Yesterday I found out that my original Xbox 360 was broken. There was a single red light in the bottom right section of the power ring on the console, and a screen displaying ‘Error 74’ is all that shows up when I turn it on. If, instead of getting it fixed, I get a new 360-S console, will I be able to retrieve my data (DLC, Achievements, forged maps, arcade games) from my old one? (Especially since I don’t have a transfer cable, and the new consoles don’t have an external hard drive that I could swap for my old HDD.)
Use a HDD transfer cable, you must buy one. They’re cheap on Amazon.
Another method is to ask your retailer/GameStop to do it for you, they gladly did it for me.
Hope this helps. 
Is it generally less expensive to buy a cable and do it myself, or let EB Games (since I live in Canada, ‘GameStop’ is ‘EB Games’) do it for me? Can the cables on Amazon be trusted? Also, would the cable connect from the new Xbox directly to my old HDD?
> Is it generally less expensive to buy a cable and do it myself, or let EB Games (since I live in Canada, ‘GameStop’ is ‘EB Games’) do it for me? Can the cables on Amazon be trusted? Also, would the cable connect from the new Xbox directly to my old HDD?
Well I bought my Xbox Slim at GameStop and I had the offer to be transferred for me.
This cable on Amazon can be trusted. Use the seller ‘Amazon.ca’, that is not an individual seller, it’s actually the company and has never failed a delivery on me. Except, of course, I use the European version.
Forge stuff is saved on your HDD so you need the old xbox to work if you want that stuff transfered to your new Xbox, same with all you saved progress on all your games. Achievements, Arcade games etc are saved on your profile data history so recover that to your new xbox (if you dont fix the old one) is the way to go and then you need to download the games again.
Pro tip to try and fix the old Xbox with out opening it, i did this many times on one of my old Xbox’s. Remove the HDD and the cables to your TV and just have the power cables connected. Now on the back of the Xbox there are 2 fans spinning you need to stop them from spinning for about 5 min, use 2 cue tips from there the xbox will get over heated resulting in the components getting brazed togheter again. So if the old Xbox is working you should be able to transfer all your data from the old Xbox with a USB memory to your new Xbox.
