Okay, help the aging idiot time once again FOFC'ers

Looks like my son's 360 is getting close to giving up the ghost. Having dramatically increasing problems getting it to read discs, instead either getting can't read this disc errors or it tries to treat it as a DVD, which of course accomplishes nothing.

From what I gather this is a lot different than the dreaded RROD but it still ain't a good thing. I can't complain much, something like 27 months out of a 60GB unit seems to be above the curve best I can tell. At any rate, we're thinking maybe a new console is in order but that brings me to my questions.

1) We've both got Gold Live accounts now? Will those work just fine on a new console? And is that what "Recover Gamer Tag" is for?

2) His hard drive seems to be fine (based on my reading that the problems he's having are related to the DVD drive & heating issues instead). Does that old 60 gig drive just literally pop off there & could be snapped into place on, say, an arcade unit? Or does it have to be the new 20 GB model to accept another hard drive? Or is that not doable at all?

2b) And if that hard drive is portable like that, do it take all of our saves with it? And all of our acheivements? Or are the latter stored with the profile which is a separate deal?

Basically I want to retain all our existing info, our existing Gold accounts, our existing saved games, and do it with as little investment as possible.

So what's the scoop here, cause I'm in over my head.

Okay, help the aging idiot time once again FOFC'ers

Looks like my son's 360 is getting close to giving up the ghost. Having dramatically increasing problems getting it to read discs, instead either getting can't read this disc errors or it tries to treat it as a DVD, which of course accomplishes nothing.

From what I gather this is a lot different than the dreaded RROD but it still ain't a good thing. I can't complain much, something like 27 months out of a 60GB unit seems to be above the curve best I can tell. At any rate, we're thinking maybe a new console is in order but that brings me to my questions.

1) We've both got Gold Live accounts now? Will those work just fine on a new console? And is that what "Recover Gamer Tag" is for?

2) His hard drive seems to be fine (based on my reading that the problems he's having are related to the DVD drive & heating issues instead). Does that old 60 gig drive just literally pop off there & could be snapped into place on, say, an arcade unit? Or does it have to be the new 20 GB model to accept another hard drive? Or is that not doable at all?

2b) And if that hard drive is portable like that, do it take all of our saves with it? And all of our acheivements? Or are the latter stored with the profile which is a separate deal?

Basically I want to retain all our existing info, our existing Gold accounts, our existing saved games, and do it with as little investment as possible.

So what's the scoop here, cause I'm in over my head.


1. Yeah thats exactly what the recover gamertag is for.

2. Yes you can just pop the harddrive off the top. There is a little button you push in, and then you can pull the drive out of the system and put it in any new version, works just fine with any version of the system. Almost everything will work just fine like this. Your accounts and saves will move, along with anything else you've downloaded. The only issue will be anything you've bought online will now only be available when you're online, since the drm restricts it to the old system. To fix that issue you can go to hxxp://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/licensemigration/ .

Okay, help the aging idiot time once again FOFC'ers

Looks like my son's 360 is getting close to giving up the ghost. Having dramatically increasing problems getting it to read discs, instead either getting can't read this disc errors or it tries to treat it as a DVD, which of course accomplishes nothing.

From what I gather this is a lot different than the dreaded RROD but it still ain't a good thing. I can't complain much, something like 27 months out of a 60GB unit seems to be above the curve best I can tell. At any rate, we're thinking maybe a new console is in order but that brings me to my questions.

1) We've both got Gold Live accounts now? Will those work just fine on a new console? And is that what "Recover Gamer Tag" is for?

2) His hard drive seems to be fine (based on my reading that the problems he's having are related to the DVD drive & heating issues instead). Does that old 60 gig drive just literally pop off there & could be snapped into place on, say, an arcade unit? Or does it have to be the new 20 GB model to accept another hard drive? Or is that not doable at all?

2b) And if that hard drive is portable like that, do it take all of our saves with it? And all of our acheivements? Or are the latter stored with the profile which is a separate deal?

Basically I want to retain all our existing info, our existing Gold accounts, our existing saved games, and do it with as little investment as possible.

So what's the scoop here, cause I'm in over my head.

1. Yeah thats exactly what the recover gamertag is for.

2. Yes you can just pop the harddrive off the top. There is a little button you push in, and then you can pull the drive out of the system and put it in any new version, works just fine with any version of the system. Almost everything will work just fine like this. Your accounts and saves will move, along with anything else you've downloaded. The only issue will be anything you've bought online will now only be available when you're online, since the drm restricts it to the old system. To fix that issue you can go to hxxp://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/licensemigration/ .

What he said. That's what recover Gamertag is for. It can also be used if, say, he's at a friend's house and wants to get achievements for a co-op game. Or vice versa.

Hard drives can migrate, as Voo points out, you'll need to migrate the licenses as well or else whenever Xbox Live is down or you aren't connected, anything you've paid for and downloaded will be inaccessible or only available in demo form (depending on what "it" is).

Additionally, achievements, as far as I recall, are tied to the Gamertag and not the console proper. That's why recovering a Gamertag to another system can be used for co-op achievement gains. What the profile ties to is game saves, if I'm not mistaken. If you wanted to be able to continue with your old saves, you'd want to make sure to preserve the profile as well.

Where you might be better off - depending on your space situation currently - could be getting an Elite console or something and snagging a transfer cable to clone your existing hard drive to the new one. You wouldn't lose anything, you'd have more room to grow, and you'd have that 20 gig hard drive if you ever needed overflow space.

Thanks to you both for the replies, makes me feel better.

Question about the newer models, just wanting to make sure: does the workaround for establishing a wireless connection for Live via your pc (instead of their $70 adapater) still work?

Have you tried just installing the games to the hard drive and playing like that? Might get you some more time on the XBox.

Thanks to you both for the replies, makes me feel better.

Question about the newer models, just wanting to make sure: does the workaround for establishing a wireless connection for Live via your pc (instead of their $70 adapater) still work?

Yes. You can still bridge it.

Have you tried just installing the games to the hard drive and playing like that? Might get you some more time on the XBox.

He'd need the bigger hard drive. 20 gigs is tiny if you're gonna install.

He'd need the bigger hard drive. 20 gigs is tiny if you're gonna install.
I thought he is saying he has a 60GB unit right now. My 360 has been doing some odd things while reading discs but so I've been installing all my games (and deleting them when I'm done) and I haven't had an issue yet.

I thought he is saying he has a 60GB unit right now. My 360 has been doing some odd things while reading discs but so I've been installing all my games (and deleting them when I'm done) and I haven't had an issue yet.

Oh, I see. He mentioned HIS 60 but then mentioned a more generic 20.

Question about the newer models, just wanting to make sure: does the workaround for establishing a wireless connection for Live via your pc (instead of their $70 adapater) still work?


Hijack...details/link please?
Was getting ready to run cat5 this weekend to give my son xboxlive access...I hate being under MY HOUSE...I practically live there for my customers, (well not so much anymore, but you get the point) but doint it at my place pisses me off

Hijack...details/link please?
Was getting ready to run cat5 this weekend to give my son xboxlive access...I hate being under MY HOUSE...I practically live there for my customers, (well not so much anymore, but you get the point) but doint it at my place pisses me off

Google some phrase like "connecting to XBox Live without adapter" and you should find videos galore on how-to. I can't explain it w/out sounding like a half wit but I reviewed some of the video/forums/websites today and so I'm pretty sure if I could do it on a Christmas morning two years ago I can still manage it today.

Basically it's something like setting your PC to allow other devices to use their connection and then using cable to connect the PC to the 360. Both devices were on the same side of the room in our configuration anyway & both on a wall so it was a no brainer just to run one cable across the floor instead of giving M'soft another $100 for the adapter.

One warning though is that wireless is not great for online gaming. You'll have more lag issues in games thanks to wireless being more error prone than if you ran the ethernet cable. Note than even the streaming video companies (PlayOn, OnLive, etc) are recommending against it. For downloads / email / browsing its fine.

Ok, so if I dont have a PC anywhere near the Xbox, I might as well just run a wire back to my router?

One warning though is that wireless is not great for online gaming. You'll have more lag issues in games thanks to wireless being more error prone than if you ran the ethernet cable.

Oh I'd think definitely more than if you ran cable but at the same time, even my so-so BellSouth DSL connection has handled XB Live just fine about 99% of the time, rarely any lag issues even with the 360 being connected to a computer that's on a different floor than our router and has the worst signal of any pc in the house.

Just to update, bought a new no-HD Arcade system tonight, plugged & played the original HD from the older console and it was pretty much all as described here.

I will say that the license migration thing is a bitch, now sitting through re-downloading nearly 50 things between his account & mine.

edit to add: Something kind of funky with reacquiring the various pieces of DLC and whatnot. With the Fallout 3 stuff we bought each piece of DLC via download as it was released, about 3 gigs total worth of material. All of them except one were apparently already on the hard drive since when we did "download again" it took like 5 seconds each. That's true except for "The Pitt" which is slowly d'loading 492.21 MB worth. Unless this is the originally buggy & later fixed version of that DLC I have no idea why it would be different than how all the others were reacquired.

Oh and very much thanks again to Voo and SA and everybody who pitched in to help me out with this. All the info helped with on something that would have had me stressed out for days while I suffered through a combination of paralysis by analysis and fear/dread/loathing of the unknown.