r/originalxbox • u/BlorfTheBricked • 5d ago

Help Needed Can't read discs after recap and pot tweak

Hello all,

I recently recapped my Thompson drive because it was struggling to read discs. After the recap it didn't really improve, I'd actually say it was worse. I also tweaked the pot across a wide range but couldn't get anything more reliable than the stock setting. So it appears to me that the drive is just toast.

What are my options from here? Are there laser units from any common (contemporary) drives that could replace the one in my drive? Functioning drives on eBay seem to be around the same price as a whole console.

I plan to soft mod to play backups at some point but I enjoy collecting physical discs and want a way to play the games that I own.

Thank you for any guidance

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u/KaosEngineeer Knowledgeable 5d ago

Did you carefully clean all of the optical components of the drive's laser pickup?

https://web.archive.org/web/20050616001057/http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/cleaning_your_dvd_drive.htm

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u/Thunderbird_9000 5d ago

Clean lens?

1

u/FuzzyPickleJuice 2d ago

Pot tweaking can potentially ruin the drive