Information

What is FATXplorer?

FATXplorer is the ultimate Xbox 360 storage device explorer. Designed with speed, compatibility, and reliability in mind, FATXplorer aims to be at the forefront of your Xbox 360 tool arsenal. FATXplorer makes your exploration into the Xbox 360’s most interesting file systems more exciting than ever. With full support for every partition across a multitude of devices, you can uncover hidden system files, reformat devices for a fresh start, and even speed up your Xbox LIVE experience with optimized system folders! Ever lose valuable content you put hard work into? FATXplorer’s Recovery View allows you to see every deleted item on your device and even recover them with ease and little frustration. Don’t have time to learn all the secrets in a cloned file explorer? FATXplorer is different. With Windows Integration, storage devices can be integrated into Windows with the help of a driver. With this driver, you can browse your content like you would a normal USB flash drive and utilize common features like copy, paste, open, and more! With FATXplorer’s vast feature set, there is something to please anyone who owns an Xbox 360 console and wants to have full control over their stored content.

Who is it for?

Without FATXplorer, your content is organized in a binary format unrecognizable by every operating system. FATXplorer bridges that gap and provides you with the key to accessing all of your valuable game save data, downloadable content, and more! You paid money for your storage device. You deserve a well-tested and fast solution to provide you with direct access to that data.

FATXplorer was designed to be relatively easy to use. Tooltips can help clarify questions and colorful and relevant icons provide a graphical representation of what does what. You don’t have to be an advanced Xbox modder to use FATXplorer. While it may definitely be of use to those kinds of people, there are plenty of options to impress the hobbyist gamer.

If you own an Xbox 360 console with some sort of storage device, there is something FATXplorer can do for you.

What can it do?

Everything you will ever need and more. There are tons of features, big and small. Each update brings something new, fresh, and exciting.

Support for a wide range of devices

FATXplorer has support for the following Xbox 360 storage devices:

-Xbox 360 retail and development (XDK) hard-drives

-Xbox 360 internal and external memory-units

-Xbox 360 USB devices

-Partition files

As new types of storage devices are released for the Xbox 360 platform over time, you can be sure FATXplorer will have support for them ASAP.

Windows Integration

FATXplorer ditches the traditional Explorer clone concept and goes above and beyond to provide you with Windows Integration – a feature you already use every day.

FATXplorer is able to mount partitions on FATX storage devices and turn them into virtual disks, which you can then browse natively like you would a flash drive! You have access to the complete file system and can perform everyday actions, such as copy, paste, delete, move, rename, etc. You can even open files directly with your favorite applications! Want to open/edit a game save in a hex editor? No problem. Want to have complete access to every file and folder? Sure! Want to have two devices mounted to transfer content between both without the items even touching your PC’s HDD? FATXplorer can do this and more!

Windows Integration is an incredible step forward. It’s a stunning new feature that is most likely going to be the top reason you download and try FATXplorer.

Windows Integration works with the help of a driver. You need to install it and then reboot your PC afterwards. Once installed, the Windows Integration feature will be unlocked. FATXplorer updates may include driver updates to further improve stability and performance.

Defragmenters, disk checkers, and other related utilities WILL NOT work properly on FATXplorer-mounted partitions. Please do not try them.

Easily configure integration. All you need to do is select a drive letter and what partition you want mounted.

Full exploration.

Open and edit your files in your favorite applications. No need to transfer it to your PC, edit, and transfer back. FATXplorer eliminates all those extra steps.

Content View

The Content View is an extremely robust and linear list view of all Xbox 360 content on your storage device’s Content Partition. The Content View was designed for beginners who do not know their way around the file system, but can be very useful to more experienced users as well. Early development of this view focused around the way the Xbox 360 dashboard displays content. With additional research, it was found that FATXplorer could handle all the content at once without any significant performance drawbacks. FATXplorer can load large amounts of content in a time span that may surprise you. The Content View is fast, friendly, and contains very powerful filtering features to make content searching a breeze.

Content Adding

The Add Content button allows you to add content items. What is special about this feature is that it automatically determines where to put the selected content items. For example, if you select a Halo 3 map-pack file, FATXplorer will know to put it in the area that the Xbox 360 console puts game DLC. You do not have to create the folder structure, FATXplorer does all that behind the scenes for you. Just provide FATXplorer with the file and it will handle the rest.

Content Extraction

The right-click Extract button allows you to extract your content items to your PC for backup or editing purposes.

Content Deletion

The right-click Delete button allows you to delete old or unused content items to free up space. The Xbox 360 dashboard doesn’t list some content, so you can get rid of specific cache or hidden game items as well!

Small/Large Views

Content items contain thumbnail images of size 32×32. By default, FATXplorer scales the images down to allow more content to be displayed in the initial list. However, you can change the size of the thumbnail by using the View menu.

Show Cache Items

The Show Cache Items check button tells FATXplorer whether to show/hide the contents of your Cache folder. Cached files can include title updates, gamer pictures, and system updates.

Delete Empty Folders

The Delete Empty Folders button goes through the entire Content folder and delete any folder that does not have any subitems. This is an extremely useful cleanup tool since the Xbox 360 console does not automatically delete these folders once all content items are removed from a folder.

Clear Cache

The Clear Cache button allows you to delete all items in the system cache folder/partition.

Property Pane

The Property Pane displays all of the selected content item’s internal metadata/properties. This can provide you with an interesting look at the inside of your content to discover hidden text or values you may find useful.

Content Sorting/Filtering

FATXplorer provides an easy-to-use filtering and organization system to help you find specific content quickly and efficiently. For more information on filtering, sorting, and other tips/tricks, see Content View Tips and Tricks.

Other Features

For gamer profiles, the Gamertag is read from the Account file and displayed as the STFS name. This is also used to identify the owners of game saves.

FATXplorer logs content items that appear to be corrupt/unusable. If FATXplorer finds any, a yellow alert box will appear at the top. The alert tells you what items are corrupt and provides you with the option to delete them.

The free space bar on the menu provides a real-time look at the available space on your Content Partition. You can use this to accurately gauge what content is taking up the most space. It is updated every time an item is deleted/added.

Start Page

The Start Page is what you see when you start FATXplorer and is your portal to core features.

Information

The Information tab provides you with a friendly introduction message, the status of your current license, the status of the integration driver, and FATXplorer’s logo to brighten your day. (If you want a copy of it, feel free to right click the website’s banner and save it to your PC.)

News Feed

The News Feed tab provides you with FATXplorer news. It obtains the latest news from the FATXplorer website as soon as you select it.

Devices

The Devices tab provides you with a list of your connected storage devices. This is where you integrate your storage device’s partitions into Windows or open them in a FATXplorer view.

Toolkit View

The Toolkit View is a collection of file systems tools and utilities presented in a nice Microsoft-styled tile layout.

Device Information

The Device Information tool provides you with an option to edit your storage device’s name (name.txt) and see the size, type, path, and XDK version.

Partition Information

The Partition Information tool provides you with space usage and other technical details.

Device Backup/Restore

The Device Backup/Restore tool provides you with an easy way to completely back up your entire storage device to a file. Backup files can be invaluable in the event of an accidental format, extreme data loss, or hardware failure.

Problems and Warnings

The Problems and Warnings tool provides you with a list of detected problems and any warnings you should be aware of.

Device Analyzer

*Paid editions only!

The Device Analyzer tool provides you with a quick and easy tool that analyzes your entire storage device and lists the most fragmented items into a list for you to view. Anything fragmented more than 1% is listed.

NOTE: Defragment entire device is currently a placeholder and will be enabled in a future FATXplorer update.

Security Sector Tools

The Security Sector Tools allow you to view/edit your HDD’s Security Sector.

Sector Tools

The Sector Tools allow you to read/write from/to specific sectors on your storage device.

Cluster Tools

The Cluster Tools allow you to read/write from/to specific clusters on your storage device’s partitions.

Configuration Data Tools

The Configuration Data Tools allow you to view/edit your USB’s Configuration Data. You can view your USB’s device ID, tweak the performance rating, and see if it is Xbox 360 console or manufacturing formatted.

Install Optimized System Folders

*Paid editions only!

Is your Xbox guide slow? Does it take forever to load content? Don’t go out and buy a new storage device when installing optimized system folders could be the solution! For more information on optimized system folders, see Increasing Xbox 360 Performance with Optimized System Folders.

Partition Tools

*Paid editions only!

The Partition Tools allow you to perform a variety of operations on your storage device’s partitions. It allows you to backup and restore the boot sector, allocation table, file area, and the entire partition. You can also format/reformat it and delete it.

On some storage devices, there may be a “URL Cache”. This is used by the Xbox LIVE service to cache URLs for the marketplace. Sometimes this cache may become corrupt and can result in strange behavior when viewing and downloading marketplace content. FATXplorer’s Partition Tools allow you to wipe this cache and force the Xbox 360 console to make it again. It is recommended that you clear the cache at least a few times a year for optimal marketplace performance.

Recovery View

*All features of this view are 100% free. The paid version will NOT enhance it in any way.

The Recovery view is where you will be spending your time if you are trying to recover your deleted data. The Recovery View is a very simple browser that allows you to browse your storage device’s partitions efficiently. Deleted data recovery is a tricky process, but the Recovery View was designed to make it very easy for you to get your data back with little frustration.

There are several right click items that become visible when you select an item.

The first one is Recover. This option will allow you to extract your deleted item to your PC.

The second one is “What are the chances of recovering this item?”. Once selected, FATXplorer runs a quick scan and can determine whether the original parts of the item have been overwritten with new data. This is a very useful tool for determining what data can be saved and what cannot.

The third is the “What is” option. There are three possibilities. If you right click a profile folder, this option can tell you what Gamertag owns the folder, if it still exists inside. If you right click a title folder, this option will connect to Xbox.com and try to find what game it is. If you right click a content type folder, it will simply tell you what kind of content is supposed to be in it. These options can come in handy if you aren’t familiar with the Xbox 360 content organization system.

The Recovery View may not be enough for most people. Every data recovery case is different. You are more than welcome to contact FATXplorer support with any questions regarding deleted data recovery. Remote support options are available to you as well if you want a professional to recover your data.

For more information on deleted data recovery, see Data Recovery.

Miscellaneous points and other features

FATXplorer is available in 32bit and 64bit flavors. Pick the one that suits your operating system. When dealing with demanding tasks, the 64bit version allows FATXplorer to completely utilize 64bit benefits.

FATXplorer utilizes Windows 7/8 taskbar features to relay progress information.

FATXplorer logs all errors to a file named FATXplorer.errorlogs.xml. If you think something is going wrong, feel free to take a look into the file and check if there are any new entries.

Check out the Links menu, there are a lot of useful resources.

The Office 2013 ribbon style includes a full screen button in the control box.

There is a Minimize to Tray button in the ribbon that minimizes FATXplorer to the system tray. This was added with the intention of getting FATXplorer out of the way as soon as you integrate your storage devices into Windows.

A simple updater is included to keep you informed about new updates to FATXplorer.

The ribbon layout and Content View list layout are saved to FATXplorer.ribbonlayout.xml and FATXplorer.cvcl.xml respectively. Do not edit them manually, but feel free to delete them if things start to look strange.

FATXplorer provides you with options to customize your experience in Settings. Don’t like the default Microsoft-styled skin/theme? Feel free to pick from 41 other professionally designed skins/themes. Want to change the Content View language? Make sure to check the Settings out!

FATXplorer’s windows are dockable/floatable. Click and drag tab headers to turn them into windows. This feature is especially useful to those with multi-monitor setups. A full-screen Content View is quite a sight!