rbj8611 :
I have the old white 360, have had this one4 years. Deleted the cache, didn't try installing to hard drive, but it's too late now. The noises coming from the drive aren't normal at all, at least compared to before the pot tweak. The drive doesn't even seem to try to spin now
🙁 If the sounds are getting worse, it's almost certainly a bad drive. I wish microsoft wouldn't have copped out on a lot of the parts they did, but there are some options for you besides customer support which is an overpriced rip-off:
1) Try replacing the drive. The drive the 360 uses is proprietary, but there may be some used ones out there you can slip into your 360 for a lot less than repairing or buying a new one, but that is assuming you are comfortable enough with hardware to attempt such a thing. You are most likely out of warrentee as well, so I wouldn't worry about voiding it by opening the 360
2) Get a used 360. Don't go for a new 360 unless you plan on not buying an One anytime soon, but if you don't have $500 on hand and still want a gaming console, amazon or other sources should have a decent used 360 for a cheap price.
3) Use this as an initiative to get into PC gaming. Assuming you have the peripherals (hard drive, monitor, keyboard, mouse), you can build a pretty cheap entry level tower with upgrade room from less than $500 and you don't have to deal with microsoft's bloatware on the 360 or One or have to pay for Live. Resolution will be low when you first start out, but one graphics card upgrade, assuming you picked a good cpu, will get you back into at least 720p resolutions. If you need help building a PC, send me a message or head to the systems forum for help. It's easier than you might think!