If you are facing a black screen at startup or a crash screen with a system error code on your Xbox One or Series X/S, performing an offline system update can be a solution. In this tutorial, we will guide you on how to create an Xbox offline system update USB flash drive and update your console using it.
What You’ll Need
To follow this tutorial, you will need an 8 GB minimum USB flash drive, a PC running Windows 10 or 11, and one of the Xbox variants – Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S, or Xbox Series X.
Step 1: Formatting the USB Drive
Insert the USB flash drive into your PC and right-click to bring up the file explorer options. Click on ‘Format,’ and in the window that appears, select the ‘NTFS’ format with an allocation unit size of 4096 bytes. Name the volume label anything you want, enable quick format, and press ‘Start.’ Once the format is complete, move to the next step.
Step 2: Downloading and Copying the Offline Update Image to the Flash Drive
Go to the Xbox website and search for ‘Xbox offline update.’ Click on the link that says ‘Perform an offline system update’ and follow the instructions. For Xbox One users who haven’t turned on their console since 2015 or 2016, there are additional steps to follow.
Once you reach the ‘OSU 1’ download page, select the green text to begin the download. Once the download is complete, go to your downloads folder and extract the zip file. Drag the folder that says ‘system update’ to the root of the USB flash drive.
Performing the Offline System Update on the Xbox
Ensure that your Xbox is completely powered off and unplugged for around 30 seconds. Boot into the Xbox troubleshooting menu by holding down the sync button and pressing the power button. The sync button location depends on the Xbox console you own.
Plug in the OSU flash drive into one of the Xbox’s USB ports, and select the ‘OSU’ option from the troubleshooting menu. You should immediately be taken to a screen that says ‘Preparing console,’ and a few seconds later, you should see the update screen. This will take around 10 to 15 minutes.
Once the update is complete, you should be greeted with the regular Xbox dashboard or the first setup screen. If you are still having startup issues, you may need to enter the troubleshooting menu again and select ‘Reset your Xbox.’
In conclusion, performing an offline system update on your Xbox One or Series X/S can be a straightforward process, as outlined in this tutorial.