I've had my console since launch and the manufactuor date was October 2005. I've never had any problems. A few weeks ago when I turned it on, I got one red light and error 79 (if iremember correctly) which after some research I discovered was a "generic hardware failure." It suggested to remove all usb devices and the hd and then try to reboot. Before I attempted that, I shut it off, removed my xbox 64mb memory card and rebooted, the error and 1 red lights were gone!!!! I then plugged back in the memory card, no issues since then. Very strange, anyone else run into a similar issue? I've since them been able to save to and delete from the memory card. I'm positive that the card was plugged all the way in that day.
I'm not willing to settle with "it was an issue with the memory card."