That would indicate corrupted data somewhere in the system. Yes I know its a extreme pain in the rectum, & sorry about this but it looks like you need to wipe the whole shebang and start from scratch again.


Clear the game cache
Wipe Skyrim's install data from the HDD,
Wipe Dawnguard install data from the HDD
Clear the system cache

Then start over by installing the game, then patching to 1.6, then re-downloading dawngaurd from your download history. Start the game, go to the main menu and wait on it installing the dawnguard data. Once thats done try a new character and see how it goes.

If you still have a problem, then I would surmise that either xbox is going bad (hdd maybe) or your interent connection is spotty and/or has a noisey line causing data corruption with downloads.

I've been playing Skyrim from the disk, not the HDD so i don't think there's a problem on that end. Also I mentioned earlier that I had considered that the download itself could have been being interrupted, but I downloaded a 1.5GB game demo and was able to play through it without any issues, which leads me to believe that the download process itself is not the root of the problem.

I don't mean to shoot down your suggestions, and am thankful for the help, but I think all of those issues are either not applicable or have been eliminated as a cause. I guess the HDD going bad could be an issue, my system is a couple years old. It seems strange that I have no problems with vanilla Skyrim, yet Dawnguard makes the entire game unplayable. I will try installing skyrim to the HDD next and we'll see what that yields.

Well as I said, its possibilities. I know its frustrating getting new content to work but it should not be crashing at startup. It doesnt for me and many others, and shouldnt under normal circumstances so there is something amiss somewhere along the line.

Though maybe its from playing off the disc itself thats the problem? It may be worth installing the game and seeing if the data for dawnguard works properly that way.

Well this is interesting. After installing Skyrim to the HDD I was unable to start the game irrespective of whether or not Dawnguard was installed. It looks like there could be something wrong with the interactions between Skyrim and my HDD. It's worth noting that I am able play other games from the HDD without issue, as well as load and create saves in Skyrim from the HDD as long as Dawnguard is not installed.

Ah, now to me that rather sounds like it may simply be a defective game disc. It happens in every form of mass production, that some defects dont get noticed till the end user has the item. Do you have any friends with the game? Borrowing a friends disc and installing that instead would be the best test to see if its the disc thats wonky. If you can install it from and run it off someone elses disc, you have a bad disc

I'll have to look around and see If any people I know have the game. If not it might be worth it to rent the game and install it using that disc. Does it make sense that a bad game disc would affect playing downloaded content off of the hard drive? I haven't had any previous issues playing Skyrim on the current disc I own, I'll have to check it out for scratches and other flaws.

Finally got the damn thing to work. My HDD must have been the issue, because my solution was to find an old USB stick and download Dawnguard to that as well as to transfer all saves over to the USB. Loading times are long, but the content is there.

Congrats on finding a solution mate, I know its bloody frustrating when content just wont work. A new HDD shouldnt set you back that much, and at least now you know what the culprit was.

Yeah, it's certainly nice that my $20 wasn't completely wasted. This is the first manifestation of any issues with my HDD, hopefully it doesn't continue to act up in other ways. Thanks for the continued help throughout the thread. Hopefully someone else can benefit from the useful advice posted here.