Good memories, fun games and MY ****ING PS2

[Justinian]

Hello everyone. I've been playing games with my brothers since I was a small, small dude. Since we all chipped in our allowances and bought a PS1 wayyy back, it gave us many bright memories, hours and hours of fun and relaxation, and a little bit of a, well, obsession (I did the math and it would seem Square Enix got about $260 or so of me and my brother's hard-earned allowances between Final Fantasy IV and X, Xenogears, and the Chrono series). So yes, I and my brothers put hours and hours back in the '90s into those wonderful nuggets of RPG orgasm known as Final Fantasy, and I have enough memories of playing FF games to choke a porn star.

So out of sentimentality, and because the games were pretty damn fun, I decided to pop FFVII in my PS2 and give it a whirl. But wait, there's more ... disc read error. I try all the other PS1 era games which were such fun with their black data sides and annoyingly small memory cards and what do you know, even my favorite RPG ever, Chrono Cross, won't work.

Now, I'm very familiar with disc read error and I've quite expertly taken apart my PS2 and carefully cleaned the lens (my warranty had already expired back in 2002, folks) quite a few times over the years, but this last stint has been permanent. Some DVDs will work, others will not, and NONE of my PS1 era games will work. So I have two questions.

1) Will the PS1 greats my PS2 has now failed to read be readable by the much more shiney PS3?
2) Will Final Fantasy XII, due for release in a few weeks, even work on my PS2?

[westy159]

Disc read error eh? You know i have seen so many complaints about this and people have gone to great costly lengths to get it fixed, and you know what i did? Wiped the laser with a piece of cotton wool. Crazy isnt it? The hardest bit is opening your PS2 and not ripping the ribbon that attaches the restart/open disc drive buttons to the actual PS2 hardware (as these buttons are on a lid that comes off).

So...
So pull out a bulky crosshead screwdriver, a very small one crosshead screwdriver and your piece of cotton wool (dry and clean ).

Place the PS2 near a wall in your house. Turn it upside down and pop out the plastic and rubber pads (8 in total). Unscrew the screws and place them on the floor in the order that that go in (so you wont get confused when putting them back in).

Flip the playstation over again and pull the top part of case off (CAREFUL OF RIBBON on the right, where the restart button is). Now rest the lid sideways against the wall as you cant take it too far away from the PS2 thanks to the ribbon.

Use the smaller screwdriver to unscrew the lid to the disc drive. Once your in there, swipe the lens with your cotton wool. Just a quick one and dont rub. Remove any hairs with tweezers if you feel like it and put it all bck together.

Now try FF, works like new doesnt it? You may have to do this process once a month depending on how quickly the laser gets dirty again and you start getting disc read errors.

[Nihil]

Check your PM, Justinian, for Nihil's solution to this one.

[Justinian]

Disc read error eh? You know i have seen so many complaints about this and people have gone to great costly lengths to get it fixed, and you know what i did? Wiped the laser with a piece of cotton wool. Crazy isnt it? The hardest bit is opening your PS2 and not ripping the ribbon that attaches the restart/open disc drive buttons to the actual PS2 hardware (as these buttons are on a lid that comes off).

So...
So pull out a bulky crosshead screwdriver, a very small one crosshead screwdriver and your piece of cotton wool (dry and clean ).

Place the PS2 near a wall in your house. Turn it upside down and pop out the plastic and rubber pads (8 in total). Unscrew the screws and place them on the floor in the order that that go in (so you wont get confused when putting them back in).

Flip the playstation over again and pull the top part of case off (CAREFUL OF RIBBON on the right, where the restart button is). Now rest the lid sideways against the wall as you cant take it too far away from the PS2 thanks to the ribbon.

Use the smaller screwdriver to unscrew the lid to the disc drive. Once your in there, swipe the lens with your cotton wool. Just a quick one and dont rub. Remove any hairs with tweezers if you feel like it and put it all bck together.

Now try FF, works like new doesnt it? You may have to do this process once a month depending on how quickly the laser gets dirty again and you start getting disc read errors.

I've already done that a few times dude, except my used an alcohol swab. I could always do it again though (I am pretty bored)...

[God]

I have the same problem. I would love to play my old ps1 games but can't

Westy's solution seems far too time consuming and I am very lazy.

If I really wanted I'd just spend about $15 on a second-hand playstation... nah

[westy159]

I have the same problem. I would love to play my old ps1 games but can't

Westy's solution seems far too time consuming and I am very lazy.

If I really wanted I'd just spend about $15 on a second-hand playstation... nah

Time consuming? Really? Hmm...

Time taken to fix PS2: 15 minutes
About of time spent on PS2 thanks to fix: 50+ hours (that a full play of FFVII im talking about plus more) I need to get out more...