External hard drive not formatting on Xbox One

FatedScythe777 · Feb 26, 2018

I'm having issues formatting an external hard drive I just bought for my Xbox One. So I bought a Western Digital 4TB My Passport hard drive (yes it is USB 3.0) to increase the storage for my games. When I plug it in it asks me if I would like to use it for
media or format it to store games and apps. I select format and then it asks me to name the drive. i do so and of course next it asks if I want to install things on the new drive or continue using my current drive. I select the new drive and then it asks me
if I want to cancel or format the HDD. I select format. Nothing happens after that. The menu closes out and I presume that it is formatting, the HDD's light is one and you can feel the drive running. But if you go into system setting and go to storage it doesn't
show the new external and the only storage it lets me manage is the console's internal drive. I've followed all of the different troubleshooting steps that Xbox's support page suggests to no avail. I've even looked up videos on YouTube explaining how to setup
and format the external but it still doesn't help. Does it take a while for it to format? The videos I watched showed it taking no time at all. Do I need to plug it into a computer first? have the computer format it, then plug it into the XB1 to have it format
it again for game and app storage use? Really concerned because I just spent $100 on it and it has good reviews as being a good external to increase you XB1's storage. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

:)

Rhys Spagnolo · Feb 26, 2018

External Hard Drives: De-Formatting From Xbox One

I am going to tell you how to remove the formatting on a External Hard Drive from a Xbox One.

Requirements:

Xbox 360

1. Insert external hard drive into Xbox 360

2. Go into System

3. Go into Storage

4. Press 'Y' on External Hard Drive (Will be called "unformatted device")

5. Click on Format

6. The External Hard Drive will now contain the Xbox 360's formatting.

7. If you do not want the Xbox 360's formatting on the External Hard Drive, all you need to do is format the External Hard Drive on a computer. Otherwise, if you don't care that the Xbox 360's formatting is on the External Hard Drive, then ignore this step.

Hope This Helped Anyone Who Did Not Know How To Remove An Xbox One's Formatting From An External Hard Drive!

KronJ0b · Feb 26, 2018

seagate 4TB not recognized

Hello,

I have this external drive:

http://www.seagate.com/ca/en/extern...-drives/expansion-hard-drive/?sku=STBV4000100

It works on my PC no problem, but the xbox one does not know it exists. Plugging it in does nothing. I have tried:

* all the steps in the official troubleshooting guide

* All USB ports on the xbox, hard reboots. ( it is fully updated also )

* formatting the drive clean

* removing the existing NTFS partition completely.

this is the drive:

http://www.seagate.com/ca/en/extern...-drives/expansion-hard-drive/?sku=STBV4000100

Does anyone have any ideas?

gds1972 · Feb 26, 2018

Hi

When I added an external hard drive to my console the drive format was pretty quick.

If you have run through all of the steps listed below reference the external hard drive nor being detected and it is still not being detected then I would try to obtain a replacement external hard drive and hopefully this one should work correctly.

Troubleshoot External Storage Drive Detection | Xbox One External Storage

StuartATrueRed

Have you formatted the hard drive? If not, have a look here for instructions on how to do this on the console.

https://www.trueachievements.com/n40186/how-to-format-external-hard-drive-xbox-one Also make sure your hard drive is a usb 3.0 hard drive, otherwise the drive will not work on the console.

Obsessive Power

Hi,

Not sure what you wanted to do here, could you elaborate?

As for external hard drives, you can't partition them for use as both external storage for games and for use with your Mac or PC. You can use an external hard drive on the Xbox One as a media drive, though.

If you format an external hard drive for Xbox One games storage, the whole drive is formatted and the file system is changed.

Internet Expert

If you have a Windows PC, connect the external hard drive to it and give it a reformat. Sometimes, people need to give a hard drive an extra reformat on the computer because it's currently in a format that the Xbox cannot change (for some reason).

- Connect the external HDD to the PC.

- Go to "My Computer" (Win+E)

- Right click the external hard drive, and select "Format..."

- Ensure it formats to "NTFS", leave all other settings the way they are.

- After it finishes, attempt to format the drive on the Xbox again.

NOTE: If your external hard drive came pre-formatted with more than one partition, you will need to reformat the entire drive so it has one and only one NTFS partition. You can manage disk partitions via "Disk Management" in Windows.

Hope this helps!

Scooby Doo

Hello there! So when you format an external hard drive on the XBOX One, the console formats the drive into a file system that a computer PC cannot see. The 360 did not do it that way. A lot of the reason the drive is formatted that way is to prevent piracy,
I would assume. This is an article I found when I Googled search this issue. There are others like it to.

www.xbonehelp.com/.../transfer-files-tofrom-external-hard-drive-formatted-by-xbox-one-on-windows-pc.html

So I hope this helps!

gds1972

Hi

I don't know what file format Xbox One uses with external hard drives but when you first connect a drive the console should offer to format the drive for games (If it meets the specs), With my Xbox One I have both a 2TB and 4TB external hard drives connected
and working without any issues for playing games.

External hard drive not formatting on Xbox One