Topic: XB1 External Hardrive issues

Hey all. I have an external hardrive, and everything was workin great. My friend came over with his hardrive, so we unplugged mine to play his games. When I tried to put mine back in after, the xbox will not recognize it, so I can't play most of my games. I've tried everything on the help site, forums etc. I'm in the preview program, so the march update could be the problem. I would hate to spend days reinstalling my crud if I have to reformat it! (T_T )
Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Have you tried a new USB 3.0 cable? I was having issues with a brand new Seagate back when they first allowed the use of external drives and that was the culprit... even though it was a brand new drive. Could also try plugging it into one of the other 2 USB ports if you haven't already.

As for being in the preview program I'm in that too and I've got an external HDD and SSD and neither seem to be any the worse for the new update I got yesterday.

@A_BabyRed_Yoshi: You didn't unplug it with the console on did you or try plugging it back in with it on? Have tried the 'Power Cycle reset' to clear the Cache?

@BAMozzy: I've unplugged + plugged every cord every which way with the console off and on with no luck. By power cycle reset do you mean "hard reset"? Hard resetting doesn't do anything either.

@stylon: the hardrive is powered on and acting like it's normal..but the xbox doesn't see it. Did your hard drive turn on when the USB wasn't working?
I've also moved it to every other usb port to no avail.

@A_BabyRed_Yoshi: Yes it powered on and would be recognised but then a message would pop up on screen that it had been disconnected as soon as I tried to installing a game onto it. I too tried everything - even reformatting it multiple times. In the end I contacted MS who advised me to try a new cable. I was pretty skeptical but it worked and has been fault free every since...

Think what Bam was getting at is that you might have inadvertently unplugged your HDD whilst your Xbox was still accessing it which, if you're very unlucky, could cause corruption. Should be safeguards in place to prevent that and I would have thought it would only corrupt the file/game/save being accessed but shit happens and it could have corrupted the filesystem on the drive.

I assume you tried plugging your drive into your mates Xbox and/or using his cable with yours?

@stylon: No, I can't try it on another xbox till at least tomorrow :/.
My friend has done this repeatedly with his, with the xbox on, and it instantly recognizes his no problem.

@A_BabyRed_Yoshi: You should never disconnect (or connect) an external drive whilst anything is on (either the drive or what you are plugging it into). Certainly not if its in the process of reading or writing to disc as this can cause irreparable damage to the actual discs inside let alone become corrupted. I certainly haven't noticed an option to 'safely remove hardware' feature like there is on PC. Just because someone else has done it and been 'lucky' so far doesn't mean you will be.
The other thing to try is to access the 'storage' feature via the 'settings' menu and see if you can access it from that. A new USB cable could be the answer too if its not recognising it at all or showing that anything is connected - obviously needs to be a USB3.0 cable (I assume you have plugged the original 3.0 cable in and not swapped them over with a different cable - 3.0 is 'blue' inside)

@BAMozzy: I done goofed. The xbox was trying to install dark souls 2 to the internal hardrive, since its installed on my external. I bet I screwed something up plugging it back in while it was installing

@A_BabyRed_Yoshi: I hope its not messed everything up permanently. I would suggest deleting DS2 off your internal, making sure there is no disc in the drive and then 'Power Cycle' (Hard Reset by holding the Power button for about 10 secs) to turn yout console off. Once off, plug in you external and start up the console.

Hopefully everything is OK after this.

@BAMozzy: I just did that, nothing happened. The xbox seems like its fine, but the external still wont work

Start with the basics. Unplug both the drive and the Xbox from the power at the wall and leave for 30 secs at least. Power up the Xbox one and make sure all ok and nothing trying to install. Then plug in the external HD. My Xbox one occasionally loses one of its hard drives. This always works for me.

Fixed the issue...i had to drop 25 flippin dollars on a new usb cable. No idea how that was the issue but whatever, at least it's fixed. Thanks for the help guys!

@A_BabyRed_Yoshi: I am glad to hear you got it sorted. I usually buy my cables from ebay as they are often a fraction of the price but obviously have to wait for delivery - not great in an emergency! The mark up on these in retail shops are ridiculous!!!

@A_BabyRed_Yoshi: Glad you got there. Worrying when you think that all that data going to the big repository in the sky and I don't mean the cloud.