Wii disc drive problems

[Blayze]

I've had my Wii since May, and its having some disc read problems. It only happens when loading a disc, and if the disc loads the game works fine. It also only happens about 20% of the time.

What happens is the disc drive clicks, and then eventually goes to a disc read error black screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfI9xg8yfC0

Thats not my Wii, but a problem similar to what I am having. It did this a few times when I first got the system, and I didn't think anything about it. Now its worse. Could this be caused by interference or is my disc drive slowly going out?

Also what is the best way to get my system repaired/replaced? I don't have any VC games. Can I just backup my game saves to a SD card and then get a advanced system replacement from Nintendo? If not whats the best way to pack up the system for shipping since Nintendo only provides a shipping label.

I assume the systems you get back are refurbs. Is that correct? I really hate the ideal of getting a refurb for a 3 month old system that barely gets any use... I guess its better than a broken one though.

 

[tw1164]

Just call up Nintendo, they have great customer service (from what I hear).

 

[Blayze]

Going to do that later today. Its still pretty hit and miss on getting the game to load. Once it loads it works fine, but I did notice something a few minutes ago.

I exited a game, to check something on another channel. Later when I tried to reload the game it started clicking and gave an error.

 

[Beev]

Way back when I was still playing Zelda (so probably ~3 weeks after launch) I booted up my Wii and the game just flat out wouldn't load. Restarted it and I've never had a problem since. Do you generally just eject it and try again?

 

[RandomFool]

I've had issues getting games to load too and occasionally clicking. I usually just reset it and it works fine.

Maybe I should be making a call to Nintendo too.

 

[Blayze]

Yeah I just eject it and try again. Usually the 2nd try works.

 

[mlm]

Make sure they transfer all your account information to the new one. They didn't do that for us, and we lost all of the ATOT Miis.

 

[Blayze]

Originally posted by: mlm
Make sure they transfer all your account information to the new one. They didn't do that for us, and we lost all of the ATOT Miis.

How was the repair service? Did you get your original console back or a refurb? Also what did you have to send in, and the best way to package it?

 

[mlm]

This was a month after they came out, so I'm pretty sure we got back a brand new one. Definitely not our original though.

The service was fine, but we did it completely online.

Don't remember how we packaged it...