Unformatted external HDD issue

sorry in advance for a lengthy post, but wanted to include as much detail as possible to get better feedback...I have a 250GB external HDD on my 360. The HDD is at least 2 years old. Roughly 1-2 weeks ago boot up the 360 and it needs a system update. Update
downloads just fine, system starts up fine, everything works fine. However, I notice that each time I turn on the 360 it is taking a long time to boot up and get to the dashboard menus. Other than the long startup time, no other issues, everything works just
fine. A few days I turn on the 360 and when it finally loads up my profile is not logged in and it says the external HDD is unformatted. I restart the 360, long load time, but HDD works just fine and games play just fine. This morning the 360 starts up fine
after a long load time, but when I start playing a game (from HDD not disk) I notice load times are long, audio isn't working properly, and finally the game freezes. I then spend the next hour having to make multiple restarts of the 360. Sometimes it boots
up and says the HDD is unformatted, sometimes the starts up just fine, but I still have the in-game issues. I finally decide to transfer my profile to the internal HDD and the game saves to the cloud and then reformat the external HDD. After reformat the 360
boots up just fine, load time even seemed more normal, but hard to tell. I re-download the one game I am currently playing, but had to leave for work so allowed the download to continue with the 360 turned off. So the question is what on earth is going on
with my external HDD? My initial thought is that its heading for video game heaven, but because sometimes the 360 was booting up like normal and recognizing the data on the HDD maybe there was some corrupted data on it that is now cleared? If it is dying,
will the reformatting help it get by for a few extra weeks? I just need this thing to last long enough to finish the last few levels on Hitman Absolution and then I was going to upgrade to XBONE. Appreciate any thoughts on this.

:)

 

External hdd issue

Hey Eagl4ever

Please try format too a xbox 360 before formatting it to the Xbox one it seems if you format it too anything running Fat32 first it'll read the HDD afterwards.

 

Xbox froze during download..

Says my HDD is unformatted.

 

Hey there PetArISawesomeo!

It does sound like the best course of action would be to reformat. For additional information and help, there's a handy troubleshooting guide all about
Xbox 360 Storage — if you scroll down on the article, there's information on how to reformat a storage device at the bottom.

Additionally, we recommend using another storage device if you're able to and see if that helps any.

Let us know how it all goes!

 

Hello,

Try rebooting the console without the external HDD. Is it quicker? There is a possibility that the drive is failing. As you said it was quicker??

You could use a USB stick temporarily if you do not have another HDD. this would preserve what is on the drive for transfer. And you can complete your game.

I have a slim with an internal drive that fails continually so only use the external HDD. So the reverse is highly possible - its starts with wanting to be formatted frequently.