E68 Error Code...

antomorro-sei

Just got this there, gutted! Searched a bit online and it says something to do with a hardrive. Pfft.

Anyone know what I've to do/can do to fix it?

Cheers,
Anto

TouchingVirus

antomorro-sei wrote: »

Just got this there, gutted! Searched a bit online and it says something to do with a hardrive. Pfft.

Anyone know what I've to do/can do to fix it?

Cheers,
Anto

Remove the hard drive. Test if console boots. If successful then you might need a new hard drive caddy, or your hard drive could be done. Try recover data using xplorer360 (take out the hard drive, it's a simple SATA drive) and get a new one.

If it doesn't work with no hard drive, it's an RROD, return for repair.

antomorro-sei

Cheers TV.

The console works alright, when I take the Hard Drive out of it.

I'm not sure what a SATA Drive is, or a Hard Drive Caddy or any of that lark. Could you explain that to me?

Cheers,
Anto

TouchingVirus

antomorro-sei wrote: »

Cheers TV.

The console works alright, when I take the Hard Drive out of it.

I'm not sure what a SATA Drive is, or a Hard Drive Caddy or any of that lark. Could you explain that to me?

Cheers,
Anto

The hard drive in the 360 is a regular hard drive, just like the ones you get in laptops. It's called an SATA drive because that's the name of the interface used for it to communicate with the console/computer. This hard drive is placed in a caddy, or enclosure - this is the basically the plastic bits that make it fit into the console so snug, with the chrome trimming but also a converter (the silver plug sticking out of the hard drive that connects with the console when you put in the drive).

If there is a problem with the interface card (convertor), which is part of the caddy/enclosure or the hard drive itself has a fault then this can be detected as an E68 error - as in the xbox knows there is a hard drive there but there's something funny with it. The other problem could be a fault with your console.

You have 4 options:

1) Call Microsoft. I read it's possible they will repair the hard drive for free. If not for free, then at least consider their repair price, the rest of the options get messy.

2) Try the hard drive in another console and see if it produces an E68 on that one. If it does, then you definitely know there's a fault with the hard drive or enclosure/caddy. If it doesn't produce an E68 then this points to a console problem. If possible, try another known-to-be-good hard drive on the suspected possible console and see if it give an E68 to confirm.

3) If it's the drive then you could buy another enclosure if you want. Spare enclosures (chinese but they do the exact same job) can be bought for very little money on dealextreme.com, then you can open the enclosure that's giving the E68, remove the hard drive and put it into the spare one and try again. If the E68 goes away then you can chuck the old enclosure into the bin. You will need a Torx T6 to remove the enclosure screws, one of which is hidden under the microsoft hologram sticker - to remove the sticker you can heat it up until hot with a hairdryer and then, while keeping the heat on, remove it gently. Or you can whip it off, if the hard drive is older than 12 months it's out of warranty anyways afaik - check with Microsoft to be sure.

4) If the caddy swap doesn't work, there's something wrong with the drive and it's time to buy a new drive. You might be able to salvage your data by hooking the bare hard drive to your computer using an SATA cable. Then you can use a tool like Xplorer360 to save the data to your computer and then when you get the new drive, disassemble it and use Xplorer360 to put the data back on the new drive. Please note that I am not sure if this will be a problem for xbox live, using 3rd party tools is most likely against the user agreement so do read up on it. From what I know, savegames are tied to a console ID (a particular console) and not a hard drive, so as long as you're using the saves on the same console with the new drive you should be fine.

antomorro-sei

Cheers for the detailed reply TV.

I'll ring Microsoft tomorrow and also check the HDD with my mates console etc...

Nice one!

TouchingVirus

You're welcome, hope you get it sorted