My old Xbox 360 died on my and gave me the red ring of death. I ended up buying a new one as it was quite old but realized that I did not have the password for my Xbox live account any longer. The account was my old work email that was no longer in use since I no longer have jobs.
I don’t know how many people have tried to recover a Live password but I’ve quickly discovered how much of an exercise in futility it is. If you have no recourse such as a secret question, you must go through a tedious process with Microsoft. You have to provide a number of facts on the account such as contacts, folders, friends, etc. which is difficult to do when you use either of the tools- even more so when you don’t have the password to access them!
So my only possibility was to provide as much information as I could on my Xbox Live account. But they kept telling me I hadn’t given them enough information even though I clearly said I couldn’t. At one stage I even managed to turn on my old broken 360 and retrieve the old Console ID and gave them that. The let me waited for a week (timezone difference and weekends and such) and a week later they still came back to say they still could not validate the account even with all I had provided!
I lose everything I’ve ever purchased off Xbox Live. Mass Effect DLCs, Dragon Age DLCs. Everything.
I really want to cry at this point. And still do even today. All the files....I transfer them to my new console with a cable, I cannot touch them, all because I have no access of old profile account.
Now if you excuse me, I need to go back to my footlocker and sob.