Western Digital Warns External Hard Drive Customers Over Mavericks Data Loss

[iSee]

that depends.

is WD claiming that their software is supported and compatible with OSx Mavericks?

or are people just using the software, and assuming that because it worked for ML, it'll work for Mavericks?

it its the 2nd, and people are assuming, than it's their own damn fault. if the product literature doesn't explicitly say "Mavericks" or "10.9" on its compatibility ilist, it is actually neither Apples nor WD's fault in the matter, but the user for not ensuring their using the appropriate software.

No. Come on.

For businesses (large enough to have IT staff) then yes, it's at least 1/2 your own fault. And even very small businesses with no IT staff should be savvy enough to realize they should not jeopardize their business by jumping on brand new versions of any software.

But consumers can't be expected to be that sophiticated. They may not even be aware they are running WD's crapware. If you sell to consumers you take on the burden of ensuring a reliable experience. And if you don't consumers will find someone who does. Put it this way: part of what you're selling is reliability and support. Unless this issue was introduced in the last M builds there's no question that WD deserves the Lion's share of the blame because otherwise they had plenty of time to test and fix their software but didn't.

 

[laurihoefs]

Then you should buy a piece of hardware that uses standard RAID configurations.

Standard RAID configurations?

RAID implementations are manufacturer specific. And the devices in question have two drives in a single USB enclosure with a completely proprietary controller. There is no standard that specifies how RAID should be implemented on such devices.

 

[NameUndecided]

The mavericks upgrade corrupted both my 1 TB WD discs but I do NOT have ANY WD software installed. It is so enormously frustrating reading comment after comment blaming WD software. Sure, there might be several problems but it doesn't help me.

From the threads I've read it looks like the discs contains Apples typical partitions (EFI / BOOT OS X). A change like this doesn't need to affect all but everyone but for me, and others who uses raid, this screws everything.

What I've found so far, my problems seem to indicate some fault in the OS X installer.

Sorry if this is a silly or obvious technical question, I'm having trouble following your second paragraph...

Are your WD drives formatted as RAID or something else? I am very hesitant at this point to plug in my WD MyBook that I use as a Time Machine drive that is formatted as OS Extended Journaled.

 

[rk25123]

Ugh! I guess I was lucky, I did have WD SmartWare installed (only used it to check for firmware updates, though), but all my files seem ok. Anyway, the keyword here is redundancy! Even if something happened I do have a backup which I keep disconnected from the computer, better safe than sorry!
Are WD drives that bad? I've got 6 of them and never had a problem... What's the alternative (I read somewhere there are only two manufacturers left)? Seagate?

 

[Woyzeck]

I'm using a WD 500GB Black HDD (WD5000BEKT) in a simple external USB 3.0 enclosure, but had serious problems since the upgrade to Mavericks. And I didn't use anything else than Finder for accessing it. Of course it was formatted by myself before using it.

Symptoms are:

• OSX frequently tells me that the drive has not been unmounted before removing it (i didn't remove it; it's still attached)
• It takes about 3 minutes before it's visible in Finder when I plug it in
• There's permanent activity on the drive. It's getting quite warm.
• Whenever I start some copy of larger files it unmounts immediately

I can't say if this is related to Mavericks, but I didn't have these problems with the drive before.

 

[Tech198]

This is precisely why i never use WD software, or any manufactures software. It may be easy to use for, but your restricted to what *they* want you to do, and what's best in their interests...

I go my own way like most people would. Its not like you have to use it anyway.

 

[gorskiegangsta]

And thats why I'll never be the first to upgrade to any OS.

And that's why I never use the software bundled with these external hard drives.

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

That is far from the "best solution" because:

A. This isn't a hardware, but a software issue.
B. SSDs, while blazing fast, have their share of quirks. In addition to having much higher $/GB, on average, they also have lower data-retention rates than magnetic platter HDDs.

 

[Waughy]

500Gb passbook and 750Gb passport, both fine (touch wood). No WD crapware installed, both drives formatted, hopefully I don't have any issues. One is for backups, the other for storing photos etc. I'll be looking to grab a 2TB time machine soon anyway, looking to upgrade my wireless network, may as well ad storage to it and ditch the two externals.

 

[Daws001]

First, I panicked.
Then, I reached for the scissors.
Finally, I realized I don't use their software.

 

[neoelectronaut]

I use Western Digital Hard Drives for my Time Machine backups, but I don't use any of their software, so I'm in the clear.

 

[RMo]

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

Yeah, because that would help you in this situation, in which the problem is with the manufacturer's crapware and not the drive itself.

 

[guibeurt]

WD = Went Dead

This is what happened to almost all my SEAGATE drives... Never on my WD...

 

[MacDav]

that's because your smart. Like me.

If you don't use "DiskWarrior" by Alsoft then you're not as smart as you think you are. I've been using it over 12 years. It puts Apples disk utility to shame when it comes to repairing disks and recovering lost data.

 

[garywade]

Unfortunately, for some WD hardware, such as the My Book Studio II, you need to use the software to correctly configure some RAID settings. I had to plug mine into the USB port to configure it; after I did that, I moved it over to the eSATA port in my MacBook Pro 17" from a PC Card.

When I asked why the software only supports USB, I was told that no one uses it on any other port than USB even though it ships with FireWire and eSATA. Yeah, that's some empirical evidence there!

 

[rGiskard]

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

Yes, why don't all those stupid people just go buy a bunch of 3TB SSDs to use for backup? You are so smart!

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The original article is misleading, btw, because this is not entirely a software problem. Mavericks is causing issues with a variety of storage devices. I had to update firmware on my Marvell 88SE9230 controlled SATA III card, and there are reports (in this very thread even) of a few different external drives going unrecognized by Mavericks. I've had some odd issues with USB flash drives going unrecognized, and even when they work, they mysteriously unmount at times. That's with a USB 3.0 PCIe card, but the change in function suggests some low level changes in Mavericks.

I don't know the norm for this sort of thing, but it seems like if Apple are going to make changes to their OS that break a lot of existing storage products, they should at least notify the manufacturers of the changes. It seems that Apple did this with no warning, leaving developers to find out on their own from angry customers.

 

[Lancer]

Another reason I don't run software like that, I just reformat the HDD and let OS X take care of things.

 

[TVGenius]

So, how do you uninstall the software now that they've pulled the installer that contained the uninstaller?

 

[bsbeamer]

Issue is all software related as far I know. Carbon Copy Cloner released an update for OS X 10.9 (backwards compatible with 10.8) that addressed several issues that were brought on with Mavericks.

 

[576316]

Eek! I use a 1TB WD portable hard drive for all my photography and my MacBook Pro is running Mavericks so this is worrying. Although I don't use any of the quoted software, am I still at the same risk? Funny, I didn't even know there was accompanying software for my hard drive, I just use it as a drag and drop.

 

[Djtrackie]

Eek! I use a 1TB WD portable hard drive for all my photography and my MacBook Pro is running Mavericks so this is worrying. Although I don't use any of the quoted software, am I still at the same risk? Funny, I didn't even know there was accompanying software for my hard drive, I just use it as a drag and drop.

Its possible stil.

I highly highly recommend that you back up that external HD asap.

 

[elgrecomac]

WD MyBook Live - Time Machine Issue

I am suffering from the WD MyBook Live NAS drive no longer accessible due to Mavericks. Luckily I have several SEAGATE drives that DO work with Mavericks.
To editorialize for a moment --- WTF is WD doing when it tests software and its equipment. This is basic blocking and tackling when it comes to testing but my guess is WD has a very, very small team (less than 10) who test their products with new versions of an OS.
To further editorialize for moment - Apple needs to dramatically expand its testing of their Operating systems prior to GM. Every release of an OS by Apple has many incompatibility and performance issues and one way of getting a complete picture of issues is to do broad testing. I'm not hear to praise Microsoft but they let the user community test the hell out of a new OS many months prior to GM to 'try' and create a working OS. Maybe this is the only thing Apple could learn from Microsoft, but it would be a worthwhile endeavor.

 

[Ddyracer]

If you don't use "DiskWarrior" by Alsoft then you're not as smart as you think you are. I've been using it over 12 years. It puts Apples disk utility to shame when it comes to repairing disks and recovering lost data.

Overkill for me.

 

[abz1981]

This is why am glad am sticking with Lion.

 

[randomdude84]

I have a brand new iMac 27" on the way. I have a WD mybook external that I use with my old powerbook g4. Am I not supposed to use it with my new iMac?

I have a ton of stuff on there. What am I supposed to do?

 

[iSamurai]

haha, already happened on my end... luckily had a backup of the stuff on my external. only thing lost was the the time machine backups :/