February 3rd, 2012 | Author: jon
Well, 2012 hasn’t gone well for me so far tech-wise. My WiFi Kindle died a death, as did my ancient Ubuntu laptop. My venerable Xbox 360 Pro (yes, the fat one) finally died a death after six years and surviving a RRoD repair at Microsoft. So had to get one of the new shiny black Slim 250GB models to replace it. So now I have to transfer all my save data, games and DLC to the new Slim. Annoyingly, the old-style Xbox hard drives are not compatible with the new Slim models so the data will have to be transferred. This is from an old 250GB Xbox to a new 250GB Slim model.
Luckily, I still had my Transfer Cable from the 250GB hard drive upgrade from about a year back and this is by far the easiest way to transfer your stuff. Bear in mind that this is transferring data into a perfectly new Xbox 360 Slim which has never been used. If you have used it, any data on the Slim’s drive will be wiped and replaced with the transferred data.
Transfer data using the Transfer Cable
First make sure both consoles are switched off – not a problem for my 360 Pro model, because it’s wrecked :D So, first you need to remove the old hard drive from the 360 Pro and plug it onto the Transfer Cable. Plug the USB end of the cable into one of the USB sockets on the back of the Xbox Slim and boot it up.
You should see a dialog pop up which says “Transfer Cable Detected”. Select “Yes, transfer to the Console” and then either choose what you want to transfer or simply select “Start” to transfer everything. Depending on the amount of data, this might take an hour or so.
Transfer DRM content licenses
Once this is done, unplug the old hard drive and transfer cable. You can sell or throw away the old hard drive as it is now blank – no copy of the original data is held on it after the transfer. Fire up the new Slim and sign in with your imported GamerTag. This is important, because you’ll need to transfer the DRM licenses from the old console profile to the new one, else your purchased content won’t work without you being signed into LIVE with the GamerTag used to originally purchase the content. By transferring the licenses to the new machine, you don’t have to be signed in at all to play it. Also, this process can only be done once every four months.
The DRM licenses actually consist of two parts. One is the system license which is linked to the GamerTag profile used to purchase it and the other is the local license which relates to the actual console hardware used to purchase the content. After signing into Xbox LIVE after transferring your data, you’ve already satisfied the first part, but you need to transfer the second part so that your new Slim model has the updated local licenses.
So, on the new Slim, sign into Xbox LIVE using your regular GamerTag (or the one used to purchase the content) and go to “Settings” and then “Account”. Select “Your Billing Options” and then “License Transfer”. Follow the on-screen prompts to transfer the license to local. To complete the update, you’ll need to download the content again to link the system and local licenses to your new console.
That should be it – bear in mind that the only thing not transferred by the Transfer procedure are game patches. When firing up a game on the new console, make sure that you’re connected to Xbox LIVE so that you can re-download any patches for your games. No, I have no idea why these are excluded from the transfer process.
Update 16/02/2012: You will also find that if you try to add items to your download queue via the web marketplace on xbox.com, you’ll get a “assigned to another console” message when you check your Active Downloads. This was very annoying for me, as I wanted to play the Mass Effect 3 Demo. Basically, this is because Microsoft assigns the first console you use to download items from the Marketplace as your “primary console” and all pending downloads from the web marketplace will be assigned to this console only.
To switch your new primary console to your new Slim model, simply navigate to the Active Downloads screen and on the item you see the “assigned to another console” message on, press A and select “Download All Items”. This essentially switches your primary console to the one with which you are currently logged into Xbox LIVE. Job done!
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PAH… I bought the transfer cable (genuine microsoft) but it will not get recognised when plugged in, even though I followed the instructions to the letter. SO…. I stripped my old elite hdd and transferred the hdd into my new slim xbox. (its the same size)and (Yes, it is possible).
BUT… like a fool I transferred licences to the new slim drive so now my copy of Final Fantasy wont play at all, even on my old hdd. Reason being you can only transfer licences every 4 months. IDIOT!!
Im going to ring xbox support tomorrow to see if they can help.
Otherwise my level 95 beastmaster will become extinct, and Ill prob have to start again….. OH JOY… anyone else had probs with the cable? It all looks so easy on youtube vids, etc, but I COULD NOT GET IT TO WORK!
You actually can use your old hard drive, just requires that you remove it from the casing! Saved us a ton of money when my husband got his new system, got the 4g version and used the old hard drive :)
Sure :) It’s just that I was in the middle of a Skyrim save and I was pushed for time to get the 360 back up and running. But yes – good point!
Thanks so much, this will be very helpful, I actually have a white Xbox 360 Pro as well, and its done much better than I would have ever expected, knowing it could RROD at any time, I have been able to play it 24 hours non-stop; the longest I have played it, was, prolly 3 days in a row, maybe 18 hours each day, and no RROD but, one day, I got up to play, and it had the RROD, I kept checking it everyday for like a week, and it kept showing the RROD, then out of no where, I turned it on to check it, and the RR was gone, but I think with how much I play, I just need to retire it, I just feel lucky its lasted this long, without the RR, this info is really going to come in handy, when I have to transfer my games and stuff, to my new Xbox, thanks so much, I couldn’t find anyone that explained everything in one article with a lot of detail, this had made it very understandable being all together with all the detail; I was actually also in the middle of Skyrim , I had just downloaded Dawngaurd too, anyway I just found this really helpful, and noticed no one had commented, a thank you yet so thanks :D
Weirdly, my white Xbox died during Skyrim too :)
Hahaha mine died during skyrim too :P
HAHA mine died during Skryim as well, must be some sort of scam Bethesda are pulling with Microsoft right?
Awesome info, thanks to the OP. In regards to SmartRR’s post, I too had that problem, thankfully no need to resort to home electronics, you can manually access the data transfer through your systems menu, under the sub section that deals with storage you can see and access the transfer cable and begin the transfer there
Wow thank you so much ! My old white xbox original finally decided to give up on me earlier this month and wasn’t recognizing discs at all so after Christmas i went and bough a new xbox 360 slim which is brilliant as I could finally play games after a month ! But I am having bad Internet connection troubles at the moment so I can’t sign into xbox live so whilst waiting for my connection to get better i thought i might as-well play some skyrim offline so I put the game in and went to continue from my last save and It came up saying ”This save requires content which is no longer present. Some content is no longer available” so immediately I start to panic so I went to the title screen scrolled down to add-ons and it said there was none there (even though I have downloaded Dawnguard a couple of months back) so i searched it on Google until I finally found this Thank-You so much at-least I know My LVL 78 Dawnguard Is safe.
You’re welcome :)
When i plug the transfer cable in the usb slot in the xbox nothing comes up about Transfer cable detected, so i go to storage and then it says i have to configure the device and that means it will delete all my Saved Games GamerTags on the hard drive SOmeone help me!