My Xbox got the Red Ring of Death...

If you get the Red Ring of Death and send your Xbox to Microsoft for repair or replacement, does the one they send you back come with your original hard drive? Or can you keep your hard drive and just send them the main console, attaching the hard drive to the console when MS sends it back? What i want to know is, if you get the Red Ring of Death, do you lose your savegames and everything that was on your hard drive?
 
I believe you take the hard drive out before you ship it back.

I've had my Xbox for about 18 months now and haven't had a problem... I kind of wish it would happen so I can get it over with.
 
Sorry forgot to add that.

You only send MS the console itself minus the cables, HDD, controllers, etc.
 
You only send MS the console itself minus the cables, HDD, controllers, etc.

This is a great improvement over how it was done in the beginning. Mine was one of the first systems to go out in 2005, so they had you send everything back so they could diagnose the problem. So I lost my savegames, Titanic HD movie preview and whatever little else might have accumulated in those first couple weeks.

And what I got back was pretty cruddy. It was Lil' Dee's hard drive (and system, probably) full of some kind of indy crap music and alien savegames. That kind of bothered me, because I've input addresses, credit card numbers and such into the system. I'm sure most of it bypasses the hard drive and goes to some Live server, but it still sucks. And if I got one guy's hard drive, someone else must've gotten mine. On the positive side, the equipment I got back is still going strong two years later, and whenever I have a guest here, they can play as Lil' Dee.
 
Including me, I know three people (personally) owning a XBox 360. One got the RRoD (but got it fixed from an independent party for 50 €), I had to sent mine in because of the blocked DVD-tray and yesterday I went to the 3rd person to test if the games I bought at ebay did work. He switched the XBox on - and got the three red LED flashing. Pulling all cables and doing it again helped the problem go away. Still, I am fearing for his and my XBox.
 
I'm on XBox #3. If this one dies I'm not going through the hassle of replacing it again. The Wii is serving my gaming needs well enough.
 
I don't know, if I were internet-angry to the point of hating my game system I'd want to send it back as frequently as possible - it wouldn't cost me anything and Microsoft would have to keep paying to fix/replace it.
 
Last time they didn't though, it was overheating in seconds but as it didn't give the red rings of death it apparently didn't fall under the extended warranty. I know a few people who had this problem. As a result I missed the launch of Arena, so admittedly I may now be a little bitter ;)
 
I don't know, if I were internet-angry to the point of hating my game system I'd want to send it back as frequently as possible - it wouldn't cost me anything and Microsoft would have to keep paying to fix/replace it.

And you get a free month of XBL Gold when you send it it. While not much it does at least cover your lost online time when you don't have you system.
 
Great news for me! My Ybox showed up today! 21 days from shipping it off to its return. Just glad to have it back!
 
Oh Danny Box, the rings, the rings are calling...

Mine came back nice and quick -- here's hoping yours will, too.
 
I'm curious - does Microsoft provide an official explanation with the returned Xbox? I know I would want to know which component 'failed.'
 
That was fast. Mine was gone for two weeks (but it didn't get the RRoD but its CD tray was blocked) so I was sort of overpayed, getting the 1-month free XBox Live.

I actually considered of having the XBox run all day long and more or less force the red ring of death before the warranty expires since I do not use the XBox very frequently. But in the end, I don't think it would be very smart.
 
I'm curious - does Microsoft provide an official explanation with the returned Xbox? I know I would want to know which component 'failed.'

No, I don't believe they've ever officially commented on what exactly is failing inside the box. The official line as far as I can recall is "general hardware failure."
 
To be clear, though, Xboxen aren't failing for lots of reasons -- the thing that results in the red ring, whatever it is, is a single issue... a (now) known manufacturing issue. So getting the lights isn't some indication that a random part has broken.
 
I'm curious - does Microsoft provide an official explanation with the returned Xbox? I know I would want to know which component 'failed.'

I was just talking about this at another forum. Does any company send you a note back with info like that when you send them something to repair/replace?

I actually considered of having the XBox run all day long and more or less force the red ring of death before the warranty expires since I do not use the XBox very frequently. But in the end, I don't think it would be very smart.

Yeah, that'd just up the mileage for no reason. The red ring issue doesn't seem time based (you can get it five minutes in or after two years of heavy usage), and the 360 has a three-year warranty on the red ring worldwide.
 
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