New external hard drive recognized for media - won't format for games and apps.

LingLing1211 · Dec 2, 2014

I just bought a 3tb USB 3.0 Seagate expansion external hard drive and I'm having this same issue. I've tried everything you have and nothing works. The Setting>Power and Startup, and turn off the "when xbox is off, turn off storage" thing definitely doesn't
work for these Seagate hard drives

:)

FutureDegree334 · Dec 2, 2014

No format option for external hard drive.

Hi, when i plug in a external hard drive in my Xbox One the format option does not come up. It's a new drive, usb 3.0 and 3 tb and it is recognized as a media drive. No format option in manage storage, only view content. Tried hard resets, formatting to
exFAT and FAT32 etc.

Does anyone have solution? Thnx!

Westy Sharkbite · Dec 2, 2014

New external hard drive recognized for media - won't format for games and apps.

@digital limit,

Thanks, you're a legend

onyxishere · Dec 4, 2014

A lot of people have been having issues with Seagate drives being recognized. Please try formatting the drive on your pc and then try it on the console again.

TweakyRabbit · Dec 5, 2014

I'm having the same issue. I sent plenty of feedback (with screenshots) from my X1 to show how I even was given the option to format the hard drive in the storage settings but it never formatted. I tried formatting through my PC, but nothing. I bought a
brand new Seagate Backup Slim Plus 2TB (USB 3.0) for Black Friday since I'm running low on space and now I'm facing issues. The Xbox One only recognizes it as is a media device.

onyxishere · Dec 6, 2014

Although I'm not entirely sure why the consoles are not recognizing the devices I have heard that a program on the drive may be the cause. Please check the contents of the drive to ensure that there are no other backup programs on it.

LingLing1211 · Dec 7, 2014

Problem solved! So turns out, the issue was the usb 3.0 cable that came with the external hard drive. I went out and got a new cable like someone suggested on another thread and it worked.

LingLing1211 · Dec 7, 2014

Problem Solved! So turns out the problem is the usb 3.0 cable that came with the external hard drive. I went out and got a new usb 3.0 cable like someone suggested on another thread and it worked!

The Doctor x8 · Nov 26, 2015

I deleted the three files I found when I plugged it into the computer. I then plugged it into my xbox and IT WORKED like a charm. You will be formatting the drive when using it on the XOne anyway so the files can be discarded.

DO NOT GO BUYING UNNECESSARY CABLES!!!

wKs V MaKaVeLi · Nov 26, 2015

Hey guys, so I originally bought an external hard drive to store movies and tv shows on for my mac. That worked great and I plugged it into my xbox 1 and used the media player app to watch them. That worked great as well. Then I found out I could format
the hard drive for games and apps to store games on there. So I did that, but now I want to go back to the media player to watch my movies and it won't recognize the hard drive. My mac now won't recognize it either. Did I lose all my movies and tv shows? Thanks
for any help !

Theory of Game · Nov 1, 2018

Hi wKs V MaKaVeLi,

Yes, you've lost all your movies and tv shows unfortunately... formatting the hard drive to store games and apps erases everything that is currently on the drive, and makes it so only the Xbox One can use it (unless you format it using a PC/Mac for use there
- it can't be used for both at the same time though).

wKs V MaKaVeLi

Hey guys, so I originally bought an external hard drive to store movies and tv shows on for my mac. That worked great and I plugged it into my xbox 1 and used the media player app to watch them. That worked great as well. Then I found out I could format
the hard drive for games and apps to store games on there. So I did that, but now I want to go back to the media player to watch my movies and it won't recognize the hard drive. My mac now won't recognize it either. Did I lose all my movies and tv shows? Thanks
for any help !

GroundOregano94

That hard drive must be designated as a media drive. Not formatted as Xbox drive. Because Xbox recognizes SSD it immediately recognizes it as a media drive. Here is troubleshot for external
hard drives. Have you tried to start movies from USB drive? Remember, in settings on your Xbox that drive must be designated as a media drive. You can try reformated it again on your PC and then plug it in again on Xbox. One other thing. If your HDD is
recognised as media drive on your Xbox, you can format again on your Xbox and set it as media drive again. System/storage - select your media drive and pres a. Then formate it as media drive again. And finally, the question that supposed to be first. Is your
HDD recognized as a media drive? Is it recognized at all?

Have you tried to change USB ports to plug it in? And last, try a power cycle console described here on the bottom of the page and try plug
back in your HDD.

XBF Crystal P

Hi there EvanZook,

Thanks for reaching out here in Xbox Forums. I understand there is a question with formatting an external hard drive. Unfortunately, formatting an external hard drive will remove what is saved on the HD.

When you first connect, Xbox will prompt you to format your device. You can use it for Xbox games and apps, or for personal media such as pictures, music, and video. (Xbox will treat devices that don’t meet the above requirements as media storage.)

If your Xbox doesn’t recognize your external drive, see Troubleshoot external storage detection on Xbox One.

Note Xbox will recognize only two external drives at one time.

If you cancel formatting when you connect a storage device, you can set it up later:

Press the Xbox button to open the guide and select System >
Settings > System > Storage.
Select your device, and then select Format for games & apps.

Hope this helps.

ErichCS68

ok so I just took the brand new WD 6TD my book external hard drive out of the box, connected it by the usb cord into the usb port on the console and for some reason the console recognized it as a media storage devise for music and pictures. It did not let
me format the drive or choose to use it to store my saved games. I then connected the drive to my windows pc that is using windows 8.1 and formatted it and when I re-connected the drive to my xbox one console it still recognized it as a media drive. I have
no idea why it is doing this.

gds1972

Hi

Not it is not possible to do this when you first plug the external hard drive into the console it will format the drive and use all of it for games/apps if fast enough if it's not fast enough it will use it as a media drive.

New external hard drive recognized for media - won't format for games and apps.