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Xbox One External Hard Drive Not Working: Why & How to Fix
Solve the external hard drive issue and save your games worry-free
5 min. read
Updated onOctober 4, 2023
updated onOctober 4, 2023
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Key notes
The console installs every game entirely to the hard drive but some games can be pretty massive, and they can fill up the 500GB of hard drive pretty fast.
Thankfully, you can buy anexternal hard driveand connect it to the Xbox One in order to have additional storage.
Sometimes it might happen that your Xbox One external hard drive is not working properly.
If you are in this situation and you are looking for solutions, then keep on reading this article to learn how you can fix it.
However, first, make sure that your drive has USB 3.0 connectivity and has a capacity of at least 256 GB. If your drive doesn’t fit these requirements, it won’t be recognized by your Xbox One.
Steps to fix Xbox One external hard drive not working:
Solution 1: Preliminary steps
There are some things you should try first. They are very simple and intuitive solutions but they could spare you a lot of hassle:
Solution 2: Power cycle your console
Another suggestion is to perform a hard power cycle:
Note: If you do not see the green boot-up animation when the console restarts, repeat the steps described above. Make sure that you hold the power button until the console completely shuts down.
Solution 3: Check Xbox One HDD requirements
According to the manufacturer, for an external storage drive to save games and apps from Xbox One, it must meet the requirements mentioned below:
If some of the requirements are not met, at least you know this is a hardware issues.
Solution 4: Update your Xbox One
It might be possible that there are recent updates for your Xbox One pending. You can manually update your firmware for your console to detect your external storage.
In order to update your console, please follow the steps described below:
After you have installed the update, go back to Settings, select System, and then Storage and check whether your device appears in the list.
Solution 5: Adjust the power management for storage
Another good suggestion is to check your power settings. In order to do that:
Solution 6: Reset the Xbox One operating system
There may be a problem with your console’s operating system hence Xbox One external hard drive won’t work. The reset can be done without deleting your games or apps.
In order to do that:
We hope that the solutions above helped you solve your problem and your Xbox One external hard drive is working again. Hopefully, you now have more space to save your games.
If you have other suggestions or solutions, let us know in the comments section below.
More about the topics:external hard drive,Xbox One issues
Milan Stanojevic
Windows Toubleshooting Expert
Milan has been enthusiastic about technology ever since his childhood days, and this led him to take interest in all PC-related technologies. He’s a PC enthusiast and he spends most of his time learning about computers and technology.
Before joining WindowsReport, he worked as a front-end web developer. Now, he’s one of the Troubleshooting experts in our worldwide team, specializing in Windows errors & software issues.
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Milan Stanojevic
Windows Toubleshooting Expert
Before joining WindowsReport, he worked as a front-end web developer. Now, he’s specialized in Windows errors & software issues.
