How do I delete a corrupted file from my xbox hard drive without plugging it into the xbox?

My xbox hard drive will work fine if I can delete a corrupted download file for Borderlands 2 DLC. I think the issue is that as soon as I plug in the hard drive, the xbox resets. I've had this problem before, but I was able to go into the settings and delete the corrupted file. Now I can't do that because the xbox restarts far too quickly for me to get that far. Is there another way I can access the hard drive without plugging it into the xbox, or is there a way I can tell the xbox not to restart when I plug it in? If I plugged it in using a hard drive transfer cable, would it still restart? I really don't want to buy another hard drive when I know it's only one file causing the problem.

slit_your_gutz

Asked Dec 31, 2012

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I've never done this so I can't guarantee it will work but I would try installing the hard drive in a regular PC as a second drive and see if the PC will see the files on the HD. If it does, just delete the file and put the HD back in the XBox.

Rob

Answered Dec 31, 2012

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I think for a PC to read the files, the drive needs to be reformatted, which then makes it unusable on the 360. Unless there's some way to get the PC to read it anyway without reformatting, but I'm not aware of any.

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slit_your_gutz Dec 31, 2012

XBox uses FATX format which is an updated version of the old DOS FAT file format. It uses a big-endian byte order as opposed to the little-endian FAT. I don't know if that will prevent it from seeing the files or not but it doesn't have to read them to delete a file. Remember that installing it as a second drive makes the boot files and the operating system files appear as any other file, they aren't used. My Win XP machine used FAT32 file system The question is whether the byte order difference in XBox would prevent the XP system from deleting files. I don't know the answer to that.

You can also make a USB memory stick that will boot an XBox.

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Rob Dec 31, 2012

Update: I bought a transfer cable and was able to delete the corrupted file using it. Problem solved!
And thanks for all your input Rob.