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Western Digital Warns External Hard Drive Customers Over Mavericks Data Loss

baryon said:
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.
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I had PHYSICALLY removed the drive from the WD casing, formatted it several times over a couple of years, used it in a DOCK (for gawd sakes) and it still reverted into the MyBook empty ZOMBIE!
 
I guess I won't be upgrading my 2010 MacBook yet. I use two 2GB WD Drives for iTunes and both are full of TV shows and movies.

I got this warning in my email yesterday.
 
Wow, i uninstalled this a couple of moments i installed Mavericks by pure chance.

I never used it anyways so i thought the hell with it. Must have been some good instinct or something.
 
Heh, I'm reading "Meet “badBIOS,” the mysterious Mac and PC malware that jumps airgaps" on Ars Technica when the MacRumors banner for this article appears, and so I get a chill & goosebumps. And Halloween....:p
 
JackieInCo said:
I guess I won't be upgrading my 2010 MacBook yet. I use two 2GB WD Drives for iTunes and both are full of TV shows and movies.

I got this warning in my email yesterday.
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USING the hard drives are no problem - using those particular applications that WD wrote (WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software applications) are the problem.

I use those drives, but I've never installed those programs, no use for them.
 
Peace said:
Best solution is to get with the times and stop using spinning hard drives.
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First, this has nothing to do with the hardware. If someone were silly enough to use WD software on an SSD, the exact same issue would've cropped up.

Second, 2012 MacBook Air. Enough said.

Disclosure: I use SSDs and spinning hard drives, and understand the each has a proper use-case.
 
A laughable joke.

So they neglect (key word here is neglect) to update their worthless software, and when it hits the fan they point the finger

You would have to be crazy to use their crappy software with any OS

Maybe they should start making decent drivers and code
 
grapegraphics said:
I had PHYSICALLY removed the drive from the WD casing, formatted it several times over a couple of years, used it in a DOCK (for gawd sakes) and it still reverted into the MyBook empty ZOMBIE!
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As others have said, custom partitioning schemes. This is where OS X being Unix comes in useful. You have to get down and dirty in Terminal but dd(1) will nuke anything

Code: 
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<disk device name> bs=512

It'll take a few hours but it writes zeros to every single sector on the disk. It works at block level, i.e. the raw disk, so ignores any partitioning so will zero out MBRs, partition tables, and all data areas.

Just be 110% certain you get the correct disk device name :p
 
First thing I do when I get an external drive is reformat it. All that built-in software gets deleted and I let Time Machine or CCC handle it.
 
My first and only WD drive died in less than 1 year. It was replaced under warranty, but all the collection of my old songs are forever gone. Including some original creations from my friend who had passed away.
I have never had such a bad product ever before and therefore did not think of backing up.
 
Antdude said:
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.
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And that's why you never update during a project. My laptop is on Mavericks but the desktop has to wait until the current job is done. Sucks about losing your data though, was that a firewire HD? I think I remember that issue.
 
My entire iTunes library is on a WD external drive. I felt fear reading this until I learned it was more an issue with their software than their hardware. I've never once used any software that comes with a drive. I plug it in and let OSX take it. Never had an issue, and still have my library a week after upgrading.

...I hope. :eek:
 
Before everyone blames WD, it might be worth remembering the major problem with the new MacBooks freezing is related to the USB system.

It could well be the same issue... and Apple's fault. :(
 
donaciano said:
And that's why you never update during a project. My laptop is on Mavericks but the desktop has to wait until the current job is done. Sucks about losing your data though, was that a firewire HD? I think I remember that issue.
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Yes! It was a FW drive. And you're right, never update during a project. Like I said, painful lesson learned.
 
SandboxGeneral said:
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.
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Yeah, I agree. Be it on Windows or OS X, I've never had good luck with HDD manufacturer software before. I got burned early with some Maxtor software (yeah, LONG time ago) and it's been bad since. A lot of support calls I get are in regards to that stuff too.

Just let the OS manage it.
 
Peace said:
Best solution is to get with the times and stop using spinning hard drives.
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I don't even want to think what the price would be to replace two external drives at 4TB each that holds all my dvd and blu-ray rips for my iTunes library.

That said, I thankfully never installed the WD software and have had no issues before or after upgrading to Mavericks.
 
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