how can i get my xbox 360 to recognize my portable hard drive i'm using the portable apps program and i want to save stuff and listen to music but it doesn't seem to see that is it plugged in. is there any other program like this that i can use on my 360 or is there a way i can get this to work
New: NAPS2 (Feb 24, 2025), Platform 29.5.3 (Jun 27, 2024)
1,100+ portable packages, 1.1 billion downloads
No Ads!, Please donate today
Visit the Community page
Join our forums
Subscribe to our email newsletter
Subscribe with RSS
Follow us on BlueSky
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on LinkedIn
Follow us on Mastodon
Follow us on Twitter
The Xbox 360 doesn't recognize external hard drives, only flash drives. From a flash drive, it will play music and video, and possibly view images (though, I've never tried that).
The Xbox 360 can run code from a flash drive, but this is rare. Only the New Xbox Experience (NXE) Dashboard update last year was ever reported to run, as Xbox 360 code, from a flash drive, as opposed to an Xbox 360-formatted DVD-ROM.
There is no software that PortableApps.com offers that will run on an Xbox 360.
You won't be able to save anything (e.g. save games, downloadable content) on a flash drive, either. You need an Xbox 360 memory card for that.
Not entirely correct, the xbox 360 does recognize external hard drives with specific conditions:
You need to have the memory carrier formatted in FAT(32) or HFS+ in order to have the 360 recognize the device.
NTFS does not work, neither will it with a flashdrive.
And the NXE update isn't the only time you could use a flashdrive to update.
MS releases each 360 update to burn on a disk or put on a flashdrive or CD/DVD a few weeks after the Xbox Live rollout. The Backwards compatibility updates can be installed this way too.
placing saves or DLC on the flashdrive indeed will not work. The 360 accesses non-FATX formatted devices as read-only.
Well, being a Microsoft system, you'd think they would support their NTFS filesystem. Oh well, good to know