Western Digital Warns External Hard Drive Customers Over Mavericks Data Loss

[mike-sr29]

1. buy internal hard drive
2. buy Newertech.com Voyager or something similar, I have two.
3. never buy a hard drive in a container
4. live happily ever after

 

[JackieInCo]

Because storing my 12TB of data on SSDs is like, ten dollars, right?

Way too expensive to even think about doing yet.

 

[beyond]

Not a single person in his/her right mind would use these craptastic applications.

You need the WD drive manager to config the various raid modes on some units. That's why you HAVE to use it.

 

[thekev]

Best solution is to get with the times and stop using spinning hard drives.

I suppose you never heard of sandforce controller failures.

 

[codefuns]

Looks like WD didn't even bother to test their software before Mavericks shipped.

suppose wd update their software, will you remember to update it before you upgrade os? this uncompatible problem should caused by apple, they must modified their api's behaviour.

 

[Carlanga]

i'm glad i don't ever use the garbage software that comes with these hard drives anyway.

I use it because of the sleep function and other stuff that I benefit from. I don't use the backup feature of it, have the backups part disabled and use time machine though.

Wow MR. congrats on the worlds most sensationalist headline.

Did they change the headline?

 

[Swift]

That's not all

I have a My Book Live, 3 TB of storage. It's been underwhelming, frankly. I use it to backup Time Machine, and it's prone to sudden "can't recognize..." messages from Time Machine. It took a long time until I realized that I needed IT to be a fixed IP, while the rest of the network had to be DHCP. Then another week to find out where the reset button was to wipe out the password so I could change the range of the IP addesses after I changed IPs and took my Airport Extreme out of bridge mode, and another week to realize that even though I'd set the drive to a fixed IP in the dashboard, I had to type in its address into the Airport as an "exception" to the DHCP. Eventually, WD gave me some tech help, and suddenly I could get the Internet from the drive. Immediately, there was a technical firmware update which installed itself to prepare me for Mavericks.

And Mavericks hasn't eaten any files, to be sure. But it has locked up that drive every way imaginable. Can't access. Wipe out the passwords. Change the settings. It appears. Three hours later, "can't find disk."

What do you think? I'd have to wipe out the Time Machine backups for now, but why don't I just format it HFS+ and control the whole thing with OS X Server?

 

[Carlanga]

Best solution is to get with the times and stop using spinning hard drives.

Give me money then.

 

[Small White Car]

Best solution is to get with the times and stop using spinning hard drives.

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.

I just did the math for me. It would cost me about $19,000 to go fully SSD.

Great plan, Peace, but it ain't happening!

 

[BoRegardless]

SSD instead of HDD?

because a solid state is so cheap to buy

Even if SSDs were cheaper than HDDs, there have been a lot of bricked SSDs when firmware updates were (& still are) done.

 

[ugp]

I had a Western Digital 2TB just fail on me the other day and I am running Mavericks. Lost all my data. HDD was nearly full.

 

[bbeagle]

You need the WD drive manager to config the various raid modes on some units. That's why you HAVE to use it.

Yes, if you're using RAID. I'm not. The drives have my movies, music and pictures on there. I use Time Machine and also backup the pictures once a month manually.

 

[Swift]

suppose wd update their software, will you remember to update it before you upgrade os? this uncompatible problem should caused by apple, they must modified their api's behaviour.

Hey, they're the company that said their drives, basically unaltered from its Windows form, would work with Macs. I bought mine based on that promise. They had the Developer's previews for a long time. That's on them. They're the PERIPHERAL. We're the computer.

 

[anthony11]

This is why you "nuke' all that crapware that WD, Seagate includes on their drives before using them. Then, throw the box away.

Unfortunately certain WD drives have a wacky thing where they insist on presenting an annoying fake CD device with their crapware on it. It can be ignored but not AFAIK removed, I think it's actually in flash on the internal PCB.

 

[Porco]

I would guess that the sad part is that the kind of people who use the bundled apps are probably exactly the kind of normal consumer who reads and follows the instructions in the box rather than regularly reads tech news sites that report on things like this.

 

[troop231]

suppose wd update their software, will you remember to update it before you upgrade os? this uncompatible problem should caused by apple, they must modified their api's behaviour.

Doesn't matter. APIs change for a reason, and therefore isn't Apple's fault, but WD's for not staying up to date with Mavericks and API changes.

 

[840quadra]

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.

Never understood that software myself. OS X has great file management, and Windows is a close second .

Sorry for anyone's loss in this regard.

Unfortunately certain WD drives have a wacky thing where they insist on presenting an annoying fake CD device with their crapware on it. It can be ignored but not AFAIK removed, I think it's actually in flash on the internal PCB.

I purchased one WD drive with such software on it, and swiftly exchanged it for a Bare drive and USB 3.0 FW800 enclosure. I hate being that type of customer, but I dislike the fact of that software almost acting like ransomware.

 

[jasonefmonk]

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.

If you have a computer or device that has important information on it, it must be backed up. All drives have a limited lifespan and are subject to failure. You lost those files.

 

[pramirez95]

I JUST bought one

This is good to know. I bought a WD 500GB external drive literally MINUTES before this article went up

 

[MN7119]

Who is insane enough to use WD software for backup? I plug my WD external HD and use Time Machine for backup.

 

[ChrisCW11]

The real issue

Is Apple's continuing trend to break existing software with every release of OS X.

I mean one could argue that WD should have offered updated software that works with Mavericks, but the problem is this case who really is pro-active making sure pre-existing software is compatible with a new OS version.

WD software worked fine pre-Mavericks, and obviously Apple changes something that breaks that software. This should not be tolerated by an OS vendor, and in fact this has not been a significant issue on Windows for years now. Since pretty much XP Microsoft stop the process of always expecting software vendors to have to make OS specific adjustments to their software pre or post OS release.

I know Apple wants to always be bleeding edge, and the changes made probably optimizes disk I/O at some level, but you just cant randomly change kernel, driver and SDK at will every time you update your OS and Apple has to start respecting developers by stopping this constant need to change everything under the hood and then having every software vendor have to deal with the aftermath months after a release.

 

[unplugme71]

i'm glad i don't ever use the garbage software that comes with these hard drives anyway.

Exactly.


-----

Before upgrading, I always run the new OS in a virtual machine or on another machine if supported. I use it for about 2-3 weeks. I run all my applications, data, etc to catch any bugs.

Then, when I decide I'm ready, I create a disk image of my current system, copy it to an external drive. I do a clean install of the new OS. Then move my files over - or connect my external drive with data to it.

Once I verify everything is working, I create a new backup of my current system and a new disk image and I delete the old disk image.

This way - if I ever need to go back, I can be right how I was.

Any data on an external drive is safe - because I have copied it to another external prior.

Sure it costs me more time/money - but at least I know my data is safe and I can revert back to exactly how I was prior to the upgrade.

 

[LordVic]

Wait.

So. WD has software that, Worked for ALL previous versions of OSx with no glitches, errors or problems.

it works in windows, on all versions, with no glitches, errors or problems.

Yet, Upgrading to Mavericks now suddenly breaks it?

All things being equal here, it sounds more like Mavericks itself changed something on WD, which brought about the incompatibility.

Dont get me wrong, using 3rd party drivers from WD, or any that typically come with these types of drives is silly and full of bloatware, But you can't exactly blame WD for this particular sitation. But Kudo's on them for getting on the ball and recognising there is a problem and hopefully working towards fixing it.

As a software vendor myself. its quite painful when clients upgrade/update their platforms without checking with us, or verifying with us that our software is compatible. Yet they often will upgrade anyways without checking, then blaming us when our software, which has a pretty clear list of compaitibility options, doesn't work on a platform that is not listed as compatible.

 

[840quadra]

Who is insane enough to use WD software for backup? I plug my WD external HD and use Time Machine for backup.

As long as you let OS X manage your storage, and not a 3rd party WD tool, you should be fine. In most cases, you can do much of what their software does, with OS X Disk Utility, and Sharing control panel.

 

[DudeDad]

People actually use that crap-ass software? Why?