Inside the XBOX 360 is a poorly designed DVD drive manufactured by Hitachi. If you experience a loud screeching noise, which can potentially destroy your video games, I recommend not using the XBOX until you fix the problem. The problem that is occurring is within the DVD drive and can be fixed. You can obviously contact XBOX (1800-4my-xbox) and they will most likely fix it for free; they will send you a box, you ship it to them, they fix it, and you will get your XBOX back maybe in two [2] MONTHS. Frankly I prefer to fix this myself. To fix this simple problem you will have to open your XBOX. This will require some tinkering. You will need a very small flat head screwdriver, and a set of allan keys. First you have to open the case. Take the flat head and pry off the front faceplate; which is designed to be EASILY removed. Then you have to remove the side, dark grey, panels. There are tabs that hold it in place, which you can insert the screwdriver in the side holes to pop the clips out of place. There are six clips on each panel. You can now open the front by placing the flat head screwdriver under the clips, lift them, and lift the front of the XBOX cover. On the back of the case is the remaining seven [7] small, very small, holes that provide access to the clips. Place the small flat head into the holes, and apply substantial pressure to release the clip. This can be quite a tedious process as you will indeed observe; but after some diligence you will succeed! Once the bottom of the case is completely removed you will notice that the top of the XBOX case is actually screwed to the main system. You will need allan keys to remove the screws. You may actually get away will a properly sized flat head if you cannot get your hands on allan keys. Remove the silver screws, then remove the top of the system. By removing the silver screws you mostly likely have freed the DVD drive, otherwise remove any remaining screws that are holding the DVD drive in place. Proceed to unplug the DVD drive connections, and remove the drive from the XBOX. There are 6 screws in the DVD drive. Remove all 6 screws. Remove both the top and bottom parts to the case. Heres the easy part.

Red ring of death

The cause of the scratching noise is LOOSE MAGNETS. This is some simple problem, with such a simple solution. You will notice when you remove the top part of the DVD drive case that magnets are attached to it. These magnets are supposed to be in the center of the black colored DVD spindle; the place where you actually put the game disk. Take the magnets off the top of the case, and place a small amount of Gorilla glue, or super glue, or apoxy, on the magnets and re-insert then into the center of the black spindle. Let the glue dry then simply put your system back together in the same order that it was taken apart. BAM! A working XBOX 360 Again :)