Xbox Failing to Format External Drive

blakezweigle · Nov 16, 2019

I have been using my Western Digital 2TB my passport ultra hard drive with my xbox one for about a year now without any issues. After the most recent update on 10/23/19, It detects the hard drive only when I plug it in to the lower USB outlet in the back
side of the xbox. It no longer detects it at any of the other USB points. When I plug it in and asks me if I would like to format my hard drive, which I'm guessing means that all my stored games and media have been wiped off the drive since I already formatted
it over a year ago. I press yes and give it a name and then designate it as the preferred destination for new content. On the screen after, it asks one more time if I want to format and I press yes. The pop up screen then flashes white and disappears, leaving
me at the home screen. I then go to storage in settings and it is no longer detecting the drive. The drive was never dropped, nor was it unplugged from the xbox since I started using it a year ago. It has always been in a spot with good ventilation and has
never given me a problem. Please help. I had nearly 40 games saved on this drive. Very frustrate .

:)

blakezweigle

Thank you for the advice, but unfortunately it did not work. I'm going to try formatting from my windows 10 laptop and see if that helps.

XBF Brad A

Hi Blake,

Thanks for coming to the forums. If what Parity doesn't help, you may want to try and format the external HD on a Windows 10 PC. When you do make sure you format to NTFS. Also are you in the preview program? If so you will need to report the issue on the

insider forums.

Thanks,

Brad

{Parity}

Try performing a hard reset EXACTLY like this. Hold the power button on the console for 8 seconds or until the power shuts down completely.
Unplug the power cord from the back of the console for 5 minutes.
Plug the power cord back in and restart the console.

Obsessive Power

As for the drive, it may well just have glitched out, with the format fixing it again.

A true sign of a failing external drive is a clicking sound 'hard drive click of death'. If it's still spinning and not clicking it may not need replacing.

J3RS3Y DEVIL

Did support have you re-format the drive? If so, everything on that drive has been wiped.

If you are unable to format it again for games and apps once you plug it back into the console then its dead.

External Drives sometimes fail.

Buy a new one and re-download all of your games to it. I recommend a Seagate. Hasn't failed me yet. 4+ years old.

Xbox Failing to Format External Drive