This past Tuesday, I had to ship my Xbox 360 Elite to Microsoft again. Last time I had to send it in for the infamous RRoD back in June of 2008. This time it’s for the “Open Tray” error & since the unit is out of warranty… I paid them $99.00 which includes another year warranty. Xbox Support said they’ll most likely replace the unit for their latest Elite version which is supposedly quieter and runs cooler… we shall see.

When an Xbox 360 cannot read a CD/DVD or game disc, it may not recognize that it has a disc in its drive. Instead of “Play Game” or “Play DVD”, an “Open Tray” option appears. The issue is linked to a dirty laser in the DVD drive, a magnetic problem that prevents the drive from spinning, or insufficient lubrication of the drive motor. However, disconnecting and re-connecting the Xbox 360 sometimes works. Taking out the disc, closing the tray, then re-inserting it can go around this problem, as the opening and closing of the tray tells the Xbox to read the tray for content. Lately some cases in which the Xbox 360 can not read any more discs reporting this error all the time have appeared.