Xbox 360 won't set up like new device after formatting hard drive?

I'm not too terribly up to date on my Xbox 360 knowledge but I'd like to help out. Its been years since I've booted up my console so I tried to find you some links to supports and articles that may help you out a little bit.

https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-360/accessories/storage

https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager-software/format-usb-xbox-360.html

https://www.wikihow.com/Format-a-Hard-Drive-for-Use-With-Xbox-360

I hope at least one of those helped. I read through them and they seem to be able to get you where you need to be.

Hi, it's more likely what has happened is that the hard drive has failed or become badly corrupted hence why you're getting the system update request because the system can't find the software on the hard drive.

All you can do is try to format the hard drive, if it formats that's great, if it won't format or formats then shows as unformatted again after a restart of the xbox you're looking at needing to buy a new hard drive.

As you already have usb devices configured as xbox storage you can remove the hard drive and the xbox should update and use one of your usb device rather than the hard drive for the system software. You will then at least be able to use the xbox until you
get a new hard drive.

I used a laptop/chromebook and it's not showing anything up for where I can install my games onto the hard drive but won't it just re-format the hard drive back onto the xbox?

Because when I plugged it in, it showed up as a new device

Format your drive to its default settings, and try to get the 360 to format it instead. The 360 uses a specific cluster size. Anything with the wrong size, and the drive won't show up. Windows usually uses its own 'optimized' settings, which the Xbox doesn't
like. Also, larger drives take longer to mount to your Xbox, so you'll have to wait on the storage device screen for a few seconds (up to 15 seconds in some cases). iirc, the cluster size is 512, so set it to that when you format it, if the Xbox still doesn't
detect it.

Hey there Fire!

Sorry to hear about the Hard Drive issues.

For clarification are these issues absent when the new Hard Drive is not connected to the Xbox?

Have you tried formatting your Hard Drive through the Xbox 360 console? If not, Try these steps below:

• Verify you have moved the important game data off of the Hard Drive. To do this, check out our How to Move Xbox content
  support page.
• On your Xbox Controller press the Guide button, Select Settings and then System Settings.
  
• Select storage or memory.
• Select which storage device you'd like to format(120gb Hard Drive), then press Y on your Xbox 360 controller.
  
• Select Format, and you should see a message saying, "This will delete all content on this device. Do you wish to continue?"
  
• Select "Yes" to format the storage on your Hard Drive.

After you followed each of those steps, verify if the issue persists. If the issue does persist. I'd recommend bringing the Hard Drive back to the retail location you've bought it from.

Please be sure to post back and let me know how that goes.