Series X won’t read external hard drive.

Hi Uriah Butler

It sounds like you connected the device to your PC and formatted it there. You need to format it using the console to make it useable for games and apps.

1. Press the Xbox button on your controller to open the guide, and then select Profile & system > Settings > System > Storage.
   
2. Select your device, and then select Format.
   

Once your device has been formatted and you’ve entered a custom drive name, you’ll be asked if you intend on using the external drive primarily with that specific console or if you intend to use the drive with multiple consoles.

More information can be found here:

Manage storage on your Xbox console | Xbox Support

Hope that helps.

What size is the drive? You might need to plug it back in a PC, remove all the partitions and don't format it.

Then plug it back in the console and see if it prompts you to format it for games and apps.

I ended up just resetting my Xbox and that fixed my problem.

I actually went to try that before posting and the option to have the Xbox format the drive doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t know if it’s because of the last update or not but the format selection is not listed under SYSTEM<STORAGE DEVICES<“DEVICE” anymore.

My only options are “View contents” and “Set as capture location”.

Hi,

If your game is now a Series X optimised title, it can no longer be played off an external hard drive. It must be moved to either the internal storage or an optional expansion card.

External USB hard drives are too slow to play Series X optimised games. None Series X games will still run from your external drive. The internal storage in the Series X is a fast NVME SSD. These drives are several times faster than mechanical hard drives.