Alright, so you have your Xbox 360 sitting by your ultimate set up. You go to turn it on - Lo' and behold, red lights appear around the "Ring of Light". Oh man, you broke your only salvation, what do you do know? Immediately call Microsoft and tell them they screwed you over? Punch yourself in the face? What should you do? We'll show you the possibilities, and how to preform your own troubleshooting.
Three Red Lights!
Alright, so you're experiencing three red lights when you turn on your Xbox 360. This isn't normal. There is a number of things that this could be caused by, but guessing by the amount of problems Microsoft has been having prior to launch of the Xbox 360, there are only a couple of things that has most likely happened to your 'Box.
Check your wires and plug-ins
Although this is rather rudimentary, it is very possible - do not overlook this! One of the things that happens to people is they go and move somethings, in this case their Xbox, and a cable gets loose enough that it is technically disconnected from the Xbox. When this happens, the Xbox 360 will notice that a connection is missing and show you the red. Again, check your cables, they might not be completely plugged in (I know that the Xbox 360's cables are pretty tough to connect) This should be the first thing before moving on to the possibilities that things are more serious.
Another thing to check is if any of your other accessories are plugged in properly. Usually your things will work only if they are plugged in properly (such as an iPod, or a wired controller), so this shouldn't be the case. But, its certainly possible and you should always check your things to make sure they are working, and not locking up the system when you try to turn it on.
Removable Media
With an Xbox 360, you really do need some sort of storage device to keep your game profiles and save games. Your two options are the Hard Drive (HDD) and/or Memory unit. Both of these are important removable media, and could be the reason why your Xbox 360 won't start. Make sure you haven't accidentally pushed the 'eject' button on your Hard Drive and loosened it from the console. This could result in damages, I cannot stress enough,
make sure its plugged in - please! Also remove any games you have in the Xbox.
Its Plugged In, I Swear...
So, everything looks alright, and you are still getting the boot error (red lights) on your Xbox 360. What could possibly be the problem? A lot of problems seem to be stemming from the HDD. Its pretty hard to determine why this happens because we can't debug any of the system, but like a PC it can most likely be fixed anyway.
What you should try doing, is by first turning on your Xbox 360. Then, shut it off. After that, remove the HDD by popping in the button on the top panel (to the front), and unhatching it from the console. Be careful not to bend the connector or anything (this is hard to do anyway). Turn on your Xbox 360, without the HDD attached; let it boot up, wait until the dashboard is showing on your screen before you proceed to turn it back off, and reattach the hard drive and turn it back on.
Although this seems really retarded, it has helped some people with these problems - so it might help you! This is also hard to explain why it might or might not work. One of the reasons why it might work is that there is a file or bits of information stuck in the cache trying to transfer over to the HDD. When you turn your Xbox 360 on without the hard drive, it thinks this file doesn't belong and simply discards it, fixing your problem. But, there are probably other, more complex reasons why this might work.
Nope, it no work!
Unfortunately, there isn't much else you can do but to check wires, and do that funky thing with your HDD. It is tough to diagnose what is wrong, simply because, unlike a computer, we don't have access to a control panel where we would be able to self-diagnose problems. With this said, I wonder if the Xbox has a "safe-mode"? Who knows.
You shouldn't really open your Xbox up (if you can figure out how), due to warrantee reasons; just a forewarning. Because if all else fails, 1-800-4MYXBOX.
If you weren't able to fix your Xbox 360 either using this little guide or your own self curiousity tinkering, we recommend contacting Xbox support and find out anything else you might be able to do. If worse comes to worse, they are willing to replace the broken box. But hey, it happens to the best of us.
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