XBox 360 USB Hard Drive - Please Help Idiot

rwenzori

rwenzori

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Please help a clueless father!

My boy wants to add an external USB hard drive to his 360 as he has used up almost all the space on the built-in one. Are there any pitfalls, or will your common-or-garden drive work? What other things are there to worry about - portability maybe?

TIA
 
unfortunately you can't use any old drive on the 360 for Xbox Live content, it has to be a 360 one.

However, if it's for streaming movies or listening to music you can use pretty much any USB drive, the only trick is it has to be formated FAT32, which can be a bit interesting . . .
 
doobiwan said:
unfortunately you can't use any old drive on the 360 for Xbox Live content, it has to be a 360 one.

However, if it's for streaming movies or listening to music you can use pretty much any USB drive, the only trick is it has to be formated FAT32, which can be a bit interesting . . .
Click to expand...

Ah! Great help so far! I couldn't renew his "LIVE" subscription because MS seemed to change the credit card validation rules in spite of my best effort to give it a foreign address. I must ask him what he stores on there. The FAT32 tip is seriously helpful! How big a drive can one format to FAT32? 80GB? 120GB? ( It's been a long time LOL! ).
 
The irony is if you use windows it's a hack and it can only do up to 32Gb :( Might as well just use a USB stick.

Many external drives are formatted FAT32 by the factory which is a win, try find out before you buy one. Failing that the easiest solution is to get your hands on a linux Live CD (Linux that'll run straight from a CD) and use that to format as FAT 32.

Ask at the store you buy it, maybe they'll be able to do it for you.
 
doobiwan said:
The irony is if you use windows it's a hack and it can only do up to 32Gb :( Might as well just use a USB stick.

Many external drives are formatted FAT32 by the factory which is a win, try find out before you buy one. Failing that the easiest solution is to get your hands on a linux Live CD (Linux that'll run straight from a CD) and use that to format as FAT 32.

Ask at the store you buy it, maybe they'll be able to do it for you.
Click to expand...

Yes of course - the externals I have were all FAT32 - I had to reformat to NTFS. I do have a couple of Linux machines if all else fails.

Thanks VERY much for your help - much appreciated!
:)
 
Isn't there a hack so that we can use exturnal HDDs for Live content?
 
Ghost02 said:
Isn't there a hack so that we can use exturnal HDDs for Live content?
Click to expand...

Nope. You would have to follow a very complicated process of getting the root contents of a legit drive and putting that in the root of the proper hard drive. Even that will only work if you put it in the Microsoft slot, not via USB.
 
rwenzori said:
Thanks. But 1 TB for the little ( actually taller than me! ) bugger - nope!
:D
Click to expand...

But you need to remember, an external HDD can only be used for media, etc. Saving game files and LIVE content only works on the original MS HDD and Memory Card.
 
DeFunct said:
But you need to remember, an external HDD can only be used for media, etc. Saving game files and LIVE content only works on the original MS HDD and Memory Card.
Click to expand...

Bleh! Typical MS anticompetitive stuff! Thanks for the info.
 
A Little disc maintenance would do the trick,

First place would be to check save games, I had over 700 megs of save games just for oblivion because i created a new save every time and had a few hundred of them. Only 2 or 3 would have been enough.

Other would be demos - do you really need the Lego star wars demo - when the game can be bought for R100.

Game videos, do you still need last years gears trailers etc.

Game downloaded content - do you still need the maps for cod2 that you have played 2 years ago.
 
Last edited:
Ewie said:
A Little disc maintenance would do the tirck,

First place would be to check save games, I had over 700 megs of save games just for oblivion because i created a new save every time and had a few hundred of them.

Other would be demos - do you really need the Lego star wars demo - when the game can be bought for R100.

Game videos, do you still need last years gears trailers etc.
Click to expand...

At the cost of bandwidth it'll be cheaper to buy a new HDD :p
 
what formats can the xbox read? I have a unused 160gb external here which would be a nice add on :D
 
It's me again, clueless and confused!

Would it be an alternative to buy a second XBox hard drive? Are they easily swappable? Does he lose all his settings ( esp. the friggin TCP/IP wireless network settings that were a pain to get working )? The guy at the Incredible suggested this route, but I have zero trust in their knowledge!!

TIA
 
Anyone? I have been through the faq, and other faqs, and searched, but all I seem to find are "schemes" for replacing drives with non-MS ones.

Thanks.
 
I don't think that the network settings are stored on the hard drive, only saved games, demos and whatever other miscellaneous stuff he saved to it. My reasoning is because the Arcade (with no hard drive) stores the network settings. However I'll wait on somebody more knowledgeable to confirm :D
 
Smooth Criminal said:
I don't think that the network settings are stored on the hard drive, only saved games, demos and whatever other miscellaneous stuff he saved to it. My reasoning is because the Arcade (with no hard drive) stores the network settings. However I'll wait on somebody more knowledgeable to confirm :D
Click to expand...

Thanks man! Are the drives fairly easy to swap?
 
Drives are easy to swap, but get the 60 gig drive or try and find a 120 gig xbox drive,
also best would then be to have the gamer profile a memory stick as you can not have ot on 2 drives at the same time, your content can not be transferred to the new drive except the 120 if you get the transfer kit.

So 20 20 gig drives with a additional memory card (Microsoft only) will do the trick.

If you do not go the memory card route you will need to recover the profile everytime you swap hard drives and it take some time over live.
 
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