External Hard drive game recovery, and Format storage device error

hobosockmonkey · Dec 5, 2019

I have had a 2 TB seagate external storage device for about a year now, this past Saturday I came back from vacation to my xbox telling me I needed to format my storage device, and saying it was empty (with 1.8 TB remaining). I assumed the hard drive got
damaged or something and got a second seagate 2 TB external hard drive, completely unopened and untouched. Plugged it in, worked fine and downloaded a few games. Now today I come back and it also stopped working, my xbox wants to format it as well, it says
its also empty with 1.8 TB remaining and Im dumbfounded. I literally opened It from the box, plugged it in and sat it down, it wasn't dropped, moved, unplugged, anything. what can I do to fix this issue? can I recover the lost games? or should I reformat the
drive and restart? is this an xbox issue and my console (original xbox one model) somehow managed to brick two hard drives?

As all of you know Hard drives are not cheap and bandwidth is not free, I would like to avoid redownloading everything at all costs.

:)

iTsFx

Hello, I'm Felipe and I'm an independent Community Expert, and I'll do my best to help you.

Error 0x80830003 is a common error code on the Xbox Series X that can occur when saving data to an external storage device. Here are a few steps you can try to resolve this issue:

Restart the console: Sometimes, simply restarting the console can resolve the issue.

Remove and re-insert the external storage device: This can help refresh the connection between the console and the external hard drive.

Format the external storage device: If the external hard drive is not formatted properly, it can cause the error 0x80830003. To format the external hard drive, go to the Xbox settings, then select "System," followed by "Storage." Locate the external hard drive and select "Format Storage Device."

Update your Xbox console: Make sure your Xbox Series X is up-to-date with the latest software update.

Check for any software or firmware updates for the external storage device: Contact the manufacturer of the external storage device to see if there are any updates available.

If these steps do not resolve the error 0x80830003, you may want to consider contacting Xbox support for further assistance.

hobosockmonkey

I am not having any issues with internally stored games, just games stored on the external hard drives

XBF Brad A

Hello Hobosock,

Thanks for coming to the forums. We understand having an issue with the external Hard drives. Are you using the same HDMI port when connecting the External HD? If the console is asking you to reformat then there is no way of recovering what was stored on
them unfortunately. You can reformat the drive again, we recommend download 1 game and try it out for a bit. If it continues to do this, there may be an issue with the console. You can also try installing them to the internal and see if they stay installed
there.

Thanks,

Brad

XBF Brad A

Hello Edward,

Thanks for the replies. We recommend trying to format the external hard drive on a PC. Make sure to format to NTFS. Also here is a guide for issues

detecting external hard drive. If the hard drive is not compatible with the console it will read it as a media device no matter the format.

Thanks,

Brad

ThisGameIsSucky

This guide from WindowsCentral about hard drives on the Xbox One should prove useful.

https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-one-external-hard-drive-guide

The hard drive formatting process could take anywhere from no time at all to a while depending on the size of the hard drive in some cases. As stated by WindowsCentral on how to properly format:

1. Connect your external hard drive to an Xbox One USB port. An on-screen pop-up will display.

2. Select Format storage device.

3. Enter a name for the drive using the on-screen keyboard.

4. Select Install new things here to automatically install future games on this drive.

5. Select Format storage device.

If you run into any problems refer to this Xbox Support page about external storage troubleshooting.

https://beta.support.xbox.com/help/hardware-network/storage/console-doesnt-detect-external-storage

External Hard drive game recovery, and Format storage device error