PS2 caused the circle scratch of death. Prevention measures?

[Mozgus]

No foul on Adderall for selling me the machine, but I came to quite a shock today. I popped in God of War and after a few minutes it locked up during a load point. I reset and then continued, it made it past the point and then froze during a cutscene. I look at the disc. A big circular scratch going all around the disc. Wonderful. Thank you Sony. This is why I avoided this damn console for 7 years. Die plskthx.

So is anyone familiar with this issue? I know it happens with 360s when you jiggle the machine look a moron, but I didnt touch this thing when it was running. What can I do to prevent this. I have 3 brand new games here and I don't want to kill anymore of them. Gamestop said they wont replace them for me after this one.

Also it's PS2 Slim SCPH-70012.

[Adderall]

ouch!

I've played many CDs and DVDs (burnt as well as regular) on that ps2 and it's absolutely *never* done that to me. Although I didn't play it as much as my dreamcast, it has had plenty of discs in it for me to know that it should work fine.

Did you hear any noises when you were playing it? I assumed that I had packed it plenty well enough (I also had them mark it as fragile), but the only thing I can think of is that it was roughed up during shipping. I mean, something has to touch the disc to scratch it, right?

[kinn]

Ouch!

I've only ever had this problem once and it was on my 360. A "friend" of mine wanted to see what the 360 would look like when it was in its vertical position. So he moved it while it was still on and running a game....

Anyway, I heard this can happen with the PS2 as well but like the 360, its happens when someone moves the console while its still on. So perhaps someone did this while you was out? Maybe the disk was already damaged?

I would pick up some cheapo game and use that to test the PS2 before you try your other games just to make sure this doesnt happen again.

[racketboy]

Mozgus and Adderall, did you use it vertically or horizontally?
If you didn't both use it the same way, that may have something to do with it...

[Mozgus]

Horizontal for me. The thing wont stay up very well vertical unless you buy that stand. I didn't hear any grinding except once when a game wasnt situated fully on the spindle, and it did grind but it was grinding the very edge of the disc as it was tilted slightly. That wasnt what created the scratches. Also it was another game.

However I have been playing this and Colossus super loud and I wouldn't have heard a grind, most likely.

And I agree. I never saw my Saturn, Dreamcast, or Gamecube pull this crap on me. They have all been very reliable machines but as usual, with me and friends, Sony fails again. Also my friend's Tekken Tag disc has had the same damage in the past. I'm very sure it's done it to other games of his but I'd need to ask.

[Mozgus]

I just played for 40 min, looked at the new disc, scratched again. What a piece of shit.
OH MY GOD! It did it to every disc I've put in here for the past few days! All the backups even! What the hell?

Upon inspection, its scratching all the discs at about 4/5ths away from the center. Some worse than others. They're very light cuts, and can halfway be buffed out with my shirt, but judging from GOW, the scratches build up over use, because Colossus is the worst, but fortunately the the game doesnt use up 4/5ths of the DVD-R, so the data wasn't scratched.

[racketboy]

I just played for 40 min, looked at the new disc, scratched again. What a piece of shit.
OH MY GOD! It did it to every disc I've put in here for the past few days! All the backups even! What the hell?

Upon inspection, its scratching all the discs at about 4/5ths away from the center. Some worse than others. They're very light cuts, and can halfway be buffed out with my shirt, but judging from GOW, the scratches build up over use, because Colossus is the worst, but fortunately the the game doesnt use up 4/5ths of the DVD-R, so the data wasn't scratched.

Does anything look out of place like the tray alignment? Although, I'm guessing whatever it is is just off slightly enough that it might not be noticeable...

[Adderall]

I'm going to look back at all my ps2 discs when I get home from work.

I was using it Horizontal, not on a stand or anything.

Now, because it's soft modded, there are some pieces in the ps2 to allow the tray to come up. There isn't anything loose in there that could be scratching it?

Occasionally (this is like 3 times out of a thousand) I noticed that if the disc wasn't put in all the way it would make clicking sounds, but that's the closest I ever came to having damaged discs.

I think there would have to be an adjustment with the inside tray, or the circle thing in the middle that spins the disc.....

[D.D.D.]

I had a slight ring scratched into a game (JP MGS2:Substance) when I used Swap Magic on my friend's US PS2...

@ Mozgus - I'm assuming your PS2 and GOW are US ones so it sounds like your PS2 is just defo... That sucks for many reasons but hopefully you can play GOW soon; it's great.

@ Adderall - I heard the same clicking sound when it was scratching my MGS2:S... I then let the PS2 power up, lid open, no game, and it's the lens that goes up and down trying to focus I guess and it's the guard rails on the lens that scratched my disc... If that's what happened on your side...

[Adderall]

well, it's the same PS2 that mozgus and I are talking about...

I checked my discs and I don't have any scratches on them (at least not more than normal, and not specifically all in the same spot). So this really disappoints me that you are having this experience. Have you checked for anything at all that you can adjust to fix it?? There's got to be something different. Does it make any weird noises when you run discs?