Xbox One will not format external hard drive

Poinstudd · Apr 20, 2015

After reading all of the forums about similar problems it seems that there is something wrong with my xbox. My xbox one will recognize that an external hard drive is connected however it only gives me the option to view contents. I have tried "full reboots",
all three usb ports, making sure the setting to keep hard drives on is checked, you name it i've done it. I've formatted the drive on a pc and made sure it had a partition. I've tried both of my external hard drives, one is a 1 tb HGST Touro as well as my
WD 2tb my book. Both drives are usb 3.0. I have tried both drives on my friends xbox and they show up, can be formatted and can move to and from the drives. Both have the newest april update. I purchased my xbox one a month after they were released and
they purchased theirs a month or so ago. The only thing that installed was the media player app when i connected my external drive. It seems as if there is something missing such as an app that reads the external drive. This is so frustrating, thought this
was supposed to be plug and play, but i cant download any new games being that my hard drive is full. my xbox 360 got the red rings and now the one is doing things like this! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! I guess this is the price you pay for
being an early adopter.

:)

Rhys Spagnolo · Apr 20, 2015

External Hard Drives: De-Formatting From Xbox One

I am going to tell you how to remove the formatting on a External Hard Drive from a Xbox One.

Requirements:

Xbox 360

1. Insert external hard drive into Xbox 360

2. Go into System

3. Go into Storage

4. Press 'Y' on External Hard Drive (Will be called "unformatted device")

5. Click on Format

6. The External Hard Drive will now contain the Xbox 360's formatting.

7. If you do not want the Xbox 360's formatting on the External Hard Drive, all you need to do is format the External Hard Drive on a computer. Otherwise, if you don't care that the Xbox 360's formatting is on the External Hard Drive, then ignore this step.

Hope This Helped Anyone Who Did Not Know How To Remove An Xbox One's Formatting From An External Hard Drive!

n7oldnavy · Apr 20, 2015

HELP

My Xbox One Can"t format my external hard drive or move/copy games Help.

GingerJack714 · Apr 20, 2015

I have the same problem! My external drive has been working ever since I got it 2 months ago. Now just a couple days ago it doesnt even detect it anymore. Which means no games!!

npierri · Apr 22, 2015

Just to check: have u inserted any USB drive in the USB ports to check they are working ok? have you tried the disk on all USB ports?

Im sure you did but ....

EVIL OMENZ · Apr 23, 2015

GingerJack714, I also have the same problem as you. My external drive has been working ever since I got it about 2 months ago to. Also now just since 3 or 4 days ago my XBOX ONE doesn't even detect it anymore. Which means no games for me to. I have tried
everything.

paw235 · May 1, 2015

Hey guys, same problem here :/ Playing games from our Western Digital 1TB - purchased new and fresh-used on the XBO in June 2014 - fine yesterday, then today: nothing.

Tried all the troubleshoots but no joy; attempted re-formatting on Win8.1 laptop but can't see a way to Format - however Properties/Troubleshoot say it's working fine/no issues detected; plugged it in to the Mac Mini [I know, long shot!] but OS X reports
it unreadable and needs initialising, opens Disk Utility, which then highlights the drive in danger-red, disables all edit options, shows S.M.A.R.T. as failing and advises backup and contacting Apple for assistance..!

Anarkia: I've not tried another USB drive but I've connected the poorly WD1TB to all three XBO USB ports and each time the drive activity light blinks on connection for a few second before turning steady - I'm fairly certain it used to blink irregularly
[currently it remains on constantly until powering the XBO off, when it returns to blinking]... Is this proving the ports are sound or would I be better off rooting through man-junk-drawers for a thumbdrive just to be positive..?

Should also add that we've had a couple of flaky moments in the past, where the drive's been missing and had to be disconnected and reconnected to regain availability. However this seems something different as previously it's rectified itself fairly swiftly,
plus I feel it's odd that we're all coming to the Support forum with the same issues - anyone had any luck reviving their drive yet or any Support folks have any suggestions..?

Managed to find the receipt, so I'm tempted to go and see if I can get a new replacement to plug in and see if the Box will format a factory-fresh drive - if I do, I'll report back here with my findings!

Joker7310 · Jun 3, 2015

I'm having the same problem. I go to Settings/System/Storage and it recognizes that my hard drive is plugged in, but will only allow it to be used for media storage, and when I select it it doesn't even offer the option to be formatted for memory. It had
worked earlier but now for some reason it won't allow me to. Any help would be appreciated.

Mister Beep · Oct 31, 2018

Hey there Joker7310!

Sorry to hear about the similar issue! Since this is an older thread, please post a new thread detailing the issue you are experiencing. That way the community can provide support tailored to you! Thanks!

StuartATrueRed

Have you formatted the hard drive? If not, have a look here for instructions on how to do this on the console.

https://www.trueachievements.com/n40186/how-to-format-external-hard-drive-xbox-one Also make sure your hard drive is a usb 3.0 hard drive, otherwise the drive will not work on the console.

Obsessive Power

Hi,

Not sure what you wanted to do here, could you elaborate?

As for external hard drives, you can't partition them for use as both external storage for games and for use with your Mac or PC. You can use an external hard drive on the Xbox One as a media drive, though.

If you format an external hard drive for Xbox One games storage, the whole drive is formatted and the file system is changed.

Internet Expert

If you have a Windows PC, connect the external hard drive to it and give it a reformat. Sometimes, people need to give a hard drive an extra reformat on the computer because it's currently in a format that the Xbox cannot change (for some reason).

- Connect the external HDD to the PC.

- Go to "My Computer" (Win+E)

- Right click the external hard drive, and select "Format..."

- Ensure it formats to "NTFS", leave all other settings the way they are.

- After it finishes, attempt to format the drive on the Xbox again.

NOTE: If your external hard drive came pre-formatted with more than one partition, you will need to reformat the entire drive so it has one and only one NTFS partition. You can manage disk partitions via "Disk Management" in Windows.

Hope this helps!

Scooby Doo

Hello there! So when you format an external hard drive on the XBOX One, the console formats the drive into a file system that a computer PC cannot see. The 360 did not do it that way. A lot of the reason the drive is formatted that way is to prevent piracy,
I would assume. This is an article I found when I Googled search this issue. There are others like it to.

www.xbonehelp.com/.../transfer-files-tofrom-external-hard-drive-formatted-by-xbox-one-on-windows-pc.html

So I hope this helps!

gds1972

Hi

I don't know what file format Xbox One uses with external hard drives but when you first connect a drive the console should offer to format the drive for games (If it meets the specs), With my Xbox One I have both a 2TB and 4TB external hard drives connected
and working without any issues for playing games.

Xbox One will not format external hard drive