Xbox 360 Content Transfers: Caveat Emptor
When it comes to warranty replacements, you may want to be VERY careful with how you transfer your old hard drive to the new machine. A friend of mine recently had to replace his box, and based on his experience, I’d like to share some… tips… for not getting completely screwed.
First off, when you connect your old drive to your new Xbox 360, none of your content downloads will be usable while you are off-line. They will work fine, and you won’t even be able to tell there is a problem when you are online. Now, in this situation, your first instinct may be to go ahead and “Recover Xbox Live Gamertag.” Don’t do that. Doing so will completely erase your saved games for that profile. My friend lost his 115 hour Oblivion character and his Gold-on-every-race Burnout save.
So, how did he finally get things worked out? He called MS tech support and they set up a dummy gamertag on the new console. Then, they refunded him all of his gamer points, and he then had to go back using the bogas gamertag and re-purchase and re-download everything he had purchased before on his original gamertag. Unfortunately, this process did nothing to restore his lost game saves.
So, let’s sum up:
1. Don’t use the “Recover Xbox Live Gamertag” option. It will lay waste to your saves.
2. Call MS support so that they can help you get your old content downloads re-purchased on the new machine.
3. Email Microsoft and tell them to implement a better solution for warranty replacement content transfer.
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SamAdams
