll see little to no trouble using earlier xbox games and obviously single layer cd's, etc.

now i havent heard anything personally about getting banned for replacing your cdrom by hand, as that isnt modifying the xbox bios or os. i have heard that certain model mod chips dont work and at least one does, without getting you banned (xecuter).

cheapest source for xbox dvd drives is ebay more than likely, and if youre technically inclined, you could look up the instructions for replacing the laser assembly for your current thompson drive here

http://llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/thoms...stallation.htm

hope this helps



**now why don't I just do that :confused: **

Here's the whole story on the ban. They scan your eeprom and your HD. Record that info and if any of those two shows up without the other, boom your banned.

Second, there is most definitely a problem with the thompson drive. go to www.xbox-scene.com a few days ago there was a news thread on this, also it seems Bungie.net is talking about it also. Look around there, hopefully you'll figure something out.

I find it funny that xbox seems to have a history of fucking up, and its the console microsoft makes. Xbox is sweet when it works however.

I think all first incarnations of consoles inevitably "fuck up."

I'm on my second x-box and my second gamecube and my nephew reported the other day that my PS2 was making a funny noise.

mandal is right on the money with why the good folks who tried to play Halo 2 on X-box live were banned. It has nothing to do with the disc itself rather the security kicks in when you connect to Live.

My first x-box had the dreaded thompson drive and it petered out after about a year and a half of pretty solid gaming. It started with errors reading just a few games and then moved on to not reading anything. The second one, however, has soldiered on marvelously including several massive sessions of Halo 2 multiplayer.

My advice is since it isn't reading the damn thing anyway, break it open and replace the DVD drive. There are more than few sites that explain how to do it and it's a helluva lot cheaper than forking over money to Microsoft to "fix" it or get another one.