How would you know if a XBOX 360 Drive is Bricked

[don]

How would you know if a XBOX 360 drive is bricked? Will the drive's tray not open?

[sadalius]

That would depend on whats bricked about the drive. Bricked means just that. The drive will not function and is un-repairable without replacing a part or the whole drive. There are a few causes. Laser being burnt out, flashing the firmware from a dump that had a bad key (this cause is un-recoverable at the current time), flash chip gone bad, power problems etc. Have you got one thats giving you problems? List up the symptoms and we might can point you in the right direction.

[don]

I dont have any problems with my BenQ Drive *touch wood*, just was curious how I would know.

If a BenQ drive doesnt read discs and says 'dirty disc' etc, is it best to replace the whole drive or just get a BenQ laser?

If laser, then how do you change a laser? Is it easy to do?

[lilrevuk]

I would go for a new drive, especially replacing the benq for another benq.... Just replace the key and off you go!

[don]

So just put the my Xbox 360 KEY in the OFW and CFW file, which is in the backups folder and flash it the same way as usual, yea?

Why not just get a laser? What are the advantages and disadvantages here?

[CoFree]

you will have to know how to solder well to replace a laser.
then you will need to tune in the laser.plus it cost just about as much as a new dvd drive.

you would have touse firmware toolbox v4.6 to put your key in the OFW and CFW.
then you would be ok to flash it in.

the benq is a newer dvd drive ive no heard of any one having a laser problem yet

[Jman 31]

I dont have any problems with my BenQ Drive *touch wood*, just was curious how I would know.

If a BenQ drive doesnt read discs and says 'dirty disc' etc, is it best to replace the whole drive or just get a BenQ laser?

If laser, then how do you change a laser? Is it easy to do?

A lot of times the dirty disk error will come up not from the drive being bad, but the media being bad, or the burn process to create the media.

[sadalius]

I agree with Jman. More problems come from the media being used, the burn speeds or rip speeds or a combination of all of those. Easiest and cheapest thing to try first is re-rip one that your having problems with at 4x or even 2x, then burn it at 2.4x and try. If it doesn't work, try a different brand of DVD DL's. Verbatim if you haven't already tried them. Then if your read problems doesn't go away, check to see how hot the drive is running. I've got a friend who had to install an extra fan because the drive itself would get hot and give DRE's. His is the only one I've ever seen that way though. Maybe even try a POT tweak if no joy has been found yet. Then, if everything else pans out, you should check into a new drive.