Xbox one sync help

[HustleRussell]

My Xbox one packed up after three years of doing very little work. Bugger says I, and I send it back to Microsoft for repair or exchange. Microsoft send a replacement refurbished console. So far, so good.

So now I want to get my gaming data back. It's saved in the cloud, right? As it turns out, possibly not. I've never been on Xbox live and I had never specifically asked my unfortunately deceased console to save to the cloud. Hence I started up my replacement console, expecting it to ask me if I want to download all my gaming data so I can pick up where I left off- but nothing.

Am I right in saying that unless I have a live account my gaming data is not saved in the cloud and I basically have to start again?

[anonymous-user]

Yeah I think you’re only saving to the cloud when you have an Xbox Live account.

[JimbobVFR]

You do need to have signed up for an account but you don't need to have a gold subscription.

https://support.xbox.com/en-GB/games/game-setup/cl...

[Ekona]

Ouch, that’s not a fun way to find that out

My first Xbone broke about two months after I got it (day one version as well!), MS replaced within a few days and it took just a couple of hours to sync everything back up. Not helpful to your situation, I know, but just to let others know that the system does work very well as long as you’ve been online for everything to sync up.

[HustleRussell]

I have never used xbox live nor paid for a membership, however when I installed F1 2017 and ran it for the first time it automatically started ‘syncing data’ so now I’m back where I left off… I guess that means I must have an xbox live account and it is all saved somewhere after all. Hooray, on this occasion, for the slightly scary way in which my data floats around in the ether in a manner to which I am generally oblivious!

[JimbobVFR]

HustleRussell said:

I have never used xbox live nor paid for a membership, however when I installed F1 2017 and ran it for the first time it automatically started ‘syncing data’ so now I’m back where I left off… I guess that means I must have an xbox live account and it is all saved somewhere after all. Hooray, on this occasion, for the slightly scary way in which my data floats around in the ether in a manner to which I am generally oblivious!

You must have an account of some sort else there's no possible way the new machine is linked to you.

[HustleRussell]

I do have a Microsoft account which seems to have assimilated my Skype, Hotmail accounts etc. Xbox is linked to it but I didn't realise that it was an 'xbox live' account.