Replacing Laser On Xbox Disc Drive

[MrLonely]

I wouldn't consider this necessarily a mod as much as a repair but I wanted to talk about how when I was 14 and had absolutely no clue how anything on an xbox worked, I replaced the laser on my disc drive in an xbox that was completely stock (at the time).

Now I don't know if I actually fixed the problem but it sure seems like it. At one point I stopped being able to load games from the drive, no games worked except for some reason the JSRF/SEGA GT 2002 game worked every time that originally came with the system. So at the time, all I could think was that the laser was bad and that the only option was to replace it. So I went to Ebay and searched for an original xbox laser and sure enough found one for I believe around $15USD.

I swapped it into my drive and its been loading games perfectly fine since. Only I don't know if that affected its ability to read other disc types. In any case, I've read everywhere, for the most part, that people who have dead drives have no choice but to go buy another xbox that still has one working.

So the conclusion I am coming to is, why have I not seen anyone mention buying a replacement laser? Did I just happen to find one or did it not occur to anyone that you could potentially just replace the laser?

Was just one of my thoughts I've had for several years and just wanted to share and see what other people thought or know about replacing just the laser.

[MrLonely]

And just realized that if I scrolled further there was a repair thread, though I am not looking for help so hopefully here is still ok.