System failure after unsuccessful update

If the console is recently purchased it should still be under warranty. But since you mentioned 2 years it might be a age thing, There is updates and sometimes there is some failures with applying updates and the links provided was a great way to start,
but if unsuccessful then sending in for repair to have it fully functional after the update due to unforeseen situations like hard drive failure and other possible issues like corruption errors.

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

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.

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!

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:

1. Press the Guide button on your controller, go to Settings, and select System Settings.
   
2. Select Storage or Memory.
3. Select the storage device that you want to format, and then press Y on your controller.
   
4. Select Format. You will see the following message:
   
   This will delete all content on this device. Do you wish to continue?
5. Select Yes to format the storage device.
6. 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.