Gears of War 2 Dirty Disc Error?

Hello, Iam starting this thread because Iam wondering if anyone is experiencing the same problems as Iam with the new Gears of War 2 video game for the X-box 360. I just bought my X-box 360 3 weeks ago, and I have not had a problem untill I bought Gears of War 2. I played it for about 30 minutes or so (awesome game!), but I got a disc unreadable error, and it told me to clean the disc. I know that couldn't of been the problem, because it was brand new.

So I took it back to the game store, and picked up a new copy. Got it home and the same exact thing happened after about a half hour. After that, if you try to immediately restart, it won't play 5 minutes of the game, untill you let the console sit for awhile. I have not experienced this problem with any other game, and as I have said, it has been fine for the last 3 weeks.

Iam wonder if it is just the game, and some kind of software problem, or is it my console? I would also like to know if there is anyone else experiencing the same problems with this game, or with their console.

Thanks, any help would be greatly appreciated!!

reply to post by schism85


Yea, I am getting the same thing. I just downloaded the old multiplayer maps, and after that my game would freeze right after I loaded the maps in multiplayer mode. I could play campaign just fine, but for somereason online play was freezing.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


I have been getting the same error thing on mine. I cleaned the disk about 3 times and it was still giving me the error when I tried matchmaking. Now I am on horde with a private party and it is working fine. I wonder how many people are having that problem?

I have been having the same problem, on my 3rd Gears of Wear 2 disc.
All my other games work fine. Called microsoft said it has to be a bad disc...big help they where. 1st disc would play, then a "disc unreadable" message game up. 2 disc read "game unplayable" and the 3rd disc would do the same as the 1st. I thought it was a bad disc but three!!! I guess I will have to buy the new Call of Duty instead. Let me know if you hear any good news!!

3 trips to the store and pissed off!!!

Same problem here, doesn't happen with any other game, just GOW 2. I have to eject the disc and re-insert it to get it to work. Annoying.

Having the exact same problem, I swapped it out for another copy and it's still doing it, WTF.

Mine is doing the same and I am on my 2nd disc also.

I was hoping it would just be a software patch, but nope no matter how many different profiles or times I restart it keeps on stuffing up

Im having the exact same problem schism85. Ive also gone through 2 Gears of War disks, both saying the disk is unreadable about 10 or so minutes into the game. I have other games that play 100% fine. I dont know what we can do? I think youre only allowed 1 exhcange and then you have to send it to EPIC I think. We might just have to wait longer so more can complain about the same problem...

reply to post by schism85

yeh man i have had 2 copies of gears 2 and both of them after 1day comes up disc unreadable and when i look at the disc its scratched to hell but all my other games work fine and have no scratches so i think the gears 2 game discs arent made right or something

reply to post by schism85


ha, man, ive been posting about this on forums on xbox.com and gearsofwar.com! its soo annoying isnt it, well in this case, its not my xbox but my brothers, but wth... he bought his xbox 3 days before gears of war 2 came out, and he played the hell out of fallout 3 until gears release without a hitch. gears 2 allows him to play for random amounts of time, sometimes a minute, sometimes an hour.

heres the story if you want more...

my brother's having a major issue regarding gears of war 2 and the error- disc unreadable-while playing campaign or multiplayer. ive heard many say its more than likely his xbox hardware about to give in soon, that the lens isnt working or to try to replace the game.

heres the situation though, my brother bought his xbox(arcade) 3 days before gears of war 2 came out, and up until then he was playing fallout 3 nonstop without a hitch. so hes playing on a brand new xbox with new lens and hardware i suppose, and when gears 2 comes out, we both get our copies from the same place, we both start a system link horde mode and within 10 minutes, he exits the game with a disc unreadable error. we think its a one time problem and try campaign. same problem occurs.

so we decide to return his game and exchange it for a new one. we get home, play campaign and within half an hour, same problem. since he just bought the xbox, we decide to exchange it for a new one. we get home, hook it up and an hour in, same problem. he tries my cd and i try using his, 10 minutes pass before he is exited out by the disc unreadable error. we decide to try returning the game one last time. SAME PROBLEM.

so in the end, we returned our game 3 times, and we are about to return his xbox one last time. maybe we just got really unlucky... does anyone out there with an arcade system have the same issue? im guessing this is more than just an arcade issue though.
-problem occurs online too, extremely annoying when u add that ontop of it taking half an hour to get a game and then you get one and it throws you out!!!

Same problem with my X-Box/Gears of war 2, at first I thought maybe it's because it's overheating, but I have it in a cool area, and I'm on my 3rd copy of GOW2 as well. I bought my X-box in late September, early October. The Arcade version, I'm thinking that it might be the fact that I have a 256mb Memory Card/Unit, instead of an actual Harddrive. This happening to people that have a harddrive as well, or just people with 256mb MC?

[edit on 10-11-2008 by Biojjnoj]

Having this problem too. My XBOX is brand new and it's not occurring with any other games.
I think certain stores may be selling faulty copies (not, of course, on purpose) - can anyone confirm that they bought a second copy in a different store and the problem persisted?

PS: I'm using a MU as well - that may indeed be a factor.

Im having the same problem as well but my xbox isnt an arcade and I have a hard drive so its not exclusive to arcade machines i dont even get the 10 minutes of play i get about 10 seconds before the drive stops spinning and i get the disc read error epic really needs to work on this epic fail.

Wow, Iam glad to see that you all have posted, thank you.

Iam glad too hear Iam not alone in this incident. I also have a brand new Xbox arcade, no more than 3 weeks old. I tried my second copy of GoW again this morning, hoping I could get a half hour of play in, and no luck. Two minutes in, I got the error message again. I sold it back to gamestop, and lost out on $30. All my other games work perfect. Iam corresponding with Microsoft through email about what this problem may be, but I know it won't do much good. If this is just the games problems, Iam not comfortable with sending my Xbox in to Microsoft. That really sucks, because that game was awesome! I hope my Xbox doesn't start acting up now.

I would like to hear if anyone gets anywhere with this problem. Please, respond to this thread if someone figures out what the deal is.

Thanks for the help!!

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


I talked to the guy at Gamestop this morning, and he said that he hasn't recieved any complaints about the game. I don't know how fast they are selling, or if he is just lying, but thats what he said. I didn't go through another store, I already lost out on $30. The last thing I wanted to do was go to another store, buy another bad copy, and lose out on another $30.


reply to post by Anonymous ATS


I have a brand new arcade, as I said in my previous post. Maybe the problem is with the newer Xboxes? I have seen a few people say they have new ones. I bought mine 3 weeks ago. It was made in July.

My question to everyone with this problem is........

how old is your Xbox?







[edit on 10-11-2008 by schism85]

reply to post by schism85


I've been having the same exact issue. I've exchanged the disc twice already and its still unreadable. The thing is the First Disc actually worked for about a half hour or so now when I go into the main menu the disc drive stops reading. My Xbox I bought a year ago, its the Special Edition Halo version. I really think something has to happen with this, I've read that so many people are having the same problem with this disc. Thing is, Fable 2. Is any one having problems with that game? Mine, it takes restarting my console a few times before it even will read. Games like Saints Row 2, Oblivion, As. Creed works just fine without any hitch.

Its bad really. Paying 60 dollars for a game that we cannot return to a store. Even if we've exchanged it and still doesn't work. They gotta fix this some how.

I have the same problem. I returned my first copy back to best buy thinking it was the disk, but the second disk acts the same way. I was using a brand new arcade system and a memory unit, no hard drive. Is anyone else having this problem using a hard drive? I played it on my old xbox 360 (first gen) and it works fine. So its gotta be a problem the way these particular xbox's are reading the system. I'm gonna forward these messages to both EPIC and MS hoping they get to the problem. Everyone should probably do the same so they can take this issue seriously.

I am having the same problem. Thing is, it didnt start until AFTER I downloaded the old multiplayer maps. Is this the case for anyone else?

Heres a post that I made on epic forums, which describe the problem i'm experiencing :

I got exactly the same problem as you describe, I bought the game, played for about 20 minutes and bam, "This disk is unreadable". My xbox is an arcade too, since my premium got an RROD and im without warranty. My arcade can play any of my 30+ xbox 360 games, im playing fallout 3 for about 10 hours a day since it came out and I got no problem at all. So, i tried to repair my RROD premium box to see what could happen. I succeed in the repair, doing the trick we can find on the web, so I tried to play gears 2, and to my suprise, the game works well! I played for about 2 hours straight without any problem.

So, my guess is that the arcade version got a different DVD drive, which is unable to correctly read the disk of gears 2 for whatever reason, maybe the lens is less powerful, plus the fact that maybe the gears 2 disk is made differently and more "difficult" to read for the arcade dvd drive, I dunno. All of my games works with my arcade without a hitch, but not gears 2. I noticed a little "gas stain" on the disk though, like if the glue they use to put the disk together was not completely uniform, it's like a triangular shape that goes from the center to the outside of the disk, and it's inside the disk. I will exchange the game at the store I bought it from and see what happens, but I guess that the problem won't go away since I believe those gears 2 disk are kind of faulty, and the new dvd drive they use in the arcade system, or maybe in newer elite and premium too, cannot read it correctly.

I searched the web and I found several complaint from gamers that experience the same problem with gears 2, and a lot of them say they can play without any problem. Maybe that mostly all of those who can't play got an arcade xbox or a newer xbox since they probably use all the same new DVD drive, and the others got a premium of elite, or just an older xbox with the older dvd drive, I dunno.

I'll try to exchange the game and see what happens, I'll keep you informed about the outcome.

The problem is definitely not with the absence of an hard drive on the arcade xbox, since i'm using my old 20gb from my bricked RROD premium (now kinda fixed, but anyway) on my newer arcade version, which i bought to replace the older one. That was cheaper than buying another premium box since my old hd is working. Theres so much complaints right now from people that got the same problem as mine that now I really think that the problem comes from the "newer" dvd drive used in new systems, especially in arcade sku, but maybe the same newer drive is used in all new xbox, premium, elite and arcade, I dunno.

For now, the problem seems to be arcade related. I expect to see a disk replacement program coming soon from MS, as soon as they figure out that theres a big compatibility problem with gears 2 disk and the newer dvd drives. Anyway, for now, i'm pissed.