Using an External USB Hard Drive to Run Games on an Xbox 360 Plus Forza 4 Played with ONLY OLD CARS!

 January 31, 2023

#462

Gentle reader,

I know a fellow who really got into speeding up classic video games by loading many of them on an external hard drive for one of my nephews. At the time, I found it a novelty, but having used external back up drives for my PCs and laptop, it made sense to do that with my Xbox 360 consoles as well.

I did research on how to do that (many call that "googling", but I use another, non-tracking search engine) and found it was not difficult at all. Thus, I backed up ALL my game data, including the no longer obtainable Car Packs, onto the USB back up drive.

Then, one time, when the "FM4*" loaded, a screen appeared offering to let me choose which drive to run the game from. I thought, "You can do that?" and gave it a try. *For the rest of this article, I will refer to Forza Motorsports 4 as "FM4".

Yes you can! And, I was able to start FM4 from the beginning! But, this time, I have ALL the cars to choose from! So, I thought, "This time, I'm only going to race and modify OLD cars." And I have been doing just that. What fun! For an exhaustive list of ALL THE CARS, check out this site: List of Cars | Forza Motorsport 4 Wiki | Fandom

There are three physical versions of Microsoft's vaunted Xbox 360 console. I found this image in an article I am linking below for further information, should you need or desire to read more about this subject.

The web site this image was found on is here: Recommendation: Best Xbox 360 Internal or External Hard Drives

The only type of '360 I have ever used is the one on the left. I've owned a number of them. I've two good ones right now which I use. I have installed the only game I play*, Forza Motorsports 4, directly on the external hard drive which sits atop the console, but even so, the console STILL uses the game disc and it can be noisy and slow.

*I have tried many of the popular racing games available for the Xbox 360, but none ever satisfied like Forza Motorsports 4. The "BU", above, means it is the Back Up drive, rather than the main drive I use.

A typical generic (or name branded) case for 3 1/2" laptop hard drives.

The photos above show a generic 3 1/2" (laptop) hard drive case which I installed a new laptop hard drive within. While it has a round port to plug in an AC powered adapter, it is not needed. The USB power from the '360 is sufficient to run it.

There is a USB port to the LEFT of to the Category 6 (network) cable port on these original Xbox 360 consoles.

The HALO green hard drive is a Chinese copy of the original. One can easily find them, they are pre-formatted to the Xbox 360. In fact, one of the articles I am linking below lists MANY external drives, including one of the green ones.

The green HDD works fine and I will never fill it up, since I only play one game. The black one on the right is one of the largest that Microsoft made for this type on console: 120GB.

This particular laptop-sized external hard drive case has a "Y" USB cable. One cable is thicker than the other, which is visible above, but not below. The thicker one is the one to connect to your console. The thinner one is if the drive needs extra power which it would draw should the second cable also be plugged into a computer's second USB port. It does not carry data.

The case above has a synthetic rubber coating on it. Similar to some smart phone cases. It was first used on the back of some film cameras in days of old.

Note how it has been rubbed off by simply using the camera. 

In order to use a new external hard drive, one must FORMAT it. This link, from Microsoft themselves, tells one how to do that.

How to reset or reformat your Xbox 360 to factory default settings | Xbox Support

To FIND your hard drives, the pictures which are below, show step-by-step how to find your drives and how to choose which one to use with a game.

This is the Xbox 360 home page of which I imagine you are quite familiar. 

Press up on the D-PAD on your steering wheel or controller. Then keep pressing right until it gets to "settings".

Press the green "A" button, and the "drawer" will open as seen above.

The screen will then look like this.

Press down on the D-PAD to get to Storage. Then press the green A button.

This shows all the possible drives (devices). The top one is the hard drive within or on the top of your console.

Which is the one highlighted in green above.

Now, the new external drive, which I have attached via the USB port, is highlighted.

Pressing the green A button will open this list on the contents of the new drive. Obviously, what you have on your drive will differ from what mine contains.

Again, what will be on your drive will be different than mine. ALL I play is Forza Motorsports 4.

I am fortunate to have kept the same gamer tag all these years and to have transferred all of my data to the external drive, which I mentioned above. Thus, I can still draw from and drive EVERY car ever offered by FM4.

Okay, so that shows what is within my drive. 

NOW, below, I show you how to choose which drive to use when playing a game: 

Internal, with game disc, or External without the disc.

Press the green A button on games and the My Games drawer will open.

In my case, this is the game in the disc drawer. Press the green A button again and the game begins loading. 

Once that finishes, a screen similar to this one will appear and ask you to: "A Press A to start the game."

With MORE than one drive, this screen will show.

Using the D-PAD, press down to the "USB Storage Device" and press the green A button.

Here is the list of contents. Press the green A button on the list of "Games and Apps".

A list of all the games you have INSTALLED on YOUR external drive will be listed.

IF you haven't INSTALLED any games on your external drive, then you will have to do so. Warning: Xbox 360 consoles are NOT speed demons. It will take a little while for the entire contents of EACH game disc to be transferred to the hard drive.

After selecting which Device to use, the game will load as usual, BUT, if you are using a USB drive, it will load much quicker and silently.

Below are links to articles I researched to aid you, dear reader, in your quest to follow suit and improve how you play games on you classic Xbox 360!

13 Best External Hard Drive For Xbox 360 2023: In-Depth Reviews For You  

Recommendation: Best Xbox 360 Internal or External Hard Drives

Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to read my humble blog. I hope that you found this information useful. Feel free to leave a comment BELOW or on Facebook.

Scott Robb

January 31, 2023

#462

Bonus material: As noted in the title, and above, I am ONLY going to modify and race OLDER cars, rear-wheel-drive whenever possible. I am 66 years old (a geezer) and first learned to drive in the early 1970's! Almost all cars were rear-wheel-drive then. SUVs, Crossovers and Minivans did not exist then. Nor did cell phones, the Internet or many other things people take for granted today. 

MOST racing cars in the world are rear-wheel-drive. Most STREET cars are front-wheel-drive. And the street cars are FANTASTIC cars. They do EVERYTHING better than the old cars I used to drive could do. If I were to get into one of the cars I drove back in the day and took it for a drive, I would likely think, "What a piece of crap!"

My first car, which I bought in September, 1973, looked like the one below. It was a 1964 Chevrolet (Chevy) Impala two-door hardtop. Note that there is NOTHING there when all four windows are down. That shows it is a Coupe or Hardtop. ALL cars and trucks today have metal frames around the door's windows.

This was the type of interior it had. Those are called Bench Seats. My interior was tan-to-brown in color.

Note the shifter for the transmission was mounted on the steering column, not on the floor like almost all cars have nowadays.

And the automatic transmission had TWO gears: Low and Drive.

Because the engine drove the REAR WHEELS (rear-wheel-drive) it sits "longitudinal" or front to rear. The transmission is behind the engine. A drive-shaft comes out of the transmission, under the center of the car and attaches to the rear differential (rear end) and it drives the rear axles and thus the wheels/tires.

The engine above is a "V-8", which means four cylinders on each side of the V-shaped engine block.

This is my current car. It is 18-years-old and I absolutely ADORE it! I will keep it running forever. It is a 2005 Volvo V50 station wagon.

Note, that it has "bucket" seats as ALL cars and most other passenger cars and light trucks have. 

It has a floor shifter for the six-speed MANUAL transmission. VERY RARE.

It has a turbocharged FIVE cylinder engine. Which is VERY unusual these days. It, like 95% of all passenger vehicles today, has a "transverse" (side-to-side) engine. 

It has THREE pedals! The left one is the CLUTCH pedal. Something you have probably never seen nor heard of. The clutch mechanically connects the engine to the transmission. To accelerate from a stop takes the skill to press the gas pedal just the right amount and slowly let out (take your left foot off of) the clutch pedal. To change gears, the clutch must be disengaged, then the shifter moved from one gear to the next highest: 1>2>3>4>5>6. When slowing down, one can shift the gears back down, it helps the vehicle stop quicker. If you fail to move the gear shifter to neutral when slowing down, the engine will stall. "Seems like a lot of work.", you may be thinking.

WHY do I drive such an OLD car with such archaic technology? Because it is FUN. The same car with an automatic transmission WILL shift gears quicker. But, this car will win a drag race (on a sanctioned, official drag strip, of course) every time over the automatic car. The M66 transmission is set up for RAPID acceleration over the five-speed automatic transmission. Plus my humble V50's official top speed is 149 MPH! 

My car has ZERO "TECH". It cannot tell me how to get somewhere, it cannot answer my phone, should it ring, while I am driving. It cannot connect to the Internet. It cannot play a movie, or connect to satellite radio. And I am SO OK about that!

Call me old fashioned, go ahead. I am. Another good thing about having a manual transmission, MOST car thieves have NO IDEA how to drive a car with a manual transmission!

So, I always leave it in REVERSE, as seen above. They will look in the window, see the shifter and walk away. Hopefully.