So, I posted this to r/gaming as well and I couldn't find an original Xbox subreddit or more appropriate place to put this so if you can redirect me that helps as well

So, I have my original Xbox, had it since...04/05. Worked well always. More recently, I've noticed that the DVD drive sometimes doesn't want to stay closed. From my basic research so far I've noticed it's a Samsung drive. Here's what typically happens when I want to start a game

Turn on system. Audio and video is perfect, system start up screen is on the TV. No game inside.

I press eject and the light flashes green and it sounds like the motor is moving but then it makes a thunk type sound and does not open. If I give it a smack (not too hard) it tends to finally spit the drive out.

Screen goes to system menu (Music, Memory, Xbox Live, etc.)

So now I put a disk in and press eject. The light flashes green, sounds like the motor is about to spin or start and then after 2 or 3 seconds it spits the disc out. This can happen for a few seconds or few minutes or just keep going.

After random amounts of spitting out and in and just stopping and repeating the cycle, a game will finally start up. I try it with all my games so I know it's not the discs.

From what I've read, the possible reasons for the drive not wanting to stay in and read discs rights are that the tray could just be knocked out of alignment or something like that. Might be some switch inside thats keeping it from closing properly or it could be something I need to retune because in my younger years I would manually shove the disc drive closed with my hand (never too rough but I was young and foolish and now I know better then to do that)

I have the proper tools to take apart my system and I even have an extra system I snagged recently at a Goodwill for 20$. I was planning on just switching Hard drives with the two systems but the second one has a Thomson drive and it sounds really old and probably needs a cleaning of its own.

I'm mainly worried about fixing the Samsung one.

Any help or advice or a basic tutorial is appreciated.

I would love to have my system back in perfect working order

Thank you