Old Xbox keeps wanting to reformat - help please

nands · 30 Jun 2013 at 11:59

I am not a console gamer so have not had any dealings with Xboxes so forgive me if this is simple.

Anyway, after the Wii U had a severe lack of games we picked up an old but still sealed Xbox. It is 2009 vintage and came bundled with Forza Motorsport 3. We got it set up and updated all OK.

After a week and while I was fiddling about updating a game it seemed to freeze. I pulled the plug and next time loading it told me that there was a new update but I did not have enough storage and forced me to format the 250GB drive. I had assumed that I killed something pulling the plug while updating and kicked myself. We had only had it a week so only some minor losses on savegames.

This morning it did it again, kids playing on Rayman and loving it, turned it off OK but next power on it wanted an update saying that there was no hard drive space for it and suggesting a reformat.

Both times if I ignored the update and went to the dashboard there was no record of my profile and no games in my games.

Any advice as to how to move forward would be appreciated. Thanks.

Richdog · 30 Jun 2013 at 12:03

Top links... https://www.google.ch/search?q=xbox...50,d.dmg&fp=489d4483e34ab019&biw=1536&bih=788

nands · 30 Jun 2013 at 12:09

Thank you for that.

I have obviously searched Google and most of the results are just to reformat and go with the flow which I did the first time. As it has now done it a second time I was wondering if anyone here had any personal experience?

Is it that I should just buy a new HD? Try an external HD, give up on the whole thing and buy a new one?

Richdog · 30 Jun 2013 at 12:18

nands said:
Thank you for that.

I have obviously searched Google and most of the results are just to reformat and go with the flow which I did the first time. As it has now done it a second time I was wondering if anyone here had any personal experience?

Is it that I should just buy a new HD? Try an external HD, give up on the whole thing and buy a new one?

It's not obvious at all that you have searched, if you don't mention that you have searched or make any reference to any specific details. Plenty of people come here just expecting answers.

General concensus on those links is that if it is repeatedly asking you to reformat, then you either need to reformat, or in the worst case buy a new HD as the old one is faulty.

Back up your stuff and then give it a try.

nands · 30 Jun 2013 at 12:46

You are right, I didn't give specifics and state that I had searched, sorry.

Will look into how to back up. Thank you.

nands · 30 Jun 2013 at 19:43

Basically I need to determine whether it is the xbox or the HDD. The trouble with testing it is that (going on the gap between the two episodes) it will look like it is working perfectly for a week or so.

Or could it be just a two off issue and it won't happen again? Or are we doing something odd to set it off?

If it was a read error or other disk error surely the system would give me an error code? It just seems to wipe all of the data and carry on.

Richdog · 30 Jun 2013 at 20:14

Think about it... what are the odds of a random issue like that occurring twice within such a short space of time? If the Xbox is old, then it is very likely that the HD within it is approaching end of life as lets face it, it's nothing unusual with mechanical HD technology.

I have had multiple HD's with faults that give an error, then work fine for a few week, then give another error... work fine for a little less... and so on. I would just back up and test with a new HD.

nands · 30 Jun 2013 at 23:14

After reading a lot more and what you said Rich, I think it will be worth getting a new HD, to test with. It will be a panic after a week or so to see if it dies.

The biggest bugger of it all is telling a 10 and 7 year old that they get to replay their games again - not an issue!

Richdog · 1 Jul 2013 at 08:16

nands said:
After reading a lot more and what you said Rich, I think it will be worth getting a new HD, to test with. It will be a panic after a week or so to see if it dies.

The biggest bugger of it all is telling a 10 and 7 year old that they get to replay their games again - not an issue!

I'm sure they won't complain too much.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

nands · 3 Jul 2013 at 20:06

Well new HD in and it is working fine so far. Will be using anticipation for the first few weeks. The good news is that it came with a USB backup thingie so I will be keeping a pretty regular backup. Anyone recommend some decent software for that, is xport360 good?