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How to Partition a Hard Drive on an Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 external hard drive is designed to hold numerous game files, movie files, photos and music files. However, if you ever buy a used hard drive with old information on it, swap with a friend or simply want to start your file collection from scratch, you'll need to partition, or format, your hard drive. This is a very easy process and takes only a few minutes, requiring only your hard drive, a controller and your console.

Instructions

- 1
  Power on your Xbox 360 console with your controller and external hard drive connected. Make sure there is no game in the disc drive so that the Xbox 360's dashboard pops up.
- 2
  Scroll over and select "My Xbox" from the dashboard, then select "System Settings" followed by "Memory."
- 3
  Select the storage device that you wish to partition/format, in this case the "Hard Drive" and press the yellow "Y" button.
- 4
  Select "Format" on the subsequent screen then select "Yes" when the Xbox 360 informs you that all information on the device will be deleted. If you are prompted to enter you console's serial number, look for the number on a label on the back of the console and enter it on the screen using the on-screen keyboard, then select "Done." The console will then partition/format, a process that could take several minutes.

Xbox 360