Wireless Xbox One controller won't interact with Xbox with external hard drive plugged in

Terrance Jones1 · May 5, 2023

Wireless Xbox One controller won't interact with Xbox with external hard drive plugged in.

I have been having problems with my Xbox one wireless controller and the external hard drive. I have figured (out after a long and painful process) that when the EHD is plugged in, the wireless controller will not work. It will turn on but will not interact with the Xbox. I have restarted it numerous times, unplugged it, done a hard reset where it has updated and i have logged back in (currently using my xbox glass on my phone) and i have done this over the last 2 days. I then reset it whilst the EHD was unplugged and this seemed to fix the problem of the controller not interacting with the xbox. However as soon as i plus it back in the controller stops working. This is extremely annoying as I cannot play any of my games, and at this moment in time i cannot afford a new hard drive, though if i were to get a new one i would lose a serious amount of games and data saved to my original one. Has anyone experienced this before and managed to get it sorted or is this something unfixable?????

:)

TheDoctor25991

Thank you for your quick response, however, this has never happened in the 6 years that i have had both the Xbox and external hard drive. They have been in the exact same position for those 6 years, and the problem only arose when my fiancee moved the
Xbox to clean around the unit.

Ronnieee

Hi there! This is Ronnie, an independent advisor.

Nice to meet you and I hope you are having a great day!

I understand you need help on your Xbox console having issues.

It seems to be a hard drive problem since it only happens when it is plugged in but I would still suggest checking to see if it works on a different hard drive or if the issue is still the same because it could also be an Xbox issue, like it's firmware.

Anyway, your games being saved to your hard drive can still be downloaded again since they are all saved to cloud and to your account. It will take time but you will still get your saves and games back in case you need a new hard drive.

XBF Javier R

Hello Doctor,

We thank you for bringing this inquiry to our forums community, and understand that this concerns an inability to connect your Xbox One controller to your Xbox One console while an external hard drive is plugged in.

If unplugging the external hard drive has assisted with resolving the connection issue regarding your controller, the cause may be due to wireless interference from the external hard drive. Our suggestion here, please attempt following our
troubleshoot your Xbox One wireless controller support article.

Try this out for us and then let us know the results.

Best wishes!

JTL1E

this could also be a issue because the hard drive might be blocking the RF reciver for the xbox?

JayForeman

Here is a relevant note from the known issues summary, I hope you find it useful

Wireless Networking:

You may encounter a “wireless network hardware on this console is not working” error when connecting to Xbox Live with a wireless connection.

Your Xbox One console may be unable to detect a wireless connection while an external hard drive is plugged in. Workaround: Unplug the external hard drive, hard reset the console, connect to WiFi, then connect the external hard driv

Wireless Xbox One controller won't interact with Xbox with external hard drive plugged in