I have two externals, one for data, one for TM, and both are working fine as well.
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Mavericks corrupts external hard drives!
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I have two externals, one for data, one for TM, and both are working fine as well.
Probably few more unknowns in there as well. I have a LaCie RAID running for well over a month on an iMac under 10.9 without issue. My Mini has a WD, two LaCie and an OWC and no issues as well for over a month. I had WD auto backup apps but uninstalled them last summer because they were extremely buggy. Time Machine and Carbon Copy Clone are a lot better backup duo. After the external HD scare went public, I doubled checked and had no trace of WD drivers or apps on any of my computers. I also disabled Spotlight for all my externals, not because I was afraid it was connected to the drive problem, but because I hate it running in the background and never use it to search my drives.
Your learning young Padawan
Just remember manufacture third party hard drive software is almost always crap! They are hardware people trying to write software on a system (OS X) they deem 'inferior'. IMHO they wouldn't had this problem if they wrote their software in Cocoa.
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If this was on a partition OS X couldn't read, the OS didn't know about the files. If it was readable you should have got a dialog stating the drive would be formatted as a Time Machine partition. If this is never presented that is deplorable by Apple.
Have you by now used Data Rescue or similar software to salvage your data? It's probably there, even if the file tree is not. I don't think every sector of the disk is encrypted.
Wow, that's crazy, but not surprising. I have a few years old WD that had been acting flakey so I figured I'd swap in a new drive WHICH YOU CAN'T BECAUSE THE DRIVE HAS NO SATA CONNECTORS BUT HAS (what looks like) A PROPRIETARY USB CONNECTOR ATTACHED TO THE CIRCUIT BOARD! So if the port dies but the drive is totally fine you still can only toss it in the trash.
I won't buy any WD anything anymore even if it doesn't suck, because of their idiocy.
Oh well, I now think I know what's wrong with my WD (Whitelight 1tb network) drive. All was well with Time machine until I upgraded (?) to Mavericks. Now it won't even recognise the partition and all my backups. Happy days. My iMac is only a few months old so I might restore it to mountain lion.
G-Drive Mini Won't Boot
I have five external G-Drives, two Minis and three larger drives. One Mini has been my primary Time Machine backup for two years. Now it will not load to the desktop on either my MacBook Pro or my older Desktop, either plug-powered or USB-powered.
I was able to load and backup to all four other G-drives, so it appears that the one Mini drive just failed. But I wonder now if this was caused by Maverick.
Does anyone have any further advice on how to protect future external backups. Do we know if Apple is going to address this issue?
Finally, does anyone know of a company that could repair the G-Drive Mini for an out-of-warranty repair? I don't need data recovery (I always have multipple backups). Thanks for your input.
I have five external G-Drives, two Minis and three larger drives. One Mini has been my primary Time Machine backup for two years. Now it will not load to the desktop on either my MacBook Pro or my older Desktop, either plug-powered or USB-powered.
I was able to load and backup to all four other G-drives, so it appears that the one Mini drive just failed. But I wonder now if this was caused by Maverick.
Does anyone have any further advice on how to protect future external backups. Do we know if Apple is going to address this issue?
Finally, does anyone know of a company that could repair the G-Drive Mini for an out-of-warranty repair? I don't need data recovery (I always have multipple backups). Thanks for your input.
The only documented problem I have seen deals with the WD software being incompatible with Mavericks. There are people who have had other issues with external drives, but they were isolated and unique to that user. If you are not using any software provided by the drive manufacturer, then there is no reason to believe Mavericks had anything to do with the failure. So your first conclusion is most likely correct.
What drive would you now recommend?
Well, it's been six months since this topic started. As such a lot has happened since.
I am now looking to purchase an external 3TB USB 3 hard drive to connect to my new iMac 27" latest model.
Any recommendations on what drive to use with Mavericks?
Thanks in advance.
Well, it's been six months since this topic started. As such a lot has happened since.
I am now looking to purchase an external 3TB USB 3 hard drive to connect to my new iMac 27" latest model.
Any recommendations on what drive to use with Mavericks?
Thanks in advance.
Depends. For externals I suggest NewerTech MiniStack (add you own hard drive version). This way you can add you own drives and replace those drives when needed.
Thanks, rather neat idea. Well designed and easy to add a hard drive.
It's an option I'll explore.
A lot of searches point you towards either Western Digital, Seagate or LaCie.
Whilst ease of use is great I'm more concerned with how well the drive interacts with the OS and Mavericks friendly.
I am using 2 WD's and 1 Verbatim USB drives with my 2012 iMac running Mavericks. I have no problems at all. I don't use the software that was provided with the drives however.
That could be annoying to some I suppose ~ Not being able to use the provided software. Leaves a small part of you being a little skeptical in their methods at sorting things out.
Regardless, like you I doubt I would have the need for the supplied software. Providing it utilises the OS and takes advantage of any backup software I'm happy.
Dont panic its probably just an Indexing issue with maverix.. Heres the fix
Simply plugging your HDD into osx after an upgrade isnt going to kill your drive unless you let it happen.
There is a known indexing issue with maverics.
TRY THIS then report back if your drive is still fubar.
go to
system prefs > spotlight > Privacy
hit the + and add your external HDD from being indexed.
You should be able to browse your external drive now.
Have fun and play Safeish..
Simply plugging your HDD into osx after an upgrade isnt going to kill your drive unless you let it happen.
There is a known indexing issue with maverics.
TRY THIS then report back if your drive is still fubar.
go to
system prefs > spotlight > Privacy
hit the + and add your external HDD from being indexed.
You should be able to browse your external drive now.
Have fun and play Safeish..
I did it. I don't think it is work for me.
I have a Seagate 2TB.
Mavericks randomly disconnects drive.
It is very annoying.
You just can't work.
Apple should have solve it immediately.
Well, I purchased up and connected a Western Digital My Book Studio 3TB today.
It works fine except for being very noisy (clattering) coming from the disk when copying.
Pick it up and it instantly stops so there's a lot of vibrations going on inside he drive.
I'll have to keep an eye on it otherwise it'll go back to Aple whom I purchased it from.
It works fine except for being very noisy (clattering) coming from the disk when copying.
Pick it up and it instantly stops so there's a lot of vibrations going on inside he drive.
I'll have to keep an eye on it otherwise it'll go back to Aple whom I purchased it from.
I managed to restore my data
Hi, first time poster here. I registered because I found this thread when my WD hard drive failed the same way as many have described here and elsewhere.
My drive is an Elements Passport (the one looking like an elongated apple-tv).
Time machine stopped finding the drive and it did not appear on my computer except in Disk Utility with the partition greyed out. I tried opening it on 3 different macs, one with snow leopard, the other two with mavericks. No disc verification or repair in disk utility worked (I tried over 20 times). The hard drive was blinking rapidly. I remember I accidentally unplugged it without unmounting one week prior.
Since I stupidly stored my time-machine backup and one year worth of photos and my 7 years old iTunes library of 100GB worth of CDs I felt panic that all was lost. And I own 6 external drives for rotating backups, but for some reason managed to overlook this material.
The good news: After bringing the defect drive to work I managed to open it in Windows 7 (personal edition) running in Bootcamp. I could't copy the files to a newly purchased and mac formatted drive (no permissions). In fact, the new mac drive behaved in windows like the broken one behaved in mac.
When still in Windows 7, I managed to drag and drop copy all the folders from the broken drive to my desktop folder on the Macintosh HD partition, then logged back into OSX and copied all the files to the new drive.
I didn't have time to copy the Time machine backup, but all photos where restored and the iTunes library loads perfectly.
I hope this helps someone, don't format your drives, the data is probably still intact there. So what is up with OSX Mavericks, turning mac-journaled drives into Windows-drives?
By the way, the drive still does not work, and can't be formatted. I'm keeping it in hopes of some sort of fix.
Hi, first time poster here. I registered because I found this thread when my WD hard drive failed the same way as many have described here and elsewhere.
My drive is an Elements Passport (the one looking like an elongated apple-tv).
Time machine stopped finding the drive and it did not appear on my computer except in Disk Utility with the partition greyed out. I tried opening it on 3 different macs, one with snow leopard, the other two with mavericks. No disc verification or repair in disk utility worked (I tried over 20 times). The hard drive was blinking rapidly. I remember I accidentally unplugged it without unmounting one week prior.
Since I stupidly stored my time-machine backup and one year worth of photos and my 7 years old iTunes library of 100GB worth of CDs I felt panic that all was lost. And I own 6 external drives for rotating backups, but for some reason managed to overlook this material.
The good news: After bringing the defect drive to work I managed to open it in Windows 7 (personal edition) running in Bootcamp. I could't copy the files to a newly purchased and mac formatted drive (no permissions). In fact, the new mac drive behaved in windows like the broken one behaved in mac.
When still in Windows 7, I managed to drag and drop copy all the folders from the broken drive to my desktop folder on the Macintosh HD partition, then logged back into OSX and copied all the files to the new drive.
I didn't have time to copy the Time machine backup, but all photos where restored and the iTunes library loads perfectly.
I hope this helps someone, don't format your drives, the data is probably still intact there. So what is up with OSX Mavericks, turning mac-journaled drives into Windows-drives?
By the way, the drive still does not work, and can't be formatted. I'm keeping it in hopes of some sort of fix.
Has it actually been determined that the problem is the fault of Mavericks and not Western Digital and/or Seagate's software?
Blindsighted!
-----I just realized what is wrong with my new macbook w retina! When I saw your post!!! >> You are SOOOO right it does corrupt external drives!!! I have a seagate 1 tb and ever since i got it I've had to trade in my mac 2x and this would be the 3rd and no one can seem to find out what is wrong with the external and books! *Light bulb* Mavericks has corrupted my external....wow. wow. you might of just solved my infinite question and realization that mavericks sucks. Thanks! ----------------
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It has to be Apples fault. When I first bought 2013 pro i had no external and it worked amazingly, then I added a WD to it and laptop got CRAZY. So crazy no one could fix it so they traded it for free. Then the new one was working just fine... until i added an external... this time a seagate. Laptop went CRAZY about a week and half later. So crazy apple could not figure out what was wrong so they had to let me trade it in for ANOTHER one. WTF. Now this laptop "was" free of all problems until..... I added an external... its gone crazy. I have info all over, seems like theres a bug , distorted images, unsaved data, garbage collector sux, so many problems that apple can't figure out whats gone wrong AGAIN. so i headed tomorrow to trade it in for a NEW MACBOOK. any suggestions on an external that might work this time? thnx
-----I just realized what is wrong with my new macbook w retina! When I saw your post!!! >> You are SOOOO right it does corrupt external drives!!! I have a seagate 1 tb and ever since i got it I've had to trade in my mac 2x and this would be the 3rd and no one can seem to find out what is wrong with the external and books! *Light bulb* Mavericks has corrupted my external....wow. wow. you might of just solved my infinite question and realization that mavericks sucks. Thanks! --------------------------
It has to be Apples fault. When I first bought 2013 pro i had no external and it worked amazingly, then I added a WD to it and laptop got CRAZY. So crazy no one could fix it so they traded it for free. Then the new one was working just fine... until i added an external... this time a seagate. Laptop went CRAZY about a week and half later. So crazy apple could not figure out what was wrong so they had to let me trade it in for ANOTHER one. WTF. Now this laptop "was" free of all problems until..... I added an external... its gone crazy. I have info all over, seems like theres a bug , distorted images, unsaved data, garbage collector sux, so many problems that apple can't figure out whats gone wrong AGAIN. so i headed tomorrow to trade it in for a NEW MACBOOK. any suggestions on an external that might work this time? thnx