I just went and picked up my first Xbox ever with the intention to mod it right out of the packaging. I already have a SmartXX v2 being shipped to me as we speak. So I totally screwed up. Before I started tearing the box apart to look inside, I didn't test it.
Anyway, I opened it up and looked around. No touching took place. I was just going to leave the case apart until the chip came and play it like it was. I turned it on and everything came up fine. I hadn't inserted a game yet. This particular bundle came with NCAA Football 2005 and Top Spin. I thought about setting up an xbox live account, but decided against it when I got to the payment information screen.
So I backed out again to the main dashboard and inserted the bundled game disc (both games are on one disc). Immediate disc read error. I thought maybe I had smudged it when I took it out of the case. Eject and then load. Same problem. After doing this about 20 times with different discs (retail dvd video, backup dvd+r video, cd-r, retail cda) I have come to the conclusion that the DVD drive is shit right out of the box.
This puts me in a hell of a predicament. I know that the warranty is voided. Gamestop will probably not exchange it unless I get some idiot working. I am currently looking on ebay to purchase a drive, but they are all $70+. Not really something I want to do considering I just spent $150 on a supposedly new console. Anyway, I will get it solved. Maybe just not in the time frame that I would like. I will keep you posted.
