Most of my games seem to be having the same problem lately. It sounds like the disc is speeding up and down while trying to read. Either the system locks up or I just get the message that the disc is bad. This has happened with brand new games. Can the DVD drive be replaced with a standard pc DVD drive or is this one unique? Or, is it possibly the hard drive causing this. Let me know what you think.

Try and take it back from where you got it.

No. Microsoft said do not send it back to the store, they suggest us to send it back to Microsoft. It's in manual or some papers that came with XBox.

My left joystick on my control pad woesn't respond.

damn_controller

You can get an extended warranty from Best Buy and other places where you can exchange a bad x-box for a new one. It's better than the MS warranty.

I have had the Xbox since launch date. I believe the warrenty period has ran out. Options?

Sign up for the Microsoft warranty, wait two weeks or so and then call them up and tell them you need it serviced under warrranty .

looks like your dvd drive is dead....try http://www.xbox-scene.com , u should find a guide on how to replace the dvd drive under the "tutorials" section...hope that helps