Playing a game from flash drive rather than CD

JimvonMeier · Dec 21, 2018

I have an Xbox 360 with a 60 gig hard drive, licensed copies of the modern warfare and black ops series. I have installed the games on my 60 gig hard drive but as you know each time I go to play it says to insert CD to ensure it is a legit licensed
copy.

Eventually the CD Rom started screwing up plus some of the CD's were getting a little scratched and playing was intermittent; sometimes they worked, sometimes it took a little coaxing and some (sniper series) would only play so far then freeze.
I took the box apart and cleaned things up as well as the CD's.
Now it seems to work okay. I do not play online, only the campaign when I ride my exercise bike.

But what I am trying to accomplish are;

·Let’s face it, CD's are going to get scratched and cracked no matter how careful you are.
I do not want to buy a new game every time that happens (and I have already done that a few times) nor do I want to pay to download a copy from the store because I have already paid for them, some a few times.

·Save electricity.
When I first started having problems once I got a game to run I would leave the Xbox running 24/7 but my electric bill was pretty high to start with and when I talked to them [about the bill and what was taking all the juice] they rattled off several
causes and running a video gaming station was one of them.

What I want to do is put the “license key” on a flash drive so when I want to play I can just turn the machine on, kill some bad guys for 30 to 60 minutes, shut the machine down and not have to worry if it is going to work tomorrow plus
I am assuming it takes far more juice to run a CD than a flash drive.

Some people say it is easy, others say it can be done but is hard, some say you need to mod your box and some say once you mod your box you can never go back online to get updates and such because Microsoft can tell you have modded your box and will
be banned.

Does anyone really know if this can be easily done? I am not a tech and don't want to get into adding hardware, modding the box or cheat anyone out of anything.

:)

XBF Diego M

Hi JimvonMeier,

As stated earlier games cannot be played from a flash drive. Also if the disc is installed, it will still spin in the disc drive. If it's very loud then there may be an issue with the optical disc drive.

Try turning off the Xbox and unplugging the power cord for a few minutes to reboot the Xbox 360.

Obsessive Power

Hi,

If you have a disc version of a game on the Xbox 360, you will have to play your game via the disc to prove ownership. They only way to play without the disc is to purchase the digital download version of the game in question.

If you install your game to either the internal hard drive, external hard drive or a suitable Flash drive, the disc will be read shortly to prove ownership and spin down. The game itself will then run entirely from the storage unit during that play session.
The game disc will not be read. This will help considerably with wear and tear on the Xbox 360's DVD drive (360 games are on DVD discs, not CD's btw). The actual power usage of running from a storage device vs disc are negligible at best.

Discussions regarding modification of an Xbox console are strictly forbidden on this forum.

Obsessive Power

Hi JimvonMeier,

As stated earlier games cannot be played from a flash drive.

Of course they can, I used to do on the Xbox 360. It even says you can on the official support link

You can install games to a USB flash drive or to an Xbox 360 4 GB console. However, some games will not play correctly.

https://support.xbox.com/en-GB/games/game-setup/install-play-delete-game

RandyAU93

I'm afraid it cannot be done. Your sole options are purchasing a replacement CD (even a used disc) or buying the digital license for the game on sale from the Xbox Store. There is no legal way to transfer the license from CD to another format.

JimvonMeier

Hi ,

As stated earlier games cannot be played from a flash drive.

Of course they can, I used to do on the Xbox 360. It even says you can on the official support link

You can install games to a USB flash drive or to an Xbox 360 4 GB console. However, some games will not play correctly.

https://support.xbox.com/en-GB/games/game-setup/install-play-delete-game

Thank you!!! I will check it out.

Playing a game from flash drive rather than CD