Xbox 360 Replacement Concerns

[rdrunner | 422]

So the DVD drive on my Xbox 360 just went kaput and I'm evaluating options.

I can't open the machine myself, so I tried having someone fix the drive, but they failed.  Not sure if I just need to find another expert or buy a bunch of tools and replacement parts, but I think it would be easier to just get another console.

Biggest concern with this plan is what might happen to my digital games.  From what I heard, I would have to transfer all my game licenses to the new machine.  But it's 2023 and Microsoft isn't exactly helpful if something goes wrong.  Plus, I don't know if I'll be able re-download stuff that has been delisted (ex: Scott Pilgrim, XBLIG).

Does anyone know if you can access your purchase history from the console to find and download things?  I thought I read somewhere that you can, but I've never found the right menu option.

I would hate to have to keep all my digital stuff on my current console if I get another one, but I get the feeling it may come to that.

Any help is appreciated!

[a3quit4s | 4,121]

Which 360 version did you have? I’d cut my losses and pick up a Xbox 360 E. Most reliable of the bunch. You can probably clone your existing hard drive to another but I’m not an expert on that. 

[rdrunner | 422]

3 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

Which 360 version did you have? I’d cut my losses and pick up a Xbox 360 E. Most reliable of the bunch. You can probably clone your existing hard drive to another but I’m not an expert on that. 

I have the Elite, which lasted 12 years.  It has served me well!

Not really ready to cut losses yet.

[drxandy | 3,235]

Can't you just transfer the files to the hard drive, remove it and use it on another console with your account? I'm not fully sure but I thought that would work?

[rdrunner | 422]

5 hours ago, drxandy said:

Can't you just transfer the files to the hard drive, remove it and use it on another console with your account? I'm not fully sure but I thought that would work?

I think that Xbox hard drives have licenses tied to just one machine.

I have 2 120 GB hard drives, one of which I bought used.  When I first plugged the used one into the machine, I got an error message and was forced to wipe it before using.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,016]

52 minutes ago, rdrunner said:

I think that Xbox hard drives have licenses tied to just one machine.

I have 2 120 GB hard drives, one of which I bought used.  When I first plugged the used one into the machine, I got an error message and was forced to wipe it before using.

There is a way to transfer your data to a new console for each facelift of the Xbox 360. Just read some articles and watch a video, and you'll be fine. I did it once back in the day with the original XB360

[Rhuno | 109]

@rdrunner There's an xbox 360 hard drive transfer cable you can get. It's been a long while, but I know I used it to transfer stuff to my elite when I picked it up. Not sure about the delisted content stuff though. It might transfer, but it's not something I would've run into back then so I can't say for sure.

The cables are like $25-$30 on amazon.

[fox | 1,669]

1. Files are easy to move.  You can transfer files between hard drives, consoles, memory cards, or redownload it.  If something is delisted, you might still be able to recover it in your purchase history.

2. You can transfer your liscences to another console once per year, otherwise you need to be loaded into your account and online to access your stuff.  You can recover your gamertag from online or put it on a memory card too. 

So get your gamertag on a new console.  Do a liscence transfer.  Move or download all your games and files over.

Edited December 11, 2023 by fox

[OptOut | 8,890]

Another good tip for saving wear on your disc drive is to install the games you want to play on your hard drive. After my 360 started running into issues reading discs, I install all the games I play now, and not had a problem since!

[rdrunner | 422]

Thanks for the tips everyone!

So it sounds like I need to just get myself a new machine and the transfer cable.

Has anyone recently performed the license transfer?  I saw a worrisome internet article where people were complaining that it no longer works or at least doesn't always work.

[rdrunner | 422]

Update: I have found myself an Xbox 360 (S) in great condition.  The DVD drive plays all of my game discs on the first try and it came with a 250GB hard drive.

Now the tough part: The digital content.  I performed the License Transfer on the machine and it says that I'm free to download (not copy) my game library to the new console.  This is doable since my history is all there, but I really just wanted to copy my existing files, which would be much faster.

I don't have the special cable yet, so I experimented with a simple USB flash drive.  I formatted it with the old Xbox and can copy game files to it, then plug it into the new one and get the games onto the machine.  This seems to be equivalent to what the cable does, though not quite sure.  When transferring the files to the new machine, there's a message that some files "may require a license transfer", but I didn't see a way to do that on a per-file basis.

Anyway, it is clear that each file that I copied in this manner does not have my license associated with it.  This can be proven by attempting to play offline.  When I do that, most games act as if I'm playing the trial version.  Some specific games give me the same treatment when online as well (ex: Braid).  For each of these games, I tried re-downloading them instead (license recognized, didn't pay any money) and they all worked correctly while offline (including Braid).

Is there something magical about Microsoft 's special cable that preserves the license data better than what I just did?  I don't see how, but it would be good to know.  I want to solve this problem as best I can in case I have to do it again someday.

Thoughts?

Edited December 23, 2023 by rdrunner

[rdrunner | 422]

Well, I finally downloaded all of my digital games, so I can officially say that I have my Xbox 360 back.  Took a long time off and on, though most of that was the full size games at 5 to 7 GB each (Gold trials were somewhat kind to me over the years).

One last question in case anyone knows: Is there anything I can do to prevent my connection to Xbox Live from dropping when I load specific games?  The thing was connected enough to say "download this update" when I launch a game, but then just after that the game says "not connected".  If I exit the game, connectivity is restored.

I've checked a few articles and YouTube videos and have tried their suggestions, which have not worked.  So far I have tried:

• Deleting and re-downloading my user profile
• Clearing the system cache
• Deleting and re-downloading the xbox dashboard

Again, this only happens on about 20% of my games, and always the same ones (never had a failure on anything that stayed connected once).  I know that Xbox Live is dying and all that, but I still expected better.

Anyone see this stuff happen on their machines?

[fox | 1,669]

Download the update for the game, otherwise it is going to disconnect you from Xbox live

If that doesn’t work try deleting the game data (keep your save data) and downloading it again, which should be the latest version 

[wongojack | 220]

14 hours ago, rdrunner said:

Well, I finally downloaded all of my digital games, so I can officially say that I have my Xbox 360 back.  Took a long time off and on, though most of that was the full size games at 5 to 7 GB each (Gold trials were somewhat kind to me over the years).

One last question in case anyone knows: Is there anything I can do to prevent my connection to Xbox Live from dropping when I load specific games?  The thing was connected enough to say "download this update" when I launch a game, but then just after that the game says "not connected".  If I exit the game, connectivity is restored.

I've checked a few articles and YouTube videos and have tried their suggestions, which have not worked.  So far I have tried:

• Deleting and re-downloading my user profile
• Clearing the system cache
• Deleting and re-downloading the xbox dashboard

Again, this only happens on about 20% of my games, and always the same ones (never had a failure on anything that stayed connected once).  I know that Xbox Live is dying and all that, but I still expected better.

Anyone see this stuff happen on their machines?

I usually find that if I am downloading a fat stack of gigs that I want to stop playing games and let the downloads finish.  I also usually connect the Xbox with a WIRED connection when doing something like that.

But the activity you went through is what happens now whenever I get a new Xbox console.  I go through my purchases and re-dowload what I want.  The experience of finding what you own seems to get easier with each iteration of the console/software.

[rdrunner | 422]

Thanks for the advice so far!

Some extra info just to cover a few more bases:

• When prompted, I always install whatever update.  So far, doing so has not helped.  Will try redownloading a couple of games to see what happens.
• I definitely always avoid playing any games while something is downloading. 
• The issue is not limited to digital content.  The same thing can happen when playing games off a disc.
• It is possible that some of my old files may not be usable on this new machine.  For example, I had originally copied a (free) Castle Crashers DLC from my old machine and deleted it when the game gave me startup messages that I had corrupted data.
• On the other hand, the issue also occurs on games I haven't played yet and have no extra data at all.

[rdrunner | 422]

Figured out the "connection" issue above, though the solution is not ideal: The games all work fine if I use a different gamer profile.

Turns out that every game that had this issue has a common style for saving game data, where they store it directly on a gamer profile.  No separate files are created and no cloud storage is involved.

The game saves are all playable, but there must be something wrong with using them on a different xbox.

I created a new profile and have been testing all of the problem games.  So far, they all work perfectly with this other profile, but if I switch back to my main, xbox live is not accessible.

There does not appear to be anything I can do to fix the game data for these games.  I tried playing the games and saving progress, but that didn't help.

I also cannot delete the game data from my profile.  I can delete and redownload the entire profile whenever I want, but it's just one file (at least when viewed from the console).  From what I've read online, I may risk getting my user banned for even trying anything.

Microsoft typically has people send their xbox in for "repairs" when this happens to get rid of "corruption".  Not sure what they expect people to do now that they don't even have a fully staffed help system (they probably just don't care).

I must say given the circumstances, this profile save business is one of the worst design decisions in the history of video games.  Forget the xbox live stuff for a second: Most of these games don't even let you reset your data to start a game over for a new playthrough!  That problem was solved in the '80s and they somehow managed to screw it up?  Pathetic.

Anyway, thus ends (I think) my adventure of switching between xbox 360 machines.  May my new one never need replacing, so I never have to do this again.

Edited January 23 by rdrunner

[xelement5x | 67]

A bit late here, but when my original 360 toasted itself I am pretty sure I just pulled the HDD out of the fat drive casing and stuck it a replacement skinny casing I bought online and stuck it in my Xbox E.  

It's been awhile, but I'm fairly certain as long as a HDD is formatted for 360, you just need the correct form factor of the casing to read it.

Edited January 26 by xelement5x