"DO NOT CHANGE THE POSITION OF YOUR XBOX 360 WHILE IT IS ON WITH A DISC IN THE DRIVE OR YOU RISK POTENTIALLY DAMAGING YOUR GAME DISC.

A growing number of Xbox 360 customers are reporting having problems with their disc's getting scratched by the DVD drive when switching the unit's position from vertical to horizontal and vise versa.. Initially we thought this was the usual fanboy vs. hater propaganda that swirls around the launch of any new console like this. It didn't take long until the seriousness of the situation reared it ugly head right here in the Llamma's shop. I personally have experienced this issue not once but twice already. Here I was at a friends house helping him get this 360 all setup and networked for Live. In the process we decided to lay the Xbox on it side instead of the upright position.. I thought nothing of doing this while the unit was powered up and in the middle of a game. Big Mistake! I felt and heard the scratch happen and immediately thought; uh oh.. I think I just ruined your Call of Duty 2 buddy... sorry! You would have figured I learned my lesson and would be more careful next time I attempted something like that. Yeah.. guess not. Later on back at the Llamma shop I was taking some photos of a 360 when I decided to get a horizontal shot, again it was powered up so I made sure to do it more carefully. I guess that I was not careful enough because I got that distinct vibration and scratch noise again. There was no doubt in my mind what had just happened. I ejected the disc just to see that it was scratched like the first disc in a almost identical fashion. It will prove interesting to see if the reported Microsoft response is true or stands about replacement of the damaged game disks. Here at Llamma we just wanted to know why it was happening." [more]