Be Excellent To Each Other

My 360 had a bit of a funny turn this morning – the graphics went all psychedelic then conked out completely. The 360 will still boot up quite happliy and I can hear all the usual sounds (it’s clearly logging on to Live just fine), just no picture whatsoever. I can also switch the console off blind using the home button, up on the left stick twice, then pressing A.

What I’ve tried so far:

Other cables – I’ve been using an official MS VGA cable for ages with no problems, but the old standard one that came with the machine gives the same result – sound, no vision.

Resetting to factory defaults by pressing Y and right trigger together….no change, sound but no picture.

Trying an older telly….same again.

So I’m guessing the graphics chip/output is frazzled.

It’s a very old “Core” 360 from the beginning of time, so way out of warranty of course – but partly because I only added the hard disk later and partly because I’m stupid, my actual gamer profile is on the memory card rather than the hard disk.

All I want to do is to save as much data as possible (profile, saved games, gamerscore, downloaded content and achievements).

I’m prepared to buy a new console if necessary, but from my research so far, I’m going to lose some data whether I do that or go for a repair instead.

Can anyone suggest the best way to keep things as close as possible to how they were yesterday?

Thanks in advance…

gamerscore & achievements are not linked to the console aren't they, just log in with the new box

It's what my first one did. Graphics chip/board is dead.

Need a new one or repair.

In before "put it in the oven".

Is is really that simple if I buy a new one? No loss of high scores and the like?

Buy a new arcade xbox slim, take the hard disk out the old one, plug it in to the new one, carry on where you left off

If you want to be able to use stuff you have downloaded while not being on line, or allow other profiles than your original one to access it on the new Xbox, you must transfer your licenses, then redownload everything.

It's not your telly or your cables, you've got an imminent RROD. Time to get a 360 Slim! Woo! Ahem.

Buy a new one - your high scores, friends list, game purchases and gamerscore is tied to your gamertag forever. You will need to do a license transfer thing when you get a new console, though. You just press a button on the Xbox.com website and it'll re-download all of your XBLA games for you. It's to ensure you can't use your XBLA games on more than one console at the same time. It's totally painless - I did it myself a few months ago when I got the 360 Slim, and I have nearly 100 XBLA games.

edit: What mink said. Must read threads completely before I reply to posts.

Cheers.....so nothing could possibly go wrong if I buy one of those slims tomorrow? All my stuff will still be there?

Yep, don't worry about it. Welcome... TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!

If you need advice with the fiddly bits, we'll help!

The world of "below even Jonarob" on the pinball leaderboards, if I'm being cynical

Pff!

Hey just being realistic....and even if I do have to start from bugger all with a gamertag in Bangladesh....still only a matter of time

Different HDDs are they not?

Different hard disk cases, but nothing a screwdriver can't fix. If you want the hard disk to fit in the slim proper properly, you can always buy an empty new hard disk case for about £6.

Correct - if you get a slim you *cant* simply plug in your new drive.



£6 from deal extreme , but your not going to get it tomorrow - and without it you can guess at plugging the old one in after you've stripped it from the drive but not easily.

Alternatives are a transfer cable (you can use that with the slim if you know someone with one) , or dont buy the slim but buy an older arcade / pro unit (if you can find one) and then just use your old drive.

I'd just buy the shiny slim with the 250GB HDD. After actually seeing the matte one in the flesh, it looks really tacky. (Yeah, I know shiny things are usually tacky, but in this case, it's an exception.) Plus, why would he want/need to put his old HDD in? He'd still have to do all of the transfer gubbins, and he'd have to reinstall his games. I transfer kitted my old HDD and had to download EVERYTHING again anyway. The only thing you'd want off your old HDD is your save games, which you can easily dump onto a USB stick if you don't want to shell out for a transfer kit.

Note to MrC - put all of your save games on a USB stick before your old 360 totally carks it. Like, now!

I realise pissing about with your old HDD is a slightly cheaper option than the 250GB slim, but the lack of hassle, the 250GB of lovely space and peace of mind that you're not jamming a five year old HDD in your new machine are worth the extra, what is it now? £40?

There is a communal beex transfer cable floating about if you get one with a drive in it already.

I said "take the hard disk out" which was meant to mean "take the hard disk out" not "unplug the module that the hard disk resides in".




It's very easy, it only goes in one way.

Yeah come to think of it, I have two here as well (somewhere). The trouble is, you usually want it NOW, rather than waiting a couple of days for someone to post it. That's why I've bought two... (I'm a fucking idiot.)

Transferring save files onto a usb stick with no picture sounds like a entertaining way to spend the day, aye.

Yeah that's not idea. Someone mail this man a transfer cable! (One sec, I'll try to find mine.)

edit: Yep, I have two. MrC - do you want one posting out?

Erm...what Wullie said...I did consider asking one of you guys to hand over a phone number and play a blind-leading-the-blind role but I ruled that option out as nuts, which it still is....

Not that that wasn't appreciated...it very much was

With the transfer cable, you're only using the actual HDD from the old Xbox, powered by your new one - it doesn't matter if the Xbox has blown up!

MrC, I bought a new Xbox recently and have links to Xbox.com where it tells you how to do all this. I'll dig them out when I'm on my pc later but yes, buy a new Xbox... transferring the stuff is easy peasy!

Cheers Vision, but this was what I was on about in the original post - my actual profile is on the age old memory card rather than the hard disk, and as far as I could make out from the Microsoft sites that means I'd have to "recover" it on the new machine when I log into Live, and thereby lose all the achievements and scores that were achieved and scored while offline, which would be most of them. I may well be wrong, but that's what it sounded like when I read it.

Can't you just.. like.. plug the memory card into the new one?

Only if I turn back time, do some mind voodoo, and make them keep memory card slots on the stupid new machines

Oh! Oops, didn't know that. The dicks.

You could get an new 'old' one.

Besides, didn't you say it was logging into live? Even without the picture?

Yep, if I interpreted the blips and beeps correctly

That will have synced all your cheevs and stuff then. Just saves to copy over...

With one of those transfer cables then? So when I "recover" my profile I won't suddenly become MrC, aged 12 and a half, with 150 gamer points? And much more importantly, not lose all MY FABBO PINBALL SCORES?

Log into trueachievements.com or xbox.com or something to see when your profile last synched.

Nay, you'll be reet.

PM me your address MrC and I'll post a cable out to you tomorrow. The only obligation is - if anyone else wants it, you have to forward it on!

PM'd

I tried xbox.com just now - all I can find is that the last time I played anything online was the 14th of this month

OK, I'm going to try switching the 360 on one more time in a minute on the offchance that it's only nearly dead rather than 100% dead. In the unlikely event that works, even if only for a few minutes, I could at least copy the profile over from the memory card to the hard disk.

Otherwise I'm beginning to think a repair might be the safest option - from what I read online, Microsoft seem to be reasonably quick and charge a flat fee for sick out-of-warranty 360s.

Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions and info!

Nope, no miraculous changes since yesterday, and I can still hear the ker-plink of it successfully logging into live.

The only temptation was to see if I could beat a few of Zardoz's scores using sound alone just for giggles

Right, last question on this subject, I promise. Gathering together all the info I’ve been given here and read elsewhere, am I right in thinking that the following is what I have to do to get a new 360 slim working just like the old one, bearing in mind again that my profile is on a memory card and all the rest is on a (presumably still-working) hard disk.

1. Buy a new 360 (duh! etc).
2. Plug the old hard drive into the new machine using a transfer cable (taking care of saved game data).
3. Recover my profile on Live
4. Do the license thing lasermink and WTB mentioned
5. Re-download all the XBLA games I had on the old box.

Yep, that's exactly what you've got to do! And I can't think of anything else to add, that's pretty much it.

Cheers, I'll now rush out to the shops like a deranged child make a sensible, informed decision.

Last I heard, stocks were running low and there might not be any 360s left by the end of the day!

In other words, you've bought them all up and are selling them for 500 quid a shot?

Surely if you have your old HDD, you don't need to re download if you transfer the licenses?

Yeah you'd think so!

But no, it arsed up when I tried it I wound up having to download everything anyway. When I mentioned it on here, a few people said they'd had to do the same. So I'd at least bet on it being the case.