The New New New Xbox Experience Halo4 Dash

[ExtremePabs]

Is there any way currently to do any HDD maintenance?? ie a hidden program

[wod]

there is a way to clear the cache but forgotten the button squenence to press, they should put an option to do this in the new dashboard menu but doubt they would

[MonkeyWrench]

I thought it was game specific? Such as holding down A whilst loading Oblivion will reinstall the cached data.

[TheBlackLodge]

No you can totally clear the 360 cache, it removes all downloads and updates etc.

If the problem does not occur when the Xbox Hard Drive is disconnected, try clearing the Xbox 360 Hard Drive cache. To clear the Xbox 360 Hard Drive cache, follow these steps: 1.Re-attach the Xbox Hard Drive.2.Locate the System section of the Xbox 360 Dashboard. 3.Select Memory, select Hard Drive, and then press Y to view the device options screen.4.On the Xbox 360 Controller, press the X button, press the X button again, press the left bumper, press the right bumper, press the X button, and then press the X button again.5.You will be prompted to confirm system maintenance. Select Yes by pressing A.

[toythatkills]

What does that do, exactly? It doesn't delete downloads surely? Like XBLA games or DLC and stuff?

[Rossco]

Yeah I'm sure it does, I remember hearing that before actually. So all updates you've downloaded for games too would have to be re-downloaded. Bit pointless. There should be an option to semi clear the cache and defrag it without getting rid of everything!

[sj33]

At one point, people used to use that to stop Oblivion crashing.

Assuming the 360 uses the same FATX file system as the XBox, they *really* need to let users defrag.

[Rossco]

Is it possible they well allow that in future then? Or does it depend what file system they use for the HDDs?


I might buy a new HDD since you can install games now but can't you just chuck a normal drive in instead of buying a obscenely overpriced MS one?

[anephric]

Stuff doesn't need to be deleted. Do you think when you delete a file in Windows it really removes all the zeros and ones? No, it just leaves the file where it is and updates the index to let it know those clusters can be overwritten.

That's not what I meant - sure, it doesn't brute erase when you delete stuff, but it sets up folders for EVERYTHING you've EVER downloaded: every demo, gamerpic, theme, video etc. Each has some long numerical tag. When you delete that content from your HDD, the top folder remains, for whatever reason. This is why browsing your game library or themes gets slower and slower and slowwweer (at least, with the 20gb drives, because they're slow anyway, so it just makes the problem worse). The only way to clean all this crap out is to reformat, which is just ridiculous. It's a nasty, messy system.

[MattyD]

Is there any way currently to do any HDD maintenance?? ie a hidden program

I think you can just plug it into a PC through a SATA connection. I know there are some homebrew programs out there, and Datel have released some utilities for it as well (mostly for backing up your saves but they may well have other features).

[MonkeyWrench]

Ahhh gotcha. I'm surprised they're not using an indexing system, every company that has developed an operating systems learnt decades ago that it's the quickest method for presenting information.

I'm wondering whether all those empty folders get carried across when you do a HDD transfer then? I upgraded to an elite a few months back and found it to be a lot faster, just thought it was down to it being a better drive and the data being transferred to a totally unfragged volume.

[Salsa Party Animal]

I will get meself a new white XBOX ELite after buying new TV as I want to take advantage with HDMI and bigger hard drive. But that will wait until January.

[MattyD]

This update may well have an indexing system of sorts as I recall one of the new features would be all your content would be accessible instantly without having to 'pop in' when you select your games or video library like at the moment.

[anephric]

I'm wondering whether all those empty folders get carried across when you do a HDD transfer then? I upgraded to an elite a few months back and found it to be a lot faster, just thought it was down to it being a better drive and the data being transferred to a totally unfragged volume.

I imagine this is why things that people have deleted ages ago sometimes get re-enabled and transferred across when migrating from one drive to another. But yeah, the 20gb drives are hella slow - Seagate said as much (weirdly enough) and that they didn't understand why MS were sticking such crap drives in at launch. Good PR line there.

[Malc]

Yeah, I found my old 20GB drive to take ages to load the list of themes, games library, gamer pictures etc. Whereas the 120GB HDD loads them almost instantly.