Black Ops Killing DVD Drives

[Dude]

Hey again all!

I've found myself in a really bad situation  :(  Black Ops killed my Wii...

I actually heard about this problem shortly after buying the game in the callofduty.com forums and wasn't too sure what to make of it.  I quickly forget about it, since I've not had any problems at all...until now.

I've had the game since about a week from release date and played it almost every day.
a few days ago, I was in the middle of an online match and was getting the weirdest, glitchiest lag.  I turn a corner and could see all the way through the floor (as though no textures were loaded for those polygons) and a few seconds later I get a black screen saying "An error has occured.  please eject the disc and turn off the console".

I tried to boot the game again and get the same error partway through loading.  I tried MKW and got into the main menu, started a WW and as soon as I heard the disc loading it started making this "tick tick tick" noise, as though it was trying to find data, and I get the black screen again with that error.

The official Lens cleaner does nothing to fix this and it's the same with all my games now - as soon as it tries to do any heavy disc reading it dies, giving that error.

According to what I've heard, ALL Black Ops gamers have gotten this same problem and it's now a known issue with Nintendo with them offering a free repair.

I really want to know what the heck is going on here.  I've heard that there *might* be a similar problem with the PS3, but can't say for certain.

I'd love to send my Wii off for repair but run a serious risk of losing my BootMii ability, having all homebrew removed and my wii updated.  That's even if they go ahead with the repair AFTER finding the homebrew...

Can anyone advise me on what to do?
I'm no stranger to repairing electronics and have done repairs on my Gamecube numerous times by installing a new lens and calibrating it.
I might buy a new Black Wii and move the DVD mechanism over to my broken White Wii, along with the case :)  100% homebrew vulnerable Black Wii with a black nunchuk and wiimote (hopefully with Motion+ built in) and a copy of Wii sports Resort that I don't yet have.

But...I'm just not sure...
Do'nt want to do that and have the drive fail AGAIN, wasting money, cause there is some other underlying cause.

A new DVD drive will cost me about £50, but they all seem to be *older* units that are refurbished = might die again.
New Wii is about £150-£180, new unit with extras = might die again but cost MORE.

:(

Thanks in advanced.

EDIT:
Just got off the phone with Nintendo.
I declared that other users who got calls back were told by them that it is a known problem, eligible for free repair, even for users who are out of warranty, and asked if they could tell me what is causing it.
They stone-walled me and said that they can't say anything about it as the game was made by Activision, blah blah blah, and that they need the console in order to diagnose.
Researching it online seems to point at the DVD drive getting stressed due to continually streaming data off the disc, burning it out...
Ugh, a new Black wii with the drive and shell moved over to my white one with a harddrive added and loading from THAT instead is looking more and more like the solution.  Don't want this game halving the life of my new drive and then killing it...but don't want to have to use a USBLoader and be looked at as a pirate :(
Then there's the damn issue of failing external drives that I found while reseraching backup solutions for my laptop a while ago!
Happy New Year to me...

[dcx2]

IMO, once the disc drive goes bad, you're justified using a USB loader, as long as you still buy your games.  (especially since Nintendo won't repair yours; they will claim your unauthorized mods broke your console)  If the drive is already dead, then it's hard to load games onto it, though.

I did the same with my old PS2 as well; they are notorious for dying, and my original PS2 from like 2002 is still working thanks to the hdloader, though the drive is in the process of dying since it can only read discs while vertical.

You could probably softmod a black Wii if you have/rent any of the games that can be exploited.  That way you don't need to move the guts from one Wii to another.

[Dude]

Thanks for replying, dcx2.  I can always count on your feedback.

Well, I've always considered getting my hands on a black wii, or even a black case.
The way I'm looking at it is this:
I buy one of the latest black wiis and am sure that I'll get a NEW DVD drive mechanism that is hopefully not vulnerable to any of the problems that caused my current situation, instead of a potentially "refurbished" one.
This also gives me the DVD drive, Official Black case, a copy of Wii Sports Resort (that I don't have), Black Wii Remote PLUS, Black Nunchuck, and a bunch of backup accessories and hardware.
If the broken white wii is broken for some reason other than the DVD drive...then I've got the BLACK one :)

I'm planning on putting the DVD drive into the White one and testing it.  all goes well...I'll see about moving the whole thing to the black case, if I can even be bothered lol
I'll then use the drive to backup my games to a hard drive and use that to play it.  They are rumored to load and play games faster than the disc, anyway.  Everywhere I checked this seems to be true...is this the case?

I'll always be buying the original games.  Nothing beats having original stuff.  And I'll need it to backup to my harddrive (I refuse to download games and couldn't anyway on my connection lol 0.5mbps).  I also need the original game to backup my saves, too, using game save extractor.  Even without this, I like to honor nintendo by paying.

I'll be softmodding the black one, too.  I'll be voiding the warranty one way or another, so hey, why not.

Just been looking at portable harddrives and trying to find the most reliable kind.  it's also going to double as storage for my laptop - something I've wanted for a while.  Feedback on this would be helpful.  Don't want the thing to get a "click of death" or be powering down every few seconds that it's not reading, only to crash teh game.

I also dont want to lose my code creating ability.  I know the policy about "backups" and all related so am hesitant to ask about GeckOS according to it.  If there is somebody with extensive knowledge on backup loaders along with GeckOS and does believe that I am only resorting to this as a way to be able to play again without putting my drive at risk, then please send me a PM to keep it off the boards.  I won't go around PM everyone on this, and there is google I can use.  the drive might hopefully survive the time I use it to boot from geckos, but avoiding it would be helpful.

[Dude]

Alrighty, just received my shiny new Black Wii.
Damn, it looks sexy! lol  Why couldn't it have been this color to begin with!

Not done a thing yet, but I was wondering about IOS58...
This provides USB 2.0 support.  My White Wii, with the broken DVD Drive, has system menu 3.1E.
Will IOS58 be useable on it without any adverse effects?

I want to avoid putting any load on the DVD unit as much as possible, except to use it to transfer my games to my harddrive, and USB 2.0 support would be highly beneficial to me for gaming.

After looking at my Black Wii, I'm hesitant to take a screwdriver to it and swap the DVD unit lol
I want to keep Bootmii (on my White Wii) and I've got a lot of online game saves that I'm not sure will work if I transfer them to the Black Wii...
Ideal scenario would be to hook up the Black Wii, test that it works ok, then swap the DVD drives and save the Black Wii as a backup (homebrew free) while using my White Wii as normal, except for booting games from a harddrive to save the DVD unit - Don't want Black Ops to kill it again.

I can see me having to use the DVD drive in order to do my code creating and hacking.  so, if it DOES fail due to this, I can throw it back into the Black Wii and send it off to Nintendo for repair, hopefully.

Dilema, Dilema, Dilema....

Any help with anything I've mentioned would be highly valuable to me and I wouldn't be able to thank you enough.
Again, to keep all USB Loader stuff off the boards, please send it via PM.

[Bully@Wiiplaza]

I'll then use the drive to backup my games to a hard drive and use that to play it.  They are rumored to load and play games faster than the disc, anyway.  Everywhere I checked this seems to be true...is this the case?

Yes, a bit faster!
Disk has about x6 read speed and harddrive about x8.
Don´t ask me why I am using these numbers, I saw it somewhere.
When I´m playing from disk, it really loads slower then from harddrive... you hear the rumour of the disk, otherwise everything is quiet...

[Sh0tGuN2197]

That is what I resorted to once I heard this about black ops. I then installed a USB loader and copied black ops over... I just shortly after learned to iso mod too, but I guess I won't talk about that much since this is a USB gecko forum... Not the rift place to talk about it anyway.

[dns2]

I personally have Black Ops on a 8gb USB Stick running it from Neogamma w/ IOS249 on 57 and have no issues with it. I'm on an old-school white wii, downgraded to 3.2U. When I originally played it on disc it made hella noise and took FOREVER to load. Every match I would start with an invisible gun for like 30 seconds and often on multiplayer it would freeze on me. Soon as I put it on USB Stick, all problems disappeared.

It's kind of funny because this was when Black Ops first came out, and I even thought to myself, "Damn this things working the hell outta my laser drive."

[Bully@Wiiplaza]

lol
the wii could have a lot of better games, if they were intended to work on a harddrive, since it runs a lot better xD
Black Ops is getting to Wii´s limits though. :P
Online, it stops the game every few seconds and makes scraping sounds when playing combat training with the practice dummies... that didn´t happen before I think. They should fix this laggs finally... they CAN patch as we know :(
And no, other consoles also have these issues with black ops, but not that hard like wii.

[dns2]

You know what, i've been having that same issue with combat training and was wondering if it was just me. I get that weird creepy noise also and sometimes the sound even cuts out completely. Also I really believe Treyarch was so focused on trying to make this game difficult to manipulate so much that they lost focus on what was important, the game itself.

It seems like this game was released before it was really tested and ready. Now, instead of fixing things when they arise, they'd rather wait until they come up with more anti-hack methods before they patch anything truly urgent. [Treyarch.Fail = True]

[dcx2]

*coughs*

Maybe Treyarch would have put more effort into testing the game if they didn't have to design, implement, and test anti-cheating measures.  Once again, hackers bite the hand that feeds them.  Congratulations.