Plants vs Zombies - stops working after START button pressed

[teamhutcho]

For the past 3 weeks Plant vs Zombies will not play after the START button is pressed.

The screen turns black and nothing else happens. We bought this XBOX 360 game, new (not 2nd hand), in September 2014.

Is there any help available for this problem?

Thanks

[FatalGrief · Accepted solution]

That will more than likely be your issue. That sounds like "laser burn" to me, & can be caused by the disc not being seated in the tray properly. It is possible for it to be repaired. Game (or other retailers) can try & repair it for a nominal fee (less than £5), & I can attest that the process is very effective as my son has done this to several discs. Also, be wary when buying pre-owned games, as retailers have attempted to sell me a burnt disc in the past. Visually check the disc at the point of sale. Tiny scratches are fine but any large scratches or burn rings are not. Another option is for you to return your disc & buy the digital download from XBOX Live. PVZ GW is currently on offer at £8.49. But I would suggest that you read all the other topics on the issues with this game & particularly the EA servers before you spend any more of your money.

[FatalGrief]

Are you playing from the disc version of the game? If so, examine your disc for scratches etc, & clean it if necessary. It is also a good idea to install disc-based games on the hard drive of the console, then it only checks to see if the correct disc is in the optical drive & loads all the data from the hard drive.

[EA_Jenni]

You can also try deleting the game (Saves are on the cloud) and redownloading.  Make sure you have rebooted your 360 at some point as well.

Other games are working fine?  Sometimes when 360s get older they start doing weird things like not playing disks properly 

[teamhutcho]

Thanks for the reply. I will try the idea you suggested of saving the game to the hard drive of the console for the next disk game I buy.

I can see that the disk has a circular ridge running around it. I tried cleaning it but it must be too bad. Is there anything that can be applied to a scratched disk to keep it working? 

Thanks!

[FatalGrief · Accepted solution]

That will more than likely be your issue. That sounds like "laser burn" to me, & can be caused by the disc not being seated in the tray properly. It is possible for it to be repaired. Game (or other retailers) can try & repair it for a nominal fee (less than £5), & I can attest that the process is very effective as my son has done this to several discs. Also, be wary when buying pre-owned games, as retailers have attempted to sell me a burnt disc in the past. Visually check the disc at the point of sale. Tiny scratches are fine but any large scratches or burn rings are not. Another option is for you to return your disc & buy the digital download from XBOX Live. PVZ GW is currently on offer at £8.49. But I would suggest that you read all the other topics on the issues with this game & particularly the EA servers before you spend any more of your money.

[teamhutcho]

Thanks very much for your advice fatalgrief!