Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Western Digital Warns External Hard Drive Customers Over Mavericks Data Loss

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,506
30,781



NewImage12.png
Western Digital has emailed customers warning them about possible data loss when connecting external hard drives to Macs with OS X Mavericks installed.

The MacRumors Forums, Western Digital's forums, and Apple's Support Communities all have threads about lost data after connecting Western Digital external hard drives to computers after updating to Mavericks.

In an email to customers, Western Digital warned about using its WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager, and WD SmartWare software products with Mavericks and suggests customers uninstall those applications before upgrading to Mavericks, or, if they already have upgraded, to uninstall those applications immediately.
Dear WD Registered Customer,

As a valued WD customer we want to make you aware of new reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9). WD is urgently investigating these reports and the possible connection to the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software applications. Until the issue is understood and the cause identified, WD strongly urges our customers to uninstall these software applications before updating to OS X Mavericks (10.9), or delay upgrading. If you have already upgraded to Mavericks, WD recommends that you remove these applications and restart your computer.

The WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager, and WD SmartWare software applications are not new and have been available from WD for many years, however solely as a precaution WD has removed these applications from our website as we investigate this issue.

Sincerely,
Western Digital
Click to expand...
Most of the complaints seem to center around Western Digital drives, but the company does say other drives could have issues as well.

Thanks Jackie!

Article Link: Western Digital Warns External Hard Drive Customers Over Mavericks Data Loss
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/31/western-digital-warns-external-hard-drive-customers-over-mavericks-data-loss/
SandboxGeneral

SandboxGeneral

Moderator emeritus
Sep 8, 2010
26,482
10,051
Detroit
I guess I'm glad that I've never, ever, used HDD manufacturer software before. I've always let the OS (OS X and Windows) manage the drives.
 
adam044

adam044

macrumors 65816
Jan 24, 2012
1,095
10
Boston
Good thing I don't use that software. Use my WD as my time machine backup and haven't had any problems at all.
 
K

kolax

macrumors G3
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
So this is only happens if you use their software on Mavericks to access the hard drives?

So not a Mavericks flaw but WD's? Or maybe both, but because WD writes software for the Mac, they should've been accessing developer builds of Mavericks and would've found this out long ago.
 
T

troop231

macrumors 603
Jan 20, 2010
5,822
553
Looks like WD didn't even bother to test their software before Mavericks shipped.

Western Digital said:
The WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager, and WD SmartWare software applications are not new and have been available from WD for many years..."
Click to expand...
:rolleyes:
 
A

asmallfly

macrumors newbie
Jan 24, 2013
3
0
My experience has been strange. I manage 2 macs in my household and both are backed up to two WD passport drives. One drive worked fine after 10.9 but the other backup drive refuses to mount on one of the computers. Neither computer, 2011 and 2012 MBPs respectively, have any WD software on them.
 
cmChimera

cmChimera

macrumors 601
Feb 12, 2010
4,273
3,762
asmallfly said:
My experience has been strange. I manage 2 macs in my household and both are backed up to two WD passport drives. One drive worked fine after 10.9 but the other backup drive refuses to mount on one of the computers.
Click to expand...

I had some issues with a passport as well. It wouldn't mount, and disk utility said it needed repair. But it ended up mounting after some unplugging and plugging it back in. Really strange behavior. My Toshiba drive works fine though.
 
Krazy Bill

Krazy Bill

macrumors 68030
Dec 21, 2011
2,985
3
This is why you "nuke' all that crapware that WD, Seagate includes on their drives before using them. Then, throw the box away.
 
JoEw

JoEw

macrumors 68000
Nov 29, 2009
1,583
1,291
The moral: Don't use ****** useless bundled hardrive software.
 
A

anubis

macrumors 6502a
Feb 7, 2003
937
50
Wait, people actually install and use the crapware that comes with their hard drives?
 
Antdude

Antdude

macrumors newbie
Oct 23, 2013
10
2
San Diego, CA
I've learned to make sure all my external drives are physically disconnected when I do an OS upgrade. Years ago, I was doing a point release update to OS X(Panther, I think), and the external drive I had all my FCP digitized video on was nuked as a direct result of that update. I spent lots of time and money trying to recover that data, but no go. 45GB of digitized video was lost, and I had to re-import all of it. I missed a deadline and a client was very unhappy. Painful lesson learned.

Needless to say, I never use WD's software, and I make sure all my external media is physically disconnected when I do an update. That said, Mavericks hasn't given me any issues along those lines.
 
Last edited:
G

grapegraphics

macrumors newbie
Nov 24, 2003
11
0
Canada
Ah, that's how I lost all my porn LOL

Seriously, I had an external drive that I REMOVED the physical HD and was using it in a doc... guess what happened... EXACTLY what's been going on, that drive (originally from a WD MyBook, or whatever) mounted as MyBook and everything was lost!

argh.

How do you totally uninstall or burn WD Drive Manager? :mad:
 
baryon

baryon

macrumors 68040
Oct 3, 2009
3,878
2,929
This is why, when you buy a hard drive, ALWAYS format it to erase any crapware installed on it by companies who should not be writing software. I imagine your WD drives should be fine if you don't run any WD software. Let the OS handle hard drives, not some crapware.
 
sputnikv

sputnikv

macrumors 6502a
Oct 3, 2009
507
3,187
i can't stand harddrives that come with software and data managers pre-installed. in some cases you can't even completely reformat since they have some proprietary partition scheme set up
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom