All data gone on My Book Studio II

No. Not gone. Nothing is gon on a HD unless you format it. The files are just not ordered. If you do a recovery search with an external software (deep scanning) the data will be found, but no names and no structure - all jumbled up. 

If you pay a lot of money to a recovery company I bet they have some fancy software that can recover the data as it was before. 

I still have warranty on my WD, and  I care more about my data than my WD, so if there´s going to be recovery made, I want the person who wrote the bad software in apple och WD to pay for it. 

1 Like

Another victim here. I would very much appreciate if anyone had success recovering data using a certain procedure or application.

Update: I am running Disk Drill. it does find my lost files (7.5 hours remaining), but all directory structures and file names are gone. The app comes with an $89 price tag, but you can scan for free, so if you have precious data this might be one way to go. Hoping for better suggestions though.

I’ll to this thread. I have also lost all my data!

Two WD MyBook Studio II 2TB drives, setup as RAID1 1TB space. First one been working fine for over a year, second one only bought in August and recently set up.

After Installing 10.9 OS X Mavericks, I saw one afternoon that both drives had started to show as MyBook instead of the drive name i had assigned. On the first time i saw this there was also two drives called EFI.

Restarting the Mac and the drives resulting in the same MyBook drive mounting which was blank.

I’m hoping that my data still exists somewhere, not sure if it worth taking out the actually physical drive (especially the one over a year old) and seeing if it will mount on a new enclosure?

I have opened a Support case, but am so upset i don’t think i would ever buy from Western Digital again!

For docking into new casing, read what PlotinusVeritas says in this thread. 

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23582608#23582608

I’m getting a callback on my support case soon, see if it helps. 

Yeah, but he’s a bit of a wacko… :laughing:

To all who have this problem:

Thanks for the warning. I have 4 Studio II drives and 2 Mac-formatted “black” Mirror drives (all 2 TB, Raid 1, used with Time Machine) and just wanted to upgrade to Mavericks when I read this thread.

Questions:

  1. Could it be that it’s firmware version dependent? (Which version do you have on your drives?)

(I had problems  updating the firmware.)

  1. When you encountered the problem, did you try to backup to your drive, when there was already a backup on it? For example previously used by Time Machine and tried to continue to use under Mavericks? Or did you use an *empty* drive?

BTW Under  http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=114&sid=62&lang=en I can no longer find the download for  WD Drive Manager v2.2.7 with WD RAID Manager Version 1.1.4 of 09 October 2012.

As far as I remember it said it’s compatible with Mac OS 10.9.

Interesting, yes it did say it was compatible with Mavericks (WD you have a lot ot answer for) especially as i downloaded from that very page just 2 days ago to get the ‘uninstaller’ part of it.

I haven’t connected the drives back up so cannot prove which firmware i am on, however, i did download the 

updater 2 days ago, in the hope that it might bring my data back, and the software said i was already on the ‘current’ version, so i did not continue.

I can not believe that even having my data mirrored in RAID1 set up that the WD software has just gone ahead and deleted my data!

Help WD, please give some answers.

I had the same issue, but my drives were not MyBook units, just WD Green drives.

I had a OSX Mountain Lion where i’ve only used the Universal Firmware Updater, months ago. Not any other WD software and nothing in Applications from WD.

Upgraded to OSX Mavericks and then connected a Orico usb3 dock with two WD drives on it, one WD Green and one WD Red. The WD Green has been automatically formatted to a “MyBook” volume, while the WD RED is untouched with all his data. Then i’ve deleted the four WD files from /library/extensions and rebooted. Connected the dock with a new out-of-the-box (ntfs formatted i think) WD Green drive. The system immediately formatted it as a “MyBook” volume as well.

As for my experience, there is something left in the system from the WD firmware updater that act weird with OSX Mavericks and initializes any WD Green drive attached.

Probably a fresh install of Mavericks with no WD software on it is safe.

As for lost data, i encourage WD to give a working recovery tool, free and now.

1 Like

No, I have emailed Plotinus, its a 40 year old woman named Kelly :smileyvery-happy:.  Apparently she used to be a hardware engineer.

The problem now is confirmed its the wacky WD software, becasuse people with even Seagate RAID setups are getting forked because they have WD software installed.

I’ve seen 4 reports of people with no RAID externals getting hosed on USB single drives just because they have the WD junkware installed.

This is simply not true. I have experienced the same failure on two WD MyBook disks and I have not installed any WD software.

True, all RAID setups appear affected, including all the WD MyBook

even Seagate RAID are corrupted with total loss of metadata, dont connect any MyBook to Mavericks, or any RAID

We are looking into this right now.

2 Likes

I removed WD folders from Library/Application Support and all files with WD in their names from System/Library/Extensions. Finally the WD Drive Manager does not show up in the menu when I connect the formatted MyBook Studio Ed II 6TB.

BTW my Time Machine is on a 2TB single hard disk WD My Book drive and it’s working fine under Mavericks with and without the WD software. “seriously” said that his WD RED disk has not been affected but his WD GREEN disk on the same dock has been formatted to “MyBook”. I wonder if this could be a Red/Green problem as well as a RAID problem.

I’m another pissed off WD user.

I have just lost 10TB of data. All the contents of a 6TB WD and a 4TB Seagate drives have been wiped out. Both HDs have been renamed “MyBook”.

I’m not sure if I should wait for a solution from Apple or WD or if I should start trying to recover the data with Data Rescue or Disk Drill. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

OK, I took a peek inside my ruined 6TB RAID drive and the unaffected 2TB single disk drive, they are all WD GREEN disks. So it looks like that’s not an issue.

C’mon WD and Apple already! We are dying here!

— Updated November 6, 2013 —

On October 30th, 2013 Western Digital informed registered customers of affected products via E-mail regarding reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to OS X Mavericks (10.9).  Our investigation to date has found that for a small percentage of customers that have the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and/or WD SmartWare software applications installed on their Mac, there can be cases of a repartition and reformat of their Direct Attached Storage (DAS) devices without customer acknowledgement which can result in data loss.  

 

WD has been tracking this issue closely through our WD Forum and through our Technical Support hotline and the occurrence rate of this event has been very low.  A specific set of conditions and timing sequences between the OS and the WD software utilities has to occur to cause this issue.  Should this event occur, the data on the product can likely be recovered with a third party software utility if the customer stops using the device immediately after the OS X Mavericks (10.9) upgrade.  WD will be issuing updated versions of these software applications that resolve this issue.

 

WD strongly urges our customers to uninstall these software applications before updating to OS X Mavericks (10.9), or delay upgrading until we provide an update to the applications.  If you have already upgraded to Mavericks,  WD recommends that you remove these applications and restart your computer.  If you have already upgraded to Mavericks and are experiencing difficulty in accessing your external hard drive,  please do not save anything to the drive, disconnect the drive from your computer, and contact Western Digital Customer Service at http://support.wdc.com/contact/.

— Updated November 5, 2013 —

There are reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to Apple’s OS X Mavericks (10.9).  Western Digital is urgently investigating these reports and the possible connection to the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software applications.  Until the issue is understood and the cause identified, WD strongly urges our customers to uninstall these software applications on their systems before updating to OS X Mavericks (10.9), or delay upgrading.  If you have already upgraded to Mavericks, WD recommends that you remove these applications and restart your computer. WD has removed these software applications from our web site solely as a precaution as we investigate this issue.

If you have already upgraded to Mavericks and are experiencing difficulty in accessing your external hard drive, please do not save anything to the drive, disconnect the drive from your computer, and contact Western Digital Customer Service at http://support.wdc.com/country/ for further assistance.

You can now download the WD Software Uninstaller.  This utility will remove Mac WD SmartWare and WD Drive Manager software.  You can find the uninstaller under any of the Mac Drive Downloads sections such as the My Book Studio below.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=124&sid=214&lang=en

It happen to me as well, lost 2TB of data last year.

WD send my drive for data recover, the end result is prerry bad, only 200mb++ of references files, nothing can be use again. Complaint to WD support, no answer given.

Worst case is, the replacement drive act funny again, report & request for replace dive on 13 Aug, till now still pending for arrangement to pick up.

For me, All external HDD work fine on Mavericks with or without WD software (for a week).

*But the problem start after I turn-on Time Machine and start first backup after upgraded to Mavericks, all data 4 partitions on my external HDD(with Time Machine backup partition) wiped out and show itself as new one!

I think the killer is not WD software but The Time Machine on Mavericks + Mac extended journaled.

Anyone can confirm that your problem start after Time Machine backup, and only the External HDD with Time Machine Backup? (or not?) 

In my case I never used Time Machine, it is always turned off since it was introduced to OS X. It is for sure not Time Machine problem, at least not in my case. 

I may be wrong, but based on other posts in this forumm and Apple Discussions forums the problem affects mostly large capacity WD Green drives with IntelliPower. Maybe the culprit is IntelliPower - reports of drives not going to sleep may support this. Just my 2 cents…

Shame, not kudos, to WD for waiting ages before working on the issue and taking action/communications to customers.

The issue is crucial, so why waiting again before spreading a warning on WD site and to the tech press?

One -late- mail to registered customers is not enough. Send the same to tech sites and press!

We are losing data, you’re losing reputation and customers.