External Hard Drive Unusable after formatting?

MercifulMauler · Dec 19, 2015

Hi,

I recently got a new external hard dive and retired my old one from use on my Xbox One. Now that I don't need it for the box I was going to use it for a PC HDD, but it won't let me reformat on PC and hardly lets me do anything to it at all. It appears under
networks instead of drives and I get an error when I try to use it: "Drive is denying access it your PC. Contact the owner of the media server to allow your PC to access it." I've tried my best to find a way to format it on PC and hopefully get it working
again, but nothing I know is working. I know this doesn't directly pertain to Xbox One, but i feel the formatting is the issue and I can find some answers here. Any help is greatly appreciated.

:)

Malacath · Dec 19, 2015

Reformatting x1 external HDD for 360 use

I want to reformat one of my xbox one external hard drives so I can use it on my xbox 360

Is this possible?

I don't want to go messing about then rendering the drive unusable

FatalityBringer · Dec 19, 2015

Lost data from HDD

Hey all,

Ive got the following issue and I hope someone can help me.

I always used an external hard drive to save my game files on. A few months ago I noticed the external hard drive was failing and I made a backup of it on my laptop.

I copied the hidden "Xbox360" folder to my notebook. This folder has 18 data files in it.

I few weeks later the external hard drive broke and was unusable. Today I got a new external hard drive and I copied the Xbox360 folder back on it. Only the X-box isn't recognizing the folder.

Does anyone know what I can do to get my save files back?

Yours sincerely,

Ramon

DENAz666 · Dec 20, 2015

Hey mate,

No problems, that is normal when a hard drive is formatted on the xbox. To remove that formatting, and allow you to use it again, you need to delete the partition, then reformat it.

It depends on what windows you are using, but it should be some variation of the following:

Right click Computer --> Manage --> Storage --> Disk Management

In there you should see your hard drive. On the long box right click delete partition. Then once delete right click Create New Partition and follow the instructions.

I've not done this myself, but was able to find those instructions online, so let me know if you have any troubles

Cheers

Denaz

DENAz666

Hey mate,

No problems, that is normal when a hard drive is formatted on the xbox. To remove that formatting, and allow you to use it again, you need to delete the partition, then reformat it.

It depends on what windows you are using, but it should be some variation of the following:

Right click Computer --> Manage --> Storage --> Disk Management

In there you should see your hard drive. On the long box right click delete partition. Then once delete right click Create New Partition and follow the instructions.

I've not done this myself, but was able to find those instructions online, so let me know if you have any troubles

Cheers

Denaz

KrizanLovich

as per the other comments about the use of the external hard drive for the 360 I am in the update preview program which allows additional External hard drives to be used.I purchased the same Seagate 2tb external hard drive as per my xboxone but when I apply
the format on the xbox360 as per the instructions it replies with unable to format. Would like to know what external hard drives are compatible? I no the hard drive works as tried it on the xboxone after it would not format for the 360

thanks

NZ Racer

REK 1

Hard Reset your console by PRESSING AND HOLDING the white logo on console for 10 sec, then unplug external hard drive, take the external hard drive and try to format it on the PC. After the format on the PC, plug back into console and see if you can reformat
it on console , so it can be used again for games

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!

Call Me Power

Thanks, but can the drive be formatted without the 360 deleting everything that's already on my external hard drive, or will I just have to rebackup everything after the 360 deletes it and formats it?

External Hard Drive Unusable after formatting?