umm. this is going to sound silly. but theres youtube videos on how to reset it. it means that you xbox just is angry in my opinion. some videos involve you turning it on with a towel around it so it over heats and shuts it self off. then putting it outside to cool off for a while too reseting some of the hardware. lots of silly things like that. but the one i jusy spoke of my friend did and it fixed his. i would look into it.

Three red quadrants lit on boot (the Red Ring of Death) means there's a hardware failure in one or more components of your Xbox. It's nonspecific and could mean one or more of several parts of the system has failed. To my knowledge, replacement is the usual route here. I'm not a console hacker, of course, but as far as I know, this isn't something folks like us try to fix.

Please do check with someone more handy and less yuppie than myself, though -- I tend to replace, not repair, broken kit.

Mind you, not every red error code is the RRoD. Two red quadrants means the system is overheating, and four means the system is working but can't find/sync with a display.

as long as it's not 1,3 and 4. if those are red, tha'ts the ring of death. odds are it's time to replace, but there you might be able to contact microsoft itself, that might be able to repair it.

I'm just not sure which quadrants are red, so not sure of the exact issue. but most can be researched in their trouble shoot section . http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-.....repair-process

http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-.....-setup/console this should help out a little bit

Is the red ring like the blue screen?

yus, only worse! you can usually recover from a blue screen! red rings are very contagious!..careful Hollie the toaster and microwave are next!!

Three red rings -> general hardware failure. You can get a more specific error code out of it (instructions are on the web) but it's generally useless unless you have access to seriously expensive circuit board repair tools and the information to use them.

One of the hardware guys at work uses Xbox360s for soldering practice... 80% successful repair rate or something like that, but it takes a good hour per unit to do the job properly.

How long have you had it? It might still be under warranty from Microsoft. If you still have the instruction books, there should be a phone number to call directly to Microsoft. They will ask for the serial number and some other numbers. They will then tell you if you are still under warranty. If you are, they will actually send you a UPS box with shipping stickers. They will also do all this for free. A place like Staples or Office Max would have a UPS department. They will also help you with the box if you're having trouble with it. Remember to hold on to your hard drive. This usually takes a couple of weeks to get your system back.
If they say your machine is too old, they'll offer a repair option but if this comes up, it'll be better to just get a new machine. They still sell cores by themselves that work with hard drives.