Copy xbox 360 game into an external hard drive
I don't think I need to write this, but just in case, here we go: the external hard disk must be formatted in FAT32.
Great, but the xbox 360 game is almost 8 GB and I know that FAT32 only supports files up to 4 GB, so what?
It is worth mentioning that we are not sending the full ISO file, but the game in GoD format, which we described in the previous article. The files do not exceed 4 GB.
But, I try to format my 1 TB hard drive in FAT32 and this option does not appear in Windows. I can format it only in ExFAT or NTFS, how do you do it?
Unfortunately even despite the evolution of Windows its backward compatibility has never allowed hard drives larger than 32 GB to be formatted in FAT32. Other operating systems like Linux, MacOS, etc do not have this limitation. To be able to format your hard drive (larger than 32 GB) in Windows you need to use third party tools, the most famous being GUIFORMAT. Use it and you are done. Just be careful to format exactly the drive you will use in your console!
With that said, let's get back to ISO2GOD.
Very directly, if in my "Output Path" you select S:\drive as external hard drive, after the conversion, at the root of this drive there would be the game folder (in GOD format) already available for use on the xbox 360 console with the FSD (Freestyle Dashboard) dashboard installed.
I don't have FSD or any other file manager or programs of this type on my console with RGH/JTAG, can I use the external hard drive?
To run the games like this, no. The external Hard Drive on the hacked dashboard (Freeboot/GGbuild) is not recognized. It may happen that it is recognized as an USB stick and you should be aware that in this case (external storage device) the XBOX will format your hard drive and even if it has more than 16 Gb, only 16 GB will be allocated. In other words, to run games from an external HD on consoles with RGH/JTAG you need an alternative program/dashboard, and the best is FSD (Freestyle Dashboard)
Of course, these converted games don't need to stay in the root folder od the hard drive. They can stay in a folder (e.g. XBOX360) and, in the "Output Path" selection of ISO2GOD you can specify the path so that it will write the files directly there, making your work much easier and keeping your hard drive organized.
I converted the games following your tips, connected the hard drive in the console, turned it on, the console booted but the games folder is empty. What did I do wrong?
Maybe nothing. Does your FSD know where to look for the games? Shall we check if everything is correct?
(Note: in this guide I am using FSD 3, so please correlate this to the version installed on your console - not much has changed between versions).
Navigate to the SETUP menu and choose the SETTINGS tab:
Under SETTINGS, navigate to CONTENT SETTINGS:
Under CONTENT SETTINGS go to MANAGE GAME PATHS
Here we have a good example. This FSD already has a path configured, but in particular it is not the external hard drive (usually a USB port). It is set to look for everything (all file types - see the AUTOMATIC option for both Retail and Devkit) on HDD1:\ (internal hard disk). As we are going to save to the game installation here, those details are left for a review of this guide.
Following our example we need to ADD the path to the external hard disk. Press A on the MANAGE GAME PATHS option and management options will appear:
Press Y and a new menu will appear:
In this menu, press A on the CHANGE PATH button and the available devices will be listed:
Here's our external HD in USB0:
Let's show how to select it and already giving a hint: note that at the top of the menu is shows what is currently selected, in this case the DRIVE LIST (Drive List). For our selection to be valid it must be listed up there. Notice in the image below, the cursor is on USB0:
If we press Y to select the drive/directory as indicated below, the selection would not point to our external drive.
The correct way to make a selection is, besides moving the cursor to the drive, to "enter" it by pressing A:
Note that now, the drive (USB0:) is properly listed. Pressing Y would now select the external drive. If you want to select a particular folder from this drive instead of the entire drive (select the root), navigate to the folder, ENTER it, and from there press Y to make the selection.
Note that the selection (below the CHANGE PATH button) is now correct, showing the external hard drive (USB0:00)*. Move the cursor to the right and make SCAN DEPTH, point to 10 subdirectories (subfolders).
This is important because no matter how your folders are organized, FSD will search for games up to 10 sub-folders.
Also note that by default, the Retail and Devkit options are set to Automatic. This way FSD searches by itself and organizes in the menus the 360, XBLA, Xbox1, Homebrew and Emulators games. You can also force a particular drive/folder to have only one content, just make the respective selection on this screen.
To save your choice, press X on this screen.
Saved option gets listed in the PATHS settings. Again, this is just an example and you can have a selection of different directories. Here we have the internal hard disk (HDD1:\) and the external hard disk (USB0:\) scanned from the root into up to 10 sub-folders.
When the selection is saved, FSD automatically scans and already makes the games available in the Xbox 360 Games menu.
If this does not happen, simply restart the FSD (reboot).
Go back to the main menu (by pressing B repeatedly until you exit the submenus) and see if your games are listed (LIBRARY > XBOX 360 GAMES):
Select your game and have fun.
