Serious Technical Issue: Unreadable Disks

[Izaak03]

Whenever I try to play Gears Of War 2, this frustrating and unexplained error pops up:

This disk is unreadable

1. Clean the disk with a soft cloth
2. Restart the console.

It's a brand new, spotless disk!
Occasionally I manage to play the odd 1 hour of gameplay, but most of the time, the error comes up within 5-20 minutes.

I google'd this problem and found that i was not alone; Hundreds, maybe thousands of people are experiencing this issue, and many game-related forums (even this forum, but the thread was promptly closed by an admin with no reasoning) contain threads full of frustrated people.
As proof, here are some of the ones I've found:
http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=633558&page=5

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=938611&topic=46496381

http://www.yelp.com/topic/san-mateo-x-box-360-gears-of-war-2-disc-unreadable-error

http://www.pspcrazy.com/forums/xbox-360-help-central/67547-gears-war-freezing-disc-read-error.html

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=7626298&publicUserId=5551391

http://uk.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/gearsofwar2/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-47159367&pid=938611

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081222221233AAyEucI

http://www.belowtopsecret.com/forum/thread410169/pg1

http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=632825

... as you can tell, this is a widespread issue that is ruining many people's experience with this kickass game.

But for some reason, Epic and/or Microsoft haven't even acknowledged it yet. Now i'm going to complain about bad customer support but c'mon, atleast show us that you've acknowledged this issue, or even (if we're lucky) tell us how to fix it.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

..and Epic, can you PLEASE give us some feedback!.

[shootthebucket]

my friend has this error with all his games so he has to send it in to get his xbox fixed, you may have to do the same

[Izaak03]

My xbox is 2 months old and all my other games play okay.

I'm sure it's something to do with GOW2 disks not working well with xbox arcades. But i'd like Epic to address this as it is a widespread issue.

[gorelock]

I got my Xbox 360 on xmas along with Gears of War 2 game(the only reason i wanted an xbox was to play this game coz it looks good and is good..) and wen i put the game in i played for half an hour on the campaign and this thing came up on the side saying "disc read error" so i thought it was my game because the other game i got with my Xbox 360 arcade (tennis superstars) works fine, i can play it for hours on end with no problems. So anyway i take the game back and get another copy of Gears of War 2 and yet again i put in the disk and it says "disc read error" about an hour later, it keeps happening at random times.. sometimes i can play for 2 mins, sometimes for 10 mins, sometimes for half and hour to two hours, but no matter what i do, clean the disk, ring for MS for help, get another copy.. it still gets the dreaful "disc read error." So tonight i went snooping around on google for some information and it turns out thousands of people have this problem and yet MS and EPIC seem to have not realised this problem.. hmm.. are you all hiding something? or is it just a mistake? Please will you give some feed back:( I like this game, it's really good but the disc read error... im really getting annoyed. Please give us feed back.

Thank you.

[tnigzs]

Same problem. My balls are blue because of it.

[lll Origin lll]

Same thing, my 360 is a brand new GEARS OF WAR SPECIAL PREMIUM BUNDLE, so I would kinda expect to be able to play GoW2 you know?

Nope, constant freaking DRE, I don't even get by the Epic Logo.

Just admit to it Epic, don't be such a EA to us. We support you, just stop being silent on the issue. Even a "we're working on it" would be good.

[shou]

When I got my 360 w? doa xtreme 2 a couple years ago it would freeze right away. Sometimes 2 mins in sometimes an hour. Brand new . Eventually determined to be an overeating of the system issue. I strongly recommend you have some sort of fan blowing away from a 360 I f you dont want to wait two or three :oweeks to get it fixed after the overheating causes a total meltdown

[Izaak03]

Okay guys, yesterday I went out and bought a 60gb Hard drive and installed GOW2 onto it. And now it works fine. :)

Those of you with premium consoles should be able to do the same if you've got NXE.

I'm still pissed at Epic and Microsoft for producing a game disc that doesn't run on certain consoles though :mad:

[lll Origin lll]

Heya,

Just did almost the same as the guy above. Took my 360 back and got them to swap the hard drive.

Took it home, installed it, and now it works great. Dickmove by MS & epic, but there's the ONLY fix I know of.

And I have tried:

- Formatting
- Clearing Cache
- Uninstalling Everything
- New console (not HDD)
- New copy of GoW2

And any number of combinations.

The problem is IN THE HARD DRIVE. It is completely un-wipeable. Get a new one.

EDIT: There is a possibility that you may be able to format the HDD IF you DO NOT have NXE installed. Google "format hard drive xbox 360" and you'll find it. This doesn't work for NXE.

[ILODROBA]

I have 4 xbox360 consoles and 3 GoW2 discs. All three discs work perfectly on 3 out of the 4 xbox360 consoles, BUT 1 or the 4 consoles will play ANY game but GoW1 or GoW2....WTF?!?!!? I've spoken to 1-800-4MY-XBOX and although they are fascinated with my issue, they have no resolution.