I just bought HALO 1, 2, 3 and ODST because I wanted to play the series from start to finish. I bought HALO 2 and 3 used, and HALO 1 new. When finished HALO 1 and went to play HALO 2 I got a strange error from my xbox 360. The disc would spin up and then just say “open tray”. When I did open the tray the disc would still be spinning and it would slide around on the tray which I’m sure isn’t good for it! The disc didn’t have any big scratches on it so I was confused. After a quick Google, I had found many people were having this problem and a lot of people suggested replacing the DVD drive, which is not something I wanted to wait another 3 weeks for, having just gotten the system back after the red lights of death not even a week ago.
Xbox disc holographic bar code
My Solution ended up being pretty simple. You see, xbox and xbox 360 games have a little holographic bar code on the inner ring of the disc. This is like their security system so that you cant just go and copy discs (a normal DVD ripper / burner will not be able to replicate this bar code).
The problem: When I purchased this game at a used game store, they ran it through a cleaning machine, you know, those disc re-surface machines.. Well it applies a coating of god knows what to the disc to try and polish out light scratches. In the process it also left some type of residue or smudge on this bar code area which was preventing the disc from being played. As far as my xbox 360 was concerned, the game was just a pirated disc copy as the security bar code was unreadable.
How to fix it: I used a wet piece of toilet paper (other very soft cloths work too, don’t use anything abrasive like a paper towel!) to thoroughly wipe down the entire disc until I was sure there were no more smudges or residue anywhere on it. After, I rinsed it and then dried it with a very soft terry cloth towel. The surface of the disc was now entirely clean and free of smudges and residue.
Praying that this would solve the problem… I put the disc into my xbox 360 and crossed my fingers. To my excitement, the disc instantly spooled up and the game started to play 
.
So if just a few of your games aren’t working and you get the “open tray” error, try to clean the xbox / xb0x 360 discs with water and make sure they look flawless. If the drive cannot read from the discs holographic bar code, it will throw the “open tray” error. In this case, a new drive still will not be able to read from the dirty holographic bar code and a new drive will still throw the same error.
If ALL of your games do not work and cause this error, then your drive is probably defective.
Have you had any success with any other possible solutions? Mine still does it and no matter which oem disc game I try I get the same thing. A dvd plays fine, though, which is really strange…
If it wont play ANY disc, there is a chance you could have a dirty laser or a defective drive. The next cheapest option would be to buy one of those laser lens cleaning kits and see if that helps. If not you may have to replace the drive.
My solution is only for if some of your games wont work. Sorry
I fixed mine by just blowing in it after i tried wiping the disc barcode and removing the HD, compressed air canister will help by blowing in the tray while open.
hi, let’s start from the big…. flashed my ms28 drive whith the latest ixtreme 1.61. downloaded the dante’s inferno file ripped it burned it with nero, used clone cd with the other games like borderlands,byonetta ect… they worked fine…. now my xbox just says ” open tray “…. can it be nero ? wanted to use clone cd but it gives an error ” want to overburn ” ? or write untill media is full…. my q here is … ixtreme 1.6.1 ? heeeeeeeeeeeelp?all my other games works fine the 1′s i downloaded and burned and all my originals…. i’m not new to flashing drives and all this shit, so please spare me all the bullshit….
thnx in advance.
I don’t know anything about flashing drives or burning games dude… maybe another reader will.
@neil Try burning it at the lowest speed. Or use Xbox Backup Creator (attainable at the jungle flasher website.)
this is not “the open tray” fiux. It’s just a fools dirty dvd cleaning ‘trick’.
How is it not a fix? I was getting open tray error and this fixed the error. Its an open tray fix. I specified the circumstances in which it works and which it doesn’t. Read more carefully next time
it really isn’t a fix. It may have fixed yours, for now. Post back here when your drive completely crashes in the next few months so i can tell you I told you so.
Seriously ive been through 3 xbox disc drives, they are all crap. The only thing you’re right about is BenQ drives happen to be a little less crappier than the rest. Microsoft is about to loose my business. Sent my xbox back, waiting the month to get it so I don’t have to spend another 50 bucks buying and replacing another drive, only to have it go out again soon anyhow. So recap…xbox = piece of shit company and piece of shit parts, you’re so called ” fix ” = temporary solution to a lifetime problem. Save the despair and get a new drive. peace!
It is pretty clear that you did not read through the entire article or bother to read any of the other comments before writing your own.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. Some “open tray” errors are caused by having a dirty disc where the laser cannot properly read from the holographic bar code. If you only get the “open tray” error intermittently with certain discs, or if you find it happening after using “disc polishers” then you may just need to clean your disc even if it doesn’t really look that dirty as polishers and other chemicals can leave residue film. As finger prints age on the disc they get more and more opaque. Getting a new drive would not have solved my problem because the new drive still would not be able to read the dirty holographic bar code.
If you have the “open tray” error with ALL of your games, it is more likely that you have a problem with your drive and not the disc itself… (but you could have gotten that all from the article had you bothered to read it)
my only theory is that smoke and tar and dust and overall sludge can build up and keeps the disc cocked toward the roof seal and gets the label side dirty and when i thought of this i realised dust and my dirty or sweaty fingers oily stuffage can easily make dust into a gross tar like substance and smoking a pack of camels in a 15 square foot room with no ventilation makes the xbox the main source of air flow in the room. this equals disaster so im off to invent a new solution a la billy mays style the oxy hepa filtration snuggy that u can wrap your console in. when its all dirty just throw in the dishwasher or slip on a custom designed snuggy ordered from our online createatent360.com alrighty then! its all a gluttony of massproduced plastic crap. why dont they massproduce food for the staqrving nations and make a good profit and be able to sleep at night.!!!!!!!!1 microsoft = software get it “soft” micro is end user friendly systems. stupid hdd capacity piece of shit case that forces air and dust to go near vital parts and people buy new discs and then they try this and meanwhile they are paying for xboxlive while not even playing it. fucking apple should make damn console that costs 3k and pretty much caters to the user as long as they pay. ok done
I have a problem with my 360 whenever i put my discs in the disc drive it doesnt even spin and then says nothing is there so i was wondering if there was any fix that i could do not involving removing the motherboard or anything like that because it is really annoying and it played yesterday then i went to sleep and now… nothing.
i just tried everything on this fucken forum, gave it a bash fucken vacuumed it fucken wiped the lense clean, i used a toothbrush to clean the whole x box and i even had to order the opening tools from ebay and all of it was a fucken waste of time, i just got my x box back from the fucken so called x box technicians after getting the red rings >:O fuck microsoft fuck x boxes they better do it right the next time.
I own an Xbox and a Playstation and both are really good game consoles. Let’s see what are Microsoft’s future updgrades on its Xbox game console.