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Really wierd problem with 2TB Western Digital external drive.

TheBSDGuy said:
No offense, but that isn't a fair point at all. He bought a product in good faith that it would work properly, and when it didn't he ended up using Scannerz on it to find out it wasn't working properly.

Why should we be putting up with this #$*&!!!! That's kind of like buying a brand new car and then having to take it to a mechanic to make sure it's working properly.

Whatever happened to quality?
Click to expand...

Agreed and non taken, however the OP has stated previously that he felt that
"going cheapskate" was a mistake and comparing the outlay to a movie and
dinner "cost" made him feel a little better about it - that's all I meant.

I'm a bit "old school" and my Father always said " Buy cheap, Buy Twice "

That's very true and good advice IMHO.

M.
 
Yes, it is one of the "Intellispin" drives.

I unfortunately have to take part of the blame because I opened it up figuring something like a loose connector might be to blame thus voiding the warranty. Realistically, I also have to consider costs in time and shipping as well. How much time would it take me to prep, package, and ship the item, and how much would it cost? $15-$20, and then WD could turn around and sent it back to me saying that's the way it works.

At this point I'm just resolved to tolerating it.
 
I may be wrong, this may or may not be the reason for your problem. but as far as I remember, USB 2.0 drives shouldn't be bootable.
 
[[ I may be wrong, this may or may not be the reason for your problem. but as far as I remember, USB 2.0 drives shouldn't be bootable. ]]

Of course, this post -is- totally wrong.

I've been booting and running off of USB2 drives for years now.
 
Hey MacRobert:

I have one of those drives too. Ended up using Scannerz on it too. Why? The stupid I/O cable that came with the system went bad after a few months. That might be excusable if I'd been plugging and unplugging things constantly, but I'm not. I had to replace it. I don't have the weird timeout or sleeps you do though. All in all I'd say the quality of the product is not impressive. On the box it looks like the unit is in a black machined metal case, when you open it up it's just a plastic box and a cheap flimsy one at that. The original cable was as cheap as possible.

I've heard that the newer units have some type of proprietary controller on them that encrypts stuff on the fly and if you take it out of the WD case and try and used it in another unit, like a regular hard drive, it won't work at all. I have no reason to disbelieve that story but I don't know which specific models they're doing it to either.
 
Nope. Quite honestly once I got rid of the cable the thing works well.

I think that people need to be wary of the so called pre-packaged "backup drives" nowadays. If it says it's a backup drive, it might have weird functionality or performance built into it. For example, before I bought the WD I bought a Seagate. I don't remember the model number or name, but the moment I plugged it in it started clicking like crazy. I thought the drive was bad so I returned it and got the WD. When problems started surfacing with the WD, I did a web search and some of these strange behaviors, like excessive head parking are present on some backup drives as part of their energy saving schemes. I suspect the clicking on the Seagate might have been normal, but I wasn't willing to put everything I have of value onto a backup drive that's making sounds that are historically designated as the signs of a failing drive. No way!

Also, as I'm sure you know, the design of the WD is stupid. Aside from the case seeming to be made of the same plastic that was used in model airplanes I built as a little kid, the power switch doesn't work unless you load their drive control software. Their drive control software is the very same software that was erasing entire backups on Mavericks based systems. The LEDs indicating how full the drive is also don't work unless you use their software.

A long time ago I bought an ACom dual USB/Firewire drive and thought it was cheap looking. Compared to the WD, it was an engineering masterpiece.

Just my opinions.
 
I got the 1.7 update to Scannerz, and I assume that's what you're talking about. If you read the manual, diagnostics mode will only evaluate errors and irregularities if they exist. All my tests are coming back clean. Since replacing the cable I have no problems.

I think you just got stuck with a really early version of the drive. If you read my previous post, and I hate to tell you this, that might just be the way the thing works.

By the way, all the stuff with my drive says 2013, not 2010 like yours, so your drive is more or less ancient. Possibly even a first release of the drive.
 
I think people should now make the assumption that if they're buying something identified as a backup drive, it may very well not function as a normal drive.

For example, for all the peculiar features of this old drive, does it lose data, crash, corrupt data, or anything else?

I'll leave the question there, but I have a good idea I know what the answer will be.
 
ZVH said:
...For example, for all the peculiar features of this old drive, does it lose data, crash, corrupt data, or anything else?
Click to expand...

No. It seems to actually works as a backup drive. But it still has those weird delays. WD should put a message on the drive or the instructions saying it shouldn't be used as a boot drive.

Just my opinion.
 
The moral of the story is if you get a new drive, you need to test it before committing to it. That sounds sort of paranoid, but on the other hand, who buys are car without test driving it?
 
Just thought I'd toss out an update. Apparently Seagate has a drive with similar problems. I don't think it times out for 30 seconds like yours does but apparently it's constantly parking the heads, making people think the drive is failing.
 
A co-worker picked up some type of Seagate external drive and immediately returned it to the store because it was clicking excessively. I have to wonder if it wasn't yet another "low power" miracle.

A tip for any drive manufacturers reading: It's probably not a real good idea for you to design drives that, when put in use, give people the impression they're dying.

...just a thought.
 
With todays companies being as disorganized as they seem to be, they probably had a few skids of the devective WDs isolated in a warehouse somewhere, and then some guy came along, probably put one on a PC for a minute or two, and concluded everything was fine....ship 'em!

Another thing to watch out for with any "backup drive" is software that hooks you into an offline service. From what I can tell, this is sort of like getting an iPhone for low cost up front because the vendor plans to make money in the long haul charging you monthly fees. This seems to be a model some are considering if not outright implementing. Unfortunately, there's no discount for the drive.
 
There seem to be a LOT of problems with external drives on Mavericks. The 2TB described in this thread is, IMHO, a freak that probably was in some trash or "to be re-worked" group that was accidentally leaked out to the market. That's my opinion. Even WD isn't so stupid they'd do something like that deliberately.

More importantly however is the apparent fact that a lot of external HDs aren't being seen or aren't working properly at all on Mavericks. From what I've been able to tell most appear to be USB drives. The problem seems more like it's system/OS combination specific rather than the OS in general.
 
Apple is apparently telling their support people that users with incompatible USB devices should get a USB hub and place it between the drive and the computer, essentially making a "Mavericks Adapter."


........do you remember the good 'ol days, when you could plug a drive into a USB port and it would work right......and operating systems that seemed to be well thought out?????
 
As an FYI to anyone following this thread, even though I'm now reasonably convinced the drive is OK and just acts weird, I'm replacing it anyway. I just don't and can't trust something that acts like this.

I suspect the replacement will be a home-brew HGST 7200 RPM 2.5" drive in a USB enclosure.
 
It occurred to me to be sure and check the power consumption of the drive and the enclosure. A fair number of the 2.5" can be kind of marginal on the power side, if port powered only. I assume the HGST you're talking about are either the HGST 0S03563 (1TB, 7200RPM, 2.5" drive) or the HGST HD20500 IDK/7K (500G, 7200RPM, 2.5" drive). I suppose HGST may have other similar part numbers but those are the ones I'm familiar with.

Check the power consumption specs and you may want to verify the Mac being used can supply adequate power. Some of the 2.5" enclosures require 2 USB connections to supply adequate power.
 
I'm glad you mentioned that.

Next question: Do all USB ports on Mac's have the same power output, and what are the limits I need to meet.

I think I remember some of the older machines had a regular USB port and others had a low power USB port. In fact I'm pretty sure that's the way at least some of the iBooks were. Is this still the same?
 
MacRobert10 said:
I think I remember some of the older machines had a regular USB port and others had a low power USB port. In fact I'm pretty sure that's the way at least some of the iBooks were. Is this still the same?
Click to expand...


I think you're right. I seem to remember that on some of the early iBooks, but they also had USB 1.X ports too. You would have to check the specs with Apple.
 
Get online and check the USB specs for that sort of stuff. I'm assuming Apple has to implement ports according to the USB specifications, although to hear some post about external drive problems with Mavericks, one has to wonder!:eek:
 
I got tired of analyzing and over-analyzing everything so I just went to the local shop and picked up a simple USB enclosure for about 8 bucks.

This is working fine and its total cost was less than the "magical 30 second timeout" WD drive even after discount.

As an FYI for anyone, this can be done for anywhere from probably about $45 to $100 depending on the drive you select.
 
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