Just Got the Red Ring of Death and Sent My 360 to Microsoft... (1 Viewer)

...I'm wondering, for those of you out there who have had to do this, does your save data get retained? Or do you just get another refurbished console, and none of your data?

--Jefferson Morris

Your save games and all other data are contained on your hard drive (or memory card) which you should not have sent in with your console. So regardless of what you get back you should have everything.

I love my 360 but I am on my fourth one. I need to somehow extend my extended warranty.

My 360 had a built-in hard drive, so there was no peripheral drive to disconnect prior to sending it in.

I suspect I'm screwed. Not a tragedy though. The only loss that really smarts is my Mass Effect saves.

--Jefferson Morris

Hm. I don't think I was aware of any 360 configuration in which the hard drive was not able to be disconnected. As a matter of fact, a few months ago when my 360 went bad, one of the troubleshooting measures the phone rep had me go through was to play a game with the hard drive removed, so they could be convinced that the drive was not causing a problem. They had to instruct me how to remove it, as I'd never done it, but I thought that the drive setup was standard - it locks in on top of the console (if your console is upright as mine is), and if you press a button it can be taken off.

Still, I wouldn't think they would do anything to the contents of the drive, and I'd certainly expect that if you sent it, you'd get it back. They've presumably had enough experience exchanging these things by now...

The core system that came out when the 360 was first released didnt have a hard drive but required memory cards to save games. If you never bought a memory card and have saved games then you had a hard drive and by the sounds of it just gave it away. So in all likelyhood you just threw away essentially $100 part that you will have to replace. They dont send you a harddrive with the replacement units. Sucks for you. Should have read the instructions that came with the box.

There was no built in harddrive. It was simply attached to the side and easily removed with the push of a button.

Most likely, they'll open up the box, see the HDD, and return it with your new system. The RRoD problem stems from the processor overheating and actually expanding so that it pops out of the motherboard. Chances are, they'll either give you a new 360 console with your previous HDD or just fix the chip and send it back.

One guy had a 360 signed by the Halo 3 dev team (I believe it was Halo 3) and then had the RRoD problem. When he sent his console in, he made sure on the phone and with a packed-in note that they wouldn't clean the console's outside (since some other people had reported this happening online before) and they assured him that it would be fine. Well guess what: he got the console back and it was bare. Which means someone had spent a LOT of time rubbing off what was obviously a very unique series of signatures. So hopefully nothing important is written on the outside of your console.

Thanks for the replies. I didn't even realize that the hard drive was removable. I told the support guy on the phone that I had no peripherals attached to the thing (I thought he was talking about an external drive). Wish he'd set me straight on that point.

Oh well. I'll keep my fingers crossed that it gets returned. The only thing I'd really miss are my Mass Effect saves. Spent 50 hours on that game and got my people pretty formidable.

--Jefferson Morris

You´re not "pissed" at all? Just curious.. I mean Xbox 360 have had major malfunctions (well, mainly "Red Ring of Death"), but the fans doesn´t seem to mind..

I have 0 problems so far with my unit (it should be "falcon"). Let´s hope that I can keep it that way...

If anyone's keeping score, I got my hard drive sent back to me in a separate parcel. So that's what happens when you forget to remove it.

Scary thing is, my refurbished console briefly gave me the red ring a few days ago too. It's purred like a cat since then, but I'm still worried. I'd box it right back up and ship it back again, but I'm utterly engrossed in Fallout 3 right now.

--Jefferson Morris

Glad to hear they returned the hard drive, Jefferson. I figured they would do the right thing. And yeah, Fallout is becoming a major time sink here, as well.

I suppose I would be really mad if they didn't treat me really nice everytime I have a problem. I also don't feel like I have somewhere else to go for my gaming experience. I love the online world that LIVE has to offer and I don't see any other company offering anything like it.

The only thing I got back that didnt waork was my copy of the free southpark episode I downloaded, everything else was perfect when it came back from MS

I got the RROD almost 3 years ago this month...and just this past weekend the video has decided to go flaky on me as well. Good thing I got that MS extended warranty...

Now I'll have to go dig up a shipping box to send my console back since MS no longer sends you a free shipping box (don't know exactly when they changed their policy on that, but no big deal) for you to send it back in. The other nice thing is that they'll give you one free month of XBL Gold for the inconvenience of not being able to use your 360 while it's being repaired, or at least that's what the lady told me...LOL!

Tony,

That's odd. I just sent back another RROD console on behalf of a friend who was too lazy to do it himself (he just upgraded to an Elite immediately when his first unit failed), and Microsoft told me they were sending a shipping box. Since I had a box, I chose not to wait and just sent it in.

The free month of XBL Gold is a nice gesture. I'll be taking advantage of that to play co-op Gears with the abovementioned lazy (but loaded) friend.

--Jefferson Morris

Just got the 3 RROD tonight. Just in time too, as my console will be out of warranty in May (I bought it May of 2006). Up until tonight I hadn't had any problems with it. But today it started freezing about 15 minutes after turning it on. No red rings at first. As today wore on, the freezing started happening sooner and sooner after turning it on. Until now it just gives me the 3 RROD when I power up.

I went online and requested a shipping box and label. I'm interested to see if I get the same machine back or a different one. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll send me one that has HDMI out.

I doubt they'll fix it. Mine died a few months ago and the replacement unit had the HDMI output. Too bad, they didn't send an elite. I'd be much less worried about having another RROD episode if they had sent an elite.

As fast as the turn around time is you are probably right. They probably will just send me a different refurbed unit. I'm keeping the HDD. Did you have any problem as far as downloaded content when you put your old HDD on the new machine which obviously would have a different serial number?

If it's not too late, ask them to ensure that your downloaded content will work on the replacement unit (license transfer or something like that); otherwise you'll just need to re-download your content (assuming it's still available for download from XBL Marketplace) using the same gamertag/account used to download them the first time.

Sorry, I can't answer your question because I've never hooked up to XBOX live, so no DLC. My 360 is in the living room and does not have a wireless transmitter. Running a hard wired connection is not practical, except for very temporary use.....updates at the most. Updates, when required, normally come on the discs, so I have no reason to pay MS 50 bucks for their service.