Can't Download Games to Portable Hard Drive (PC)

Matt4815 · Nov 30, 2021

Hello! I've seen this problem come up many times, and solutions found and people leave happy... all except me

So, when I try to download a game from Xbox Game Pass for PC, it asks me where I want to install the game. Here's the stressful part:

- On Windows 10 "Change where new content is saved", I have it set to new apps will save to D: (the portable HDD).
- On XBOX under settings I have it set to default save to D:

These are the two common solutions. I reformatted the drive to remove the WindowsApps error I had the first time around, and that helped me be able to set the D: drive as the default save location in both the app and Windows. But... it still does not show me the option when I click install of any game to save to D: !

Any ideas what else I can try? I am stumped, everyone else who asked just had to reformat and set the defaults, but it isn't working for me! Why does it let me set that as my default but then not give me the option to install there?

:)

XBF-JoannaDark

Hi, Matt4815,

Thanks for reaching out to the Xbox forums! I am sorry to hear that you are struggling with installing games on an external HDD. I am more than happy to help and provide a solution that fixes your problem. Would you please try the suggested solution I provided below?

Solution 1: How to format a USB flash drive or external storage device to NTFS on Windows | Xbox Support . Please make sure that your external hard drive is formatted correctly, and then do the other steps of making sure you make it the default location if you want to.

Solution 2: Please make sure you also set the installation path in the Xbox App.

Open Xbox App
Then on the upper-right corner, select your profile icon.
Select settings
Then select General
Under Change where this app install games by default
Make sure "Ask me for install options on every install" is checked

I hope these suggestions help! If this answers your question, please mark the thread as “Answered.”

Shaggy2000

Ok, we'll call your home console A and your girlfriends console B

You download a game on console A and play it, you then go to console B and sign in, you will have to re-download the game on console B to play it.

With a portable hard drive though, all you do is download the game onto the portable hard drive (think there is an option to transfer content from internal HDD to external HDD somewhere) play it on console A.

when you go to your girlfriends, plug in the hard drive and sign in, no need to re-download anything.

SteelCityShadow

Thank you guys, I was weiry of purchasing digital BF1 and Cod incase I had a problem, never purchased a digital game before

Farscape247

welcome to the future lol. also digital can be a little more convenient than disc.

The Omega m4n

As long as you have your profile on the other console and are signed in on said console, everything should work ok.

Can't Download Games to Portable Hard Drive (PC)