Xbox App Games Refuse to Install on External Drive

Rob Doran · Nov 16, 2021

I've currently been trying to pre-install Halo Infinite on my PC through the Xbox App onto my external hard drive without success. There's only an option to select the boot drive in the install window and changing the download location through the app's settings is unresponsive, it still auto locks to the (C drive. My hard drive is properly formatted and has other games installed, and the windows settings for selecting the app download location also has no effect on the Xbox App. I've deleted and reinstalled the app and searched many threads of people with the same issue and no luck.

If anyone knows why this is occurring please inform, it's like Xbox doesn't want games on an external drive for some reason.

:)

Christopher Revoredo

Hi there Rob welcome to the community forum! Christopher here, an Xbox fan just like you and has been on Xbox for years already. I would really love to make your day by helping you out. A lot of users are having this issue with the app! Some of them have found a solution by uninstalling the app! So, I suggest uninstalling the app completely! Everytime that it tried to give me a hard time I do this and it works wonders! Here are the steps!

https://www.techadvisor.com/how-to/windows/remo...

NOTE: This is a third party link that is not Microsoft's property, so you might encounter advertising on the website.

TimsGurhl

If you recently updated your console with the February 2020 update, it has bricked external hard drives world wide and Xbox Support refuses to acknowledge that the last update is causing an issue with external hard drives. No games will download, install,
or launch from external drives since the update. They've known about this for close to a month.

steeledwand7664

Is it an external USB drive?

If it is I had this problem.

I would suggest changing where the xbox app itself is being installed to an internal drive then making the change so that the games themselves are installed to the external USB drive.

Tormaz

Hello!

Most likely the drive is full because of games and apps installed. The two best options are to either plug in a compatible USB external drive and move some of them to the external drive, or delete some of the installed games or apps on the console.

XBF - Dom

Hello Robwing85,

Thank you for reaching out to us about your issue!

Have you tried changing the install location to the external drive in the Xbox App on the notebook?

Launch the Xbox App on your notebook
Click your profile icon
Click “Settings”
Select “General”
Under “Game install options” you should see “Change where this app installs games by default”
Select the external drive from drop down menu
Close out the app entirely and then relaunch it

This may cause the Xbox app to recognize that there are games installed on the external drive.

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Xbox App Games Refuse to Install on External Drive