I found a possible solution for Xbox One S/X not reading discs upon initial boot.

cthom14 · Jan 7, 2020

So I've recently had an issue with 2 consecutive Xbox One S consoles not acknowledging that there is a disc in the drive after booting up from energy saving mode, and still wouldn't recognize discs even after ejecting/reinserting a disc. I just figured the
first one was defective, so I returned it, only for the replacement to have the exact same issue. I refused to believe my luck was that bad, so I did some digging that led me to this post from about a year ago.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/xbox-one-x-wont-load-read-discs-unless-i-hard/431383eb-908f-47b1-ad9b-cb7db1adaaef

Exactly like that instance, restarting my Xbox temporarily fixed the problem until the next boot, so I assumed it wasn't a hardware issue with the drive itself. So I started experimenting with different things like having a disc in/not in the drive during
boot-up, and having my external HDD turned on/off during boot-up. (I noticed the person in the post I linked also had an external HDD).

Sure enough, allowing the Xbox to boot up without the external HDD connected solved the problem. I just plug it back in after the boot process is complete. I think something during the process of the Xbox waking up the external HDD interferes
with the initialization of the disc drive. For the record, I never had this issue with my original Xbox One that I had for 5+ years. I had the same HDD all this time (model info posted below), and it just now became a problem with 2 separate One S consoles.

Hopefully this helps someone, and we can get this issue fixed.

:)

GateByte

Nice helpful post. I’m sure it will help others out that encounter the same issue.

mattmatt117

Interesting my Xbox doesn't read any disk and I have tried alot of things to fix it I don't want to send it to get repaired I might try this method to see if it works for me.

{Parity}

Try performing a hard reset EXACTLY like this. Hold the power button on the console for 8 seconds or until the power shuts down completely.
Unplug the power cord from the back of the console for 5 minutes.
Plug the power cord back in and restart the console.

Niels_St

pulling the power cord so now and then is the best solution at this moment... I hope @microsoft can fix this within a couple of days... This is not a working solution...

cthom14

Both of the units that I've had problems with I did a factory reset before I ever used them, and I haven't watched any Blu Rays on them.

Just to clarify, these were 2 used consoles purchased only a few weeks ago. I returned the first one because I just thought it was defective, then this happened again with the second one, so I knew something was up.

I found a possible solution for Xbox One S/X not reading discs upon initial boot.