Xbox Live's Major Nelson » Xbox 360 Transfer Cable :

TomeOne

That page still talks about the old one, though…

http://www.majornelson.com Major Nelson

The images on the support site have not been updated, that’s why I’ve got the new one in the post.
http://www.majornelson.com Major Nelson

The images on the support site have not been updated, that’s why I’ve got the new one in the post.
- http://www.winrumors.com Tom W
  
  Do you have a higher res pic?
- TomeOne
  
  The Microsoft store link on that page needs to be updated as well.
- http://twitter.com/RoninHarlequin Tim Samples
  
  But when you click the link to buy one….the description says “Cannot be used to transfer data between two Xbox 360 S hard drives”.
- http://twitter.com/RoninHarlequin Tim Samples
  
  But when you click the link to buy one….the description says “Cannot be used to transfer data between two Xbox 360 S hard drives”.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Del-Ray/1132216446 Del Ray

YES!!!!! I’ve been wondering about this since they announced the GoW3 system with the 320 GB hard drive.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Del-Ray/1132216446 Del Ray

YES!!!!! I’ve been wondering about this since they announced the GoW3 system with the 320 GB hard drive.

http://twitter.com/tstephenson Thomas Stephenson

Is there a plan to allow us to do this over a network (wired or wireless) in the near future? I can do this with Windows to move to a new computer. That would be really slick and save the hassle of these one time use cables.

http://twitter.com/AmpliFreQuency AmpliHelix

So buyers of the Gears 3 console bundle can’t get this for free? Why am I not surprised….!!

http://twitter.com/TechsUK Mark Taylor

because people that don’t want the transfer cable shouldn’t have to subsidize those that do? can’t you use portable hard drive?
- http://twitter.com/AmpliFreQuency AmpliHelix
  
  Have fun with the 16GB limit and at-a-time transfers if you have the 120GB or more.
  - http://twitter.com/AntaraelDulacre Antarael Dulacre
    
    took me a whole day with a 2 GB USB Stick (1,4 GB to use if empty) and had a full 120 GB Elite…
- Anonymous
  
  No, you can’t. It wouldn’t be such a problem if you could use an external HDD but you can’t, only up to 16GB USB sticks (anything larger just partitions off 16GB for Xbox use).
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LMZLSAFFZAGLFCE3ITIIRIPXWU Duncan
    
    But you can plug in multiple 16GB sticks at the same time which will speed up the process. If you have two TVs or a PC monitor, you could even be transferring the files onto you new console at the same time as you are transferring them off your old console. I suspect the 16GB partition limit is to “encourage” the 4GB console owners to buy the 250GB drive.
    - Anonymous
      
      You can plug in two maximum at the same time, any more are ignored. I have already hit that issue when three people wanted to play Rock Band all with their profiles on different USB sticks, or when two of us wanted to play Lips with some music on a third memory stick.
      
      The 16GB limit I believe is a technical one, because of how it emulates a
      memory card using 1GB files. Any computer operating system can only
      open a certain number of files at the same time and especially when
      considering RAM too, that limit might be quite low on Xbox 360. With 16x
      files per USB stick I think they didn’t want to support more as it
      could interfere with games that open a of files and/or use a lot of
      memory.
      
      Basically to get round that they would need to properly format to FATX
      instead of using files. I wish they would and the reason they don’t might be to rip us off with overpriced HDDs, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt here and just assume there are other technical issues involved that made it more complicated than the current method.
      
      Also when you consider that 2x16GB memory sticks (especially as you need to make sure they are a decent speed not cheap slow ones) cost about as much a a 320GB HDD, its a poor deal anyway. When you consider a network to network transfer could be fully automated, fast, and not require ANY extra hardware at all, its an even worse deal.
      
      There is no excuse not to make copying/backing up stuff easier though. At the moment the batch selection mode only works for MOVING files not copying. That seems deliberate to me, that they don’t want to make it too easy for some reason.

http://twitter.com/AmpliFreQuency AmpliHelix

So buyers of the Gears 3 console bundle can’t get this for free? Why am I not surprised….!!

Anonymous

No offense Major but this should have been posted/up for sale several weeks ago. I had to pick apart my old system so that I could transfer 8gb (the size of my usb drive) of my 245 used to my new console. Not to mention the @xboxsupport team have been useless pertaining to questions on this matter. Was not a happy camper when I had to redownload everything to my new console.

http://www.majornelson.com Major Nelson

I shared the information the moment it hit my inbox.
- Anonymous
  
  I’m always appreciative to what you do and understand where you come from, I meant from MS in general. Others asked this question to support a few times and received the run around. Sorry if it appeared as though I was calling you out for holding out on us
http://www.majornelson.com Major Nelson

I shared the information the moment it hit my inbox.
http://twitter.com/tsrblke tsrblke

Personally I still want a better way to get new liscenses to download after a tranfer. Going through your history is a PITA, big time. I only had a 20gig, so with some creative deleting (Content I had on disk from GOTY editions, demos that I had forgotten about, Kinect Fun labs, etc.) I managed to fit it all on 16gb stick, of course I still had to click “redownload” on everything after the liscence transfer process so my wife could play downloaed games.
http://twitter.com/tsrblke tsrblke

Personally I still want a better way to get new liscenses to download after a tranfer. Going through your history is a PITA, big time. I only had a 20gig, so with some creative deleting (Content I had on disk from GOTY editions, demos that I had forgotten about, Kinect Fun labs, etc.) I managed to fit it all on 16gb stick, of course I still had to click “redownload” on everything after the liscence transfer process so my wife could play downloaed games.

Anonymous

No offense Major but this should have been posted/up for sale several weeks ago. I had to pick apart my old system so that I could transfer 8gb (the size of my usb drive) of my 245 used to my new console. Not to mention the @xboxsupport team have been useless pertaining to questions on this matter. Was not a happy camper when I had to redownload everything to my new console.

Anonymous

Now I can buy 7 more consoles in addition to my current collection of one.

http://thetjhzone.blogspot.com Tylerh1701

Finally! This cable makes owning several more consoles than you need a reality!

Anonymous

Now I can buy 7 more consoles in addition to my current collection of one.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_I4FJQMHYDTTSFH7NF2DEAE4XFA Michael

It is just unfortunate you have to buy the transfer cables now.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_I4FJQMHYDTTSFH7NF2DEAE4XFA Michael

It is just unfortunate you have to buy the transfer cables now.

http://twitter.com/FanaticFamily Fanatic Family

Anyone got any idea how to clone my current 250GB drive to another 250GB drive to be used in the same console? I like my data reduntant/offsite in some cases.

GT: OctagonQontrol

Anonymous

That’s kind of silly sense it’s all downloadable again.
- Anthony Dahmane
  
  i assume he means game saves, which obviously cant be downloaded.
  - Anonymous
    
    Not to mention that to download everything again would take an ice age.
    
    Not just because the maximum speed is 1.5MB/s (Xbox Live only uses a single connection for downloads) despite my connection able to do 5MB/s, but also because you can’t just say “download everything” or even batch download at all. Its a very cumbersome, slow, process to select each item and set it off downloading.
  - Anonymous
    
    USB thumb drives then I guess. Also, I’ve heard, though it says it deletes everything off the original drive, it is still there. It’s a matter of recovering it some how if you need it.
ElektroDragon

You can’t. All these solutions require you to delete all data after copy/transfer. Just wait for cloud storage. Come on MS, get with the program! Give us cloud storage like PSN!
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LMZLSAFFZAGLFCE3ITIIRIPXWU Duncan
  
  Xbox has been in the cloud for 6 years – all the demos, add-ons, vids, themes, etc, etc are all in the cloud ready for you to download again. You can copy your saves onto USB (or memory card) to keep off site.
ElektroDragon

You can’t. All these solutions require you to delete all data after copy/transfer. Just wait for cloud storage. Come on MS, get with the program! Give us cloud storage like PSN!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LMZLSAFFZAGLFCE3ITIIRIPXWU Duncan

This is to protect content (eg if you have ever tried to copy Hexic you will find you can only move it), otherwise you could duplicate and distribute it.

http://www.majornelson.com Major Nelson

Call support if you have any questions or you want to order from them to make sure you’re getting the cable you need.

Anonymous

Out of all the things relevant to Xbox, including stuff even support doesn’t answer about, you are spending time for once answering questions about about a data transfer cable for slim to slims?

It is your blog, if you want to be a part of it… jump in.

Anonymous

Hopefully I won’t need anything like this for a long time as I just got my first 360 S last Tuesday but great to know this is available just in case.

Anonymous

When I was asking you about why I couldn’t get support to answer questions on xbox.com’s support forum about Kinect Fun Labs being down for a month a half you never answered me, yet for the ten people who bought a second slimmy console you are doing this? Just to mention Gears of War 3 again?

http://twitter.com/GweedyJ Ric Kraus

Support wont let me buy one over the phone and the website listed only has the old cables

Ryan Lovatt

I miss the days these were free ;[

aStrangeDisease

This is cool. I was wondering how I would transfer content if I ever wanted to upgrade my HDD again.

Bryan Holloway

Cool I was wondering when one would come out. I put off buying the Gears 3 console because I couldn’t transfer my data without the time consuming method of using a usb drive.

Jaymoon

You can use an old non-Slim drive to do it, if you have one laying around.

Transfer everything from your old Slim console to the non-Slim drive. Once that’s done, hook it up to your new Slim console and copy everything over to the new Slim drive.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OFAXQ262PPPDAXOTSIRG7L7HN4 Aaron
  
  Quicker… take apart your old non-slim hard drive, and use the SATA to XBOX adapter inside to connect your slim hard drive to your old transfer cable.
  
  That’s what I did when I replaced my Reach 360S with the Gears 360S
- Bryan Holloway
  
  I don’t have the old HDD anymore.
Jaymoon

You can use an old non-Slim drive to do it, if you have one laying around.

Transfer everything from your old Slim console to the non-Slim drive. Once that’s done, hook it up to your new Slim console and copy everything over to the new Slim drive.

Anonymous

Glad it’s finally available. Too bad MS still drastically overcharges for the actual hard drives (especially the old style)

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3SA2XXK6NWAMFYN57B7LHO4R4M luke

too bad i cant use this to transfer my sons 250gb HD from his reach xbox that decided to break 3 days after the warranty expired,130$ for a new HD i think not.

Anonymous

I believe you can also do it over the network on the Playstation 3, not to mention the PS3 actually has a backup to external HDD option too. Its one of the few good ideas Sony had over Microsoft.

ElektroDragon

This is nice. Late, but nice. What we really need is cloud storage backup for all saves. Also, I want the bigger hard drives in retail… but give me a 512GB one. I recently ran out of space on my 250GB and had to delete a lot of content.

aStrangeDisease

I think they are adding cloud saves in the next big update at the end of the year.

ElektroDragon

This is nice. Late, but nice. What we really need is cloud storage backup for all saves. Also, I want the bigger hard drives in retail… but give me a 512GB one. I recently ran out of space on my 250GB and had to delete a lot of content.

Jaymoon

Um, the 360S to 360S cable isn’t even available on the website… Kind of misleading if you ask me…

And it is possible to transfer from S to S with the old cable. You’ll need a big enough old hard drive though to do it.

To make things easy, just format your old-school hard drive. Then copy everything from your old S drive, to the old non-slim hard drive on your old S console. Once that’s done, connect to your new S console, and copy everything from the non-slim drive to the new S drive.

Could you make this a more time consuming process Microsoft?

Jaymoon

Um, the 360S to 360S cable isn’t even available on the website… Kind of misleading if you ask me…

And it is possible to transfer from S to S with the old cable. You’ll need a big enough old hard drive though to do it.

To make things easy, just format your old-school hard drive. Then copy everything from your old S drive, to the old non-slim hard drive on your old S console. Once that’s done, connect to your new S console, and copy everything from the non-slim drive to the new S drive.

Could you make this a more time consuming process Microsoft?

Anonymous

Sorry to say but they have them at gamestop

aStrangeDisease

Why are you sorry to say that?

Anonymous

Did I miss something? Major Nelson is employing Joystiq and Kotaku-like enforcement of who has a post show up?

Just want to know why this is so relevant to the forty people out there with two slims, yet when Kinect Fun Labs was down for a month he wouldn’t talk about it. Spent over five grand on Xbox this gen, cheers.

aStrangeDisease

Who cares? Why do you keep posting about Kinect Fun Labs? It works fine and it’s free. You seem to be the only person who noticed it was down for a month. Get over it. You are getting annoying.
- Anonymous
  
  You posted that just in a response to anyone who owns a Kinect? Get over it, etc.? I love you.
  - aStrangeDisease
    
    It is a response to you, specifically. Nobody else cares. If MS already apologized, then why do you post about it 2-3 times on every Major Nelson blog?
Anonymous

Any response, Major? Just a customer to the tune of five grand in the past five years, low estimate.

Anonymous

Did I miss something? Major Nelson is employing Joystiq and Kotaku-like enforcement of who has a post show up?

Just want to know why this is so relevant to the forty people out there with two slims, yet when Kinect Fun Labs was down for a month he wouldn’t talk about it. Spent over five grand on Xbox this gen, cheers.

http://twitter.com/JoshuaBrown18 Joshua Brown A-Team

This crap is exactly why I will NEVER spend another cent on the ANY xbox products. I think I’m done with gaming all together.

aStrangeDisease

Yeah, how dare they allow people to transfer content to a new Xbox!
- S R
  
  For a PRICE.
  - aStrangeDisease
    
    Everything has a price. That is life.
- Anonymous
  
  Are you seriously just MS’ing it up on a blog? I mean, that is what MS does, but I thought a bit more hidden.
- http://twitter.com/WilliamRLBaker WilliamRLBaker
  
  So instead of making sure the slim harddrives would work with the current transfer unit they made a whole new one that you have to buy? I already own a transfer cable from when I bought my halo reach system….
  yes how dare microsoft allow people to transfer content to a new xbox…at a price…

http://twitter.com/JoshuaBrown18 Joshua Brown A-Team

This crap is exactly why I will NEVER spend another cent on the ANY xbox products. I think I’m done with gaming all together.

S R

I’m not sure which is worse when it comes to price gouging for basic peripherals: Microsoft or Apple.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1169582509 Patrick Ian Todd

Nintendo

Anonymous

Can you simply swap hard drives between Xbox 360 S consoles? Does the HDD somehow get registered to the original hardware? Can you pull the new, higher capacity hard drive from one Xbox 360 S and use it with another?

aStrangeDisease

Yes, you could do that with the original Xbox 360 hard drive, so I don’t see why not.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LMZLSAFFZAGLFCE3ITIIRIPXWU Duncan

I have swapped drives between Xbox 360 S consoles in the past with no trouble.
Victor Cortes

There is no problem at all with that.
The content licences though, are the ones attached to the console, not the HDD.
You could always use it in another console but you’ll need to be logged in to XBL.

Also, the GoW Xbox 360 bundle comes with a 320GB drive (over the standard 250GB). I think most people would want to move all their crap to the higher capacity drive.

http://twitter.com/ScoffingShark Nathan Green

a bit late i canceled my order for a gears console because of this problem. i dont see why it took this long to announce

http://profiles.google.com/thief000 J.A.J.G. Thiéfaine

Am I correct in asuming this adapts to both the old and the new hard drives?

http://twitter.com/sixpin John Estes

No, the two drives have completely different ports.
- http://profiles.google.com/thief000 J.A.J.G. Thiéfaine
  
  Ah yes, but why the notch on the cable then and the port at the end of the adapter? We’ll see.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Short/503481425 Mike Short

Good thing this came out just as I finished copying all of my data via flash drive.

http://twitter.com/sixpin John Estes

Same here. After almost a week of waiting, finishing Gears 3, and no answers from MS about a solution, I finally gave up and moved all 198GB of data 16GB at a time.

http://twitter.com/dragonthc dragonthc

is no one asking why this wasn’t included with the console?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_V54RJEWIQ2ADTF3SHHYKF5DDIQ Shaggy

just use a flash drive that’s what I did with my Reach console

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000081692800 Iskandar Dzulkarnain

When is the Xbox Live cloud coming?!?! So this stuff won’t be so tedious!

Gregor Boyd

lol

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1366895991 John Silva

PFFT! It’s just a SATA to USB cable! You can probably find one of those for $5!

Anonymous

Yes, but it won’t work because it has to identify itself as the Xbox 360 version to work. Its really frustrating how Microsoft, the company who made Windows which supports the widest range of hardware known to man, do not allow the Xbox 360 to use third-party accessories.

I have been wanting them to support the Logitech wheels every since I heard of them as they are much more realstic than the Microsoft wheel. Instead they release an even less realistic wheel, go figure.

http://www.facebook.com/al3xander Alex Colin Liebensfeld

PREVIOUS Xbox 360 S? Already?

http://www.facebook.com/joecamnet Joe Cammisa

Where in the hell was this thing a week ago??

http://www.facebook.com/joecamnet Joe Cammisa

Where in the hell was this thing a week ago??

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LMZLSAFFZAGLFCE3ITIIRIPXWU Duncan

Just want to point out that if you have music on your Xbox 360 (I still have the original tunes from the Xbox 360 Pro 20GB) or any Xbox game saves (eg Halo, Halo 2) you will need a cable to transfer them as you cannot copy or move them onto a USB drive.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_4N3HAHIL2IX6BVBCDSAIEADEQI Richard

Thanks for pointing that out. My question is will this also transfer the Halo 2 map packs (which I have on an old console), or am I screwed from taking them now that the original xbox live is shut down?
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LMZLSAFFZAGLFCE3ITIIRIPXWU Duncan
  
  You can find out by trying to transfer the Halo 2 map packs onto a USB stick. If that does not work you will need a cable. I am assuming this new cable works like the old cable and does a complete disc move of all content, including content that can’t be transferred to a USB stick. I know I can’t move an Xbox game add on that came with the special edition of a game, but that is ok because I can reinstall it from disc.

CyberSkull

This should answer the question of “How can I transfer data from one Xbox 360 slim to another slim?”

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LMZLSAFFZAGLFCE3ITIIRIPXWU Duncan

Thanks for that, that sucks. What Microsoft/Bungie (or any company) should do when they no longer want to support something or make any money from it, is make it public domain. Before the original Xbox Live was shut down they should of allowed people to download a transferrable licence. So what if a few people then passed the Halo 2 maps onto some of their friends, it’s not like Microsoft/Bungie could make any money from selling them anymore and it is good PR, unlike the bad PR of “I paid for it but I can’t use it anymore”. I have the same fear of all electronic distribution, that when the authenticating server is switched off (the Xbox 360 Live servers will be switched off someday) you can no longer do a bit of retro gaming like you could when it all came on disc/cartridge/tape.

http://so.solid.jedi.myopenid.com/ So Solid Jedi

Major, i just rung Xbox Customer Support, theyve told me the slim HDD transfer kit isnt even out yet? comes out in the UK on the 11th October apparently, but the representitive told me i can either order one thru them or go out and buy it from local retailer, How come we got to pay for it? Both my Xbox 360 Slim Consoles are under Warrenty and i quoted the serial numbers so surely it should just be a matter of sending it out? No? Why have we got to pay a sir charge of £10 or so just so that we can transfer all our saves to the now larger HDD?

http://twitter.com/RoninHarlequin Tim Samples

so….i ordered one of the new cables from phone support and got it today. ITS THE WRONG CABLE!!!! THE OLD ONE!!!!!!!!! phone support says now its not available until 10/10/11!!!!!!!!!!! what bullshit!!!!!!!!!! they charged me for something i cant use!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://twitter.com/NJROD Rod Lane

SAME exact thing happened to me. This is terrible.
- Paul Rabin
  
  Not only did they ship me the wrong cable once, but TWICE. Pretty pathetic.

http://perfectcr.com PerfectCr

Major, any updated news on an official release date for the cable?

September 26th 2011 9:00 am PT

Xbox 360 Transfer Cable

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