My beloved Elite 360 has been sent to the retailer for repair.  It is well out of warranty so Microsoft wopuld not repair it for free but I did remember I had purchased the extended warranty for it at the time.

It went on Wednesday with the hard drive attached (the retailer wanted to send both to test both) and now it is in the lap of the gods.

The problem was not the red ring of death nor the E74 error but it simply had a problem recognising discs – game was placed into the tray but instead of showing the picture of the game and option to play it only said “open tray”. 15-20 minutes of faffing around switching on and off and swapping discs and I was getting lucky getti9ng them to work but over a period of a few weeks it was just getting worse.

I don’t usually buy extended warranties but the 360 is such a fragile machine and has so many potential problems it was well worth getting the extended warranty for only £20 or so. A repair from Microsoft would have cost me £60.

Shall I start a book on how long it will take to come back to me and whether it will be fixed properly?