External Hard Drive Not Recognized Anymore

Hi guys I need some help. I've got a seagate external hard drive that I would like to use as storage on my xbox one. My xbox used to recognize the drive and I previously used it to store all my media and could see all my pictures/video on the xbox. I backed
up my files on my pc and formatted the hard drive to wipe it. The problem is that now when I plug it in the xbox, the little light on the hard drive no longer turns on and xbox doesn't see it. I've done everything on Xbox's troubleshoot page, I've tried it
in every usb port and rebooting the xbox and nothing seems to work. The drive works perfectly on my pc but no longer on the xbox. Any ideas as to why it's no longer recognized? Did something happen because I formatted it? Any suggestions? Thanks!

:)

 

External HDD re-format

Sorry I should have found this earlier. Some people have found a workaround to get the drive to be recognized on your pc prior to formatting it. Just follow the steps at this link.

www.hgst.com/.../my-external-hard-drive-not-recognized-my-computer

 

Xbox One External HDD Revert Back HELP!

Done it! No thanks to anyone on the forums! Extremely unhelpful!

If anyone else is have the same problem here is a link to reformatting external hard drives. Likely your hard drive will show as unrecognized so just follow that section. Pretty simple in the end.

www.hgst.com/.../my-external-hard-drive-not-recognized-my-computer

 

Hi Corylouwho,

I have to ask, have you tried another USB drive or thumb drive with your Xbox One? If so, did the Xbox see them? Trying to confirm if there is a problem with the USB ports on the Xbox. Or, less likely a particular interface issue with that other USB drive.

 

Thanks for your reply! I did try that out, it does recognize other usb/external hard drives, so I'm thinking the problem is more with this particular hard drive that suddenly isn't being recognized anymore.

 

Corylouwho,

So, to verify, the PC still see this external drives, but the Xbox no longer sees it at all.... I apologize in advance, but I have to ask, did you do a full NTFS format on a Windows10/8/7 PC of this drive?

P.S. I regret to say, and be warned, this full format will take sometime....

 

Yes that is correct, my PC still sees the drive but the xbox no longer does. I did do a full NTFS format on windows 10 PC and oh my goodness yes it did take a very long time! It's after doing that full format that I found the xbox would not recognize the
external hard drive and the little light on the drive won't go on when plugged into the xbox, yet it functions completely normal on the PC. It's a 1TB USB 3.0 and meets the requirements that xbox gives. It passes all the diagnostic tool tests and comes back
as a healthy drive with no errors found. Thanks for your help SoAnnoying!

 

The fact that other external USB drives and thumb drives still work with the your Xbox is the good news. The bad news, what is going on here with this 1TB drive...? I have used USB (Western Digital) drives with my Xboxes and PCs, formatting and re-formatting,
back and forth multiple times, with no problems. Now, it is possible that the Xbox is still seeing something embedded on the drive which it doesn't like. Microsoft is extremely careful about DRM (Digital Rights Management aka copyright protection). However,
I don't think this is the case in your situation. Because the Xbox fails to see the drive at all. At this point it appears to be something more like an issue with the interface inside the USB drive enclosure. If this was me, I would just remove the drive from
the enclosure and stick it into another USB drive enclosure and see if that worked (new USB 3.0 SATA drive enclosure are about $10-$20 US). But..., then again, I have been doing this kind of drive surgery for many years. So, may I suggest before trying anything
that invasive, you check out the return policies at your local Computer store, buy a new 1TB USB drive and see if your Xbox will recognize that one. You shouldn't have to format it or copy anything to it. This is just to make sure that the problem lies with
your old 1TB USB drive. After that, and in hopes of saving your old drive, you can buy a replacement USB 3.0 SATA drive enclosure for it.

One more thing, and I hate to ask, but I just want to double check, when say "...the little light on the drive won't go on when plugged into the xbox". I assume this is true when you try plugging it into all of the USB ports on your Xbox?

Good luck and good gaming,

P.S. I like to think we are helping each other

SA

 

Yeah I'm glad at least the Xbox doesn't seem to be the source of the problem! It's as if something that was necessary in communicating with the xbox was changed during the full format if that makes sense or is possible because it worked fine before. I also
tried using another cable to connect the drive to the Xbox and it still wouldn't work so it's not the cable.

Oh that's interesting, I don't have experience in that but I'm very intrigued. I'd be willing to try that if all else fails, that kind of stuff is cool. It will definitely be worth trying a new drive first if it's returnable. I'll see what I can find!

No problem, thank you for being thorough. It makes it easier when you have more info! Yes the light will not go on when I plug it into any of the USB ports on the Xbox. Before I formatted the drive, the light would turn on immediately when plugged into the
xbox and the drive was ready for use.

Yes happy gaming, Thanks again for all the advice!