Xbox hard drive is on but isn’t working

Could be a dead drive. You coukd try plugging it into a PC to see if it is recognized at all. If it is recognized by the PC you could then try again to mount it to the xbox. If not then you coukd try a new cord.

This so far is the best option presented. At this point, you can plug it into a computer and it won’t read any of the files but it will acknowledge that the hard drive is plugged in. That is definitely going to be a good sign if that happens, that just means
your Xbox for some reason isn’t reading it but the hard drive isnt fried...at least not yet. If your hard drive works on a PC, and if you don’t have a really large hard drive with tons of games on it, the easiest option might be to just format the hard drive
on a computer to NTFS file format, then bring it to the Xbox and reformat it on there to get it to work and hopefully everything goes as it’s supposed to

It will suck having to download the games again, but you will have your hard drive back hopefully

Basically as far as I know, there isn’t an exact option to safely eject any external hard drive on the Xbox One like there is on a PC. What I’ve always done that has never failed me (*knock on wood*) is to totally shut down my Xbox in the actual Xbox Settings
app -as opposed to just pressing the power button- and I normally give it about a minute or two for the console and hard drive to totally shut down, then I’d be confident in unplugging the external hard drive once I can visibly see that the power indicator
light displayed on my hard drive is off and it doesn’t sound like it’s turned on. This particular method has always worked for me so I hope it helps with you.

Hello there!

My name is Jonny and I will be assisting you today!

First, thank you so much for contacting us regarding your concern.

I am very sorry you are experiencing this issue.

Can you try clearing your system cache by performing a power cycle by following the steps below?

To do this:

For Xbox One:

- Go to the Home screen.

- Press the Menu button on the controller.

- Select Settings.

- Go to Sleep Mode & Start-Up

- Select Shut Down.

For Series X|S:

- Open Settings on Xbox.

- Select the General tab.

- Click on Power Options.

- Under the “Options” section, click the “Shutdown now” option.

- Click the “Shut down” button.

Once done and once the console is off, remove the external hard drive.

Once done, power up the console and see if the issue continues after plugging it back in.

If the issue isn’t from an external hard drive check if your games aren’t hidden. Press LS and X to reveal hidden games.

No. If a game requires a hard drive, then it will only work with an Xbox hard drive.