Hard Drive Failure after System Update

KoRn boy · Mar 30, 2015

Last month I got DJ Hero 1 & 2 and started playing them. Played for a few days no problem. Then my Xbox tells me I need to do a system update. I of course said yes and let it do it's thing. Afterwards I go to play my games again to find my game saves
are nowhere to be found. I go into system settings to look at the hard drive, and it is telling me that the hard drive is unformatted.

After reading on the internet, it seems like this problem has happened to many other people. Hard drives get unformatted after a system update. Why is this?

I am on my 6th Xbox 360 (I've had 5 RRoD) and my original Xbox died on me. I am really losing faith on Microsoft's ability to make decent working products that will actually last. My original NES is still hooked up and plays perfectly.

:)

WPAK · Mar 30, 2015

why does micro soft assume everyone has a PC

Hi there,

since the hard drive is no where to be seen in the storage section. I'm thinking that this issue is hard drive related. If a hard drive fails, the console will think that it needs an update, so the update was a result of a failure of the HDD.

Please try the steps mentioned on this support page:
support.xbox.com/.../hard-drive

PvtPamplemousse · Mar 30, 2015

Xbox Start-Up Freezing November 28

Canadian. Running a pre slim elite post November 28 update.

Startup with hard drive in, cat5 in -> freezes

startup with hard drive out cat5 in -> works

startup with hard drive in cat5 out -> works

plugging cat5 in after startup to connect to xbl also causes freezing..

Accessing xbl causes failures. Any suggestions?

Misses Quinzel · Mar 31, 2015

Hey there, EGC ManBearPig! I'm very sorry to see that your console's hard drive seems to be unformatted! While it may seem like the system update caused it, it was likely on its way out before then and the update just exacerbated the situation.

The first thing you want to do is format your hard drive. You can see the full instructions on our
Xbox 360 Storage page, or simply follow these steps:

Press the Guide button on your controller, go to Settings, and select System Settings.

Select Storage or Memory.

Select the storage device that you want to format, and then press Y on your controller.

Select Format. You will see the following message:

This will delete all content on this device. Do you wish to continue?

Select Yes to format the storage device.

If prompted to enter your console serial number, do so, and then select Done. This step helps guard against accidental formatting.

The console serial number is located on the back of the console, and behind the oval door on the front of the console.

If it is still showing as unformatted after this, you may need to replace your hard drive. If the hard drive you are talking about is your 4GB internal memory, then your console will need to be repaired. You can set up a repair via our
Online Service Center. Please do post back if you run into any issues doing so! We'd like to make sure you're all set.

KoRn boy · Apr 2, 2015

I've read many other posts from people saying that this exact same thing happened to them. Their hard drives (and mine) were working perfectly fine before having a system update. And right after the update the hard drive is mysteriously unformatted.

It was not the 4GB internal memory, it was my 120GB HDD. I ended up formatting it since apparently there is no way to recover my data. Now I lost all of my game saves from the past 10 years. And having to download every game and DLC which will take a
while. To say I am very disappointed is an understatement.

All of my other consoles starting from the NES still work perfectly and the only consoles that have failed on me are the ones made by Microsoft. And every time they failed it was a hassle to get anything done about them. I was thinking about getting a
XboxOne later this year, but now I am having serious doubts about it. I want to stay with Xbox because that is the console I've had for a while (wasn't a big PlayStation fan), but now I'm not sure.

Irixion · Apr 2, 2015

I think the other problem is that games these days tend to rely on the HDD as cache. That puts considerable strain on the poor thing. Seeing your games, Halo 4 (Which has a massive HDD presense), and rhythm games which have DLC...yeah. Always good to have
a backup!

SamTheFurious82 · Oct 31, 2018

Excatly the same thing happened to me, now the console thinks that there is simply nothing on the Hard drive at all and wants me to format it, so is that it, you cant salvage the save data from there via PC at all ?

Why, all I did got disconnected from Live, system update appeared and Pop, all gone, and my console is only 1 year old Black Slim version...

Nice

SamTheFurious82

Excatly the same thing happened to me, now the console thinks that there is simply nothing on the Hard drive at all and wants me to format it, so is that it, you cant salvage the save data from there via PC at all ?

Why, all I did got disconnected from Live, system update appeared and Pop, all gone, and my console is only 1 year old Black Slim version...

Nice

KoRn boy

I've read many other posts from people saying that this exact same thing happened to them. Their hard drives (and mine) were working perfectly fine before having a system update. And right after the update the hard drive is mysteriously unformatted.

It was not the 4GB internal memory, it was my 120GB HDD. I ended up formatting it since apparently there is no way to recover my data. Now I lost all of my game saves from the past 10 years. And having to download every game and DLC which will take a
while. To say I am very disappointed is an understatement.

All of my other consoles starting from the NES still work perfectly and the only consoles that have failed on me are the ones made by Microsoft. And every time they failed it was a hassle to get anything done about them. I was thinking about getting a
XboxOne later this year, but now I am having serious doubts about it. I want to stay with Xbox because that is the console I've had for a while (wasn't a big PlayStation fan), but now I'm not sure.

Irixion

I think the other problem is that games these days tend to rely on the HDD as cache. That puts considerable strain on the poor thing. Seeing your games, Halo 4 (Which has a massive HDD presense), and rhythm games which have DLC...yeah. Always good to have
a backup!

Misses Quinzel

Hey there, EGC ManBearPig! I'm very sorry to see that your console's hard drive seems to be unformatted! While it may seem like the system update caused it, it was likely on its way out before then and the update just exacerbated the situation.

The first thing you want to do is format your hard drive. You can see the full instructions on our
Xbox 360 Storage page, or simply follow these steps:

Press the Guide button on your controller, go to Settings, and select System Settings.
Select Storage or Memory.
Select the storage device that you want to format, and then press Y on your controller.
Select Format. You will see the following message:

This will delete all content on this device. Do you wish to continue?
Select Yes to format the storage device.
If prompted to enter your console serial number, do so, and then select Done. This step helps guard against accidental formatting.

The console serial number is located on the back of the console, and behind the oval door on the front of the console.

If it is still showing as unformatted after this, you may need to replace your hard drive. If the hard drive you are talking about is your 4GB internal memory, then your console will need to be repaired. You can set up a repair via our
Online Service Center. Please do post back if you run into any issues doing so! We'd like to make sure you're all set.

WPAK

Hi there,

since the hard drive is no where to be seen in the storage section. I'm thinking that this issue is hard drive related. If a hard drive fails, the console will think that it needs an update, so the update was a result of a failure of the HDD.

Please try the steps mentioned on this support page:
support.xbox.com/.../hard-drive

Hard Drive Failure after System Update