I had a 360 for the longest time (an old Arcade model) that was never hooked up to the internet due to no wireless and the router not being remotely nearby. I picked up a new 360 just recently, which thankfully now can be hooked up to the internet, and is at present. I had plugged in the new hard drive to the old Xbox and moved all of the saves I wanted to keep (the primary one of which was my Mass Effect 2 save, which was prepped and ready for import to ME3). Since my first 360 was an offline one, the profile was as well, and I guess at some point in the intervening years I must have physically created one through the website, and signed in with this new one. Being stupid, and thinking for some reason that it should work just like a PC, since the saves were on the HDD which was now hooked up to the new box I figured I could just delete the old profile.

...clearly I was wrong, since I'm encountering the dreaded "Unknown Profile" tag on all of my saves. Am I totally boned, or is there some way that I can fix my error?

And barring that, is there anyway I can perhaps replicate my save (with all the ME1 and ME2 decisions) so that I can at least finish FemShep's story the way I began it? I seem to recall Brad speaking about hacking together an import save in preparation for ME3 on a Bombcast leading up to ME3's release, but I don't remember what exactly came of it.

If you look on the Xbox Live site there is a page for transferring your licensees to the new console. Right now it sounds like your saves are still registered to the old system's ID. A quick transfer should clear things up. Also, have your serial numbers handy.

Transfer your item licenses to your new system (can be done through your Xbox 360 in settings - account - license transfer), or try to recover your gamertag.

@sixpin: @FritzDude: I've attempted to do the license transfer, but it doesn't appear to have worked. The profile the saves were tied to was offline, and that console had never been connected to the internet, so there's no gamertag to recover. The console also won't let me copy or move the files to a USB drive to take back to the original console (which I still have out and is sitting beside me now that I'm having these issues). If I can't solve this through the console, is my next step to call Microsoft support?

@daletiel: So the profile associated with those saves has never been online, and there's no xbox live profile associated to it?

@Baillie: That's correct. I had created a Live profile at some point in the last couple years (I think to pick up some game for free as a promotion), and that's the tag that's being used on the new console.

@daletiel: Okay, that reply seals it. Yes, you just boned yourself there, my god. Why didn't it occur to you that the saves are associated with your profile? That's one big fuck up...

As far as I am aware, you are completely screwed. If you deleted a local profile that was never connected to the internet then there was never a version of it stored on the microsoft servers. Saves are locked to Gamertags. You can't recover that profile, and the new profile can't access the saves.

What Brad was referring to is a way to transfer Mass Effect saves from Xbox to PC and back. I am unsure if you could edit the save file to work with a different profile. Might be worth a search but I doubt it.

@daletiel: You may have to choose a profile and assuming you choose the older one with the majority of your saves, somehow get it signed in online. Other than that, you may have to call Microsoft.

Well here's the Mass Effect Save site at least.

@Baillie: Yeah, that's what I figured. I do most of my gaming on my PS3, so I never had a whole lot of experience with anything on the 360 side of things. Eh, oh well. It's not that big a deal, just a big nuisance and a reminder to always do research prior to doing something you've never done before.

@AlisterCat: Alright, thanks for the clarification on that. I had a feeling it had to do with transferring between console and PC, but I wasn't certain.