Is there anyway to recover or fix an S HDD from the E68 error?

The E68 occurred to me yesterday when I was trying to log into my profile. At first, I thought my Xbox S was frozen or something since 5 minutes passed by and I was still logging in. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the ellipsis was still moving (the dot,
dot, dot) and that my controller was not responding to any of the buttons. I also noticed there was a weird, strange clicking noise coming within my Xbox.

So I turned it off and restarted my console. The only difference this time is that I was now stuck on the Xbox starting screen and the clicking noise still persisted. A few seconds later, the E68 screen popped up, a red dot appeared, and I think the clicking
noise is coming from the HDD itself, judging by the vibrations. The error will only pop up if I have my HDD inside, but without it, the Xbox works perfectly fine.

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I also noticed there was a slight jagged, curved bit in the HDD. I'm not sure if that's normal or not.

And lastly:

Yes, my Xbox was working just fine a week ago

No, I usually don't take my HDD out very often and haven't done so in a while

No, the warranty for the HDD expired years ago

Is there some sort of way to crack open the HDD and fix it or at least recover the contents of it?

:)

 

Is there anyway to recover or fix an S HDD from the E68 error?

The E68 occurred to me yesterday when I was trying to log into my profile. At first, I thought my Xbox S was frozen or something since 5 minutes passed by and I was still logging in. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the ellipsis was still moving (the dot,
dot, dot) and that my controller was not responding to any of the buttons. I also noticed there was a weird, strange clicking noise coming within my Xbox.

So I turned it off and restarted my console. The only difference this time is that I was now stuck on the Xbox starting screen and the clicking noise still persisted. A few seconds later, the E68 screen popped up, a red dot appeared, and I think the clicking
noise is coming from the HDD itself, judging by the vibrations. The error will only pop up if I have my HDD inside, but without it, the Xbox works perfectly fine.

[View:http://oi68.tinypic.com/2vvlxkw.jpg:550:0]

[View:http://oi65.tinypic.com/2aaeefl.jpg:550:0]

I also noticed there was a slight jagged, curved bit in the HDD. I'm not sure if that's normal or not.

And lastly:

Yes, my Xbox was working just fine a week ago

No, I usually don't take my HDD out very often and haven't done so in a while

No, the warranty for the HDD expired years ago

Is there some sort of way to crack open the HDD and fix it or at least recover the contents of it?

 

Is there anyway to recover or fix an S HDD from the E68 error?

Would using a transfer cable work or am I stuck with a broken slab forever?

 

sounds like your hard drive is damaged. it's common for them to make that clicking sound when they go bad. there are some software tools that you could try to use for recovery. connecting the drive to a PC will often cause it to no longer work internally
with the 360, but that's already the situation. the good news is your console is likely fine. E68 generally means there is an issue with the hard drive itself, or with the connection to the console.

one thing you can try is to get a hard drive transfer cable and see if it shows up under Storage that way. if so, you can try to copy all your files to a new storage device. you'll probably need to replace the old hard drive though.

 

Just to make this clear so that there wouldn't be any confusion.

I have to get myself a transfer cable, plug my Slim HDD into it, plug my transfer cable into my Xbox through the USB port, either get a Seagate HDD or an exact model of my old HDD, plug than into my console, and then transfer everything over to the new hard
drive?

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almost, but not exactly. you can't just buy any seagate hard drive and put it into the 360 console. that should work as an external USB drive, but not internal. you would need a hard drive compatible with xbox 360 to use internally. it doesn't have
to be the exact same as your current one. any drive that you can use as an external drive would work to copy your save files, but some games will only install to an internal drive.

the transfer cable is just on the off chance that the hard drive you have is not dead, so you can try to retrieve your files. i personally have 2 official microsoft hard drives that no longer work internally, but they work when i use a transfer cable. of
course they don't give me the E68 error when i start the console with them inside.

i'm sorry to say, if your drive does not show up, it's very unlikely to recover without expensive and/or highly technical work being done. i also have two external USB drives (1 TB and 2 TB) that recently stopped working. one does not show up in my computer
at all, one shows up but says it needs to be initialized. this would destroy all the data, which i'd really like to recover.

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lately i've been keeping my save files on a separate USB stick, and backing that up to my computer every so often. which reminds me, it's been a while.

 

I'm not too familiar with Xbox accessories tat, but I want to avoid any confusions.

So is it a better option to buy a transfer cable, plug it into a my console, and play with a corrupted HDD?

Or buy a new HDD and transfer cable and cross my fingers and pray that the data is transferable?

 

it's hard to say whether the drive would even show up with a transfer cable without trying. i'm just suggesting that, as an attempt to recover any important save files or other data, such as profiles that may not be available for you to redownload if they
weren't recently synced to the server.

i don't think you should continue playing with it, as it will possibly fail completely, if it hasn't already. if there's nothing really important on it, then i'd just say replace it and forget the transfer cable. again the transfer cable might be a complete
waste, but personally i consider them a good thing to have on hand if you ever need one. maybe you can borrow one to try or find a cheap one.

 

Interesting. Does reformatting the HDD through the Storage menu "fix" the problem?

 

Please follow the steps at the link below for assistance with your E68 error

support.xbox.com/.../error-code-e68

Reformatting the drive may fix the issue but if the drive is dying it will happen again.

As for the suggestion to get the transfer cable it is worth a try. But make sure that you're getting an official Xbox 360 transfer cable or it will not work properly and will make another official Xbox 360 drive act like a USB drive only

 

if you format the drive through storage on the transfer cable it will not make it compatible with the 360 internally. if you format it though the storage as an internal drive it would be compatible, but the ones i have only show up on the transfer cable,
so that's not an option if it can't see it. as mentioned above, if it's dying then it's only a matter of time before it totally unusable, if it's not already.