External Drives for Mac Experiencing Data Loss with Maverick OS -- UPDATED FOR NOVEMBER 6, 2013

CALLOHANh wrote:

… Was the tech who advised you a senior guy , was his advice off the cuff or did he say that was WD policy now?

 

He sounded like a senior guy, and was helpful.  He didn’t mention anything about policy (and I didn’t expect him to), but he didn’t sound surprised about the firmware issue.

 

 

Can we totally do without the wd software.???

 

My WD drives are running fine without the WD software. I formatted them with Apple Disk Utility.  I use Apple Time Machine rather than the WD backup software. However, if you want to do some of the fancy things (like change the text in the drive’s LCD display, you might have to use the WD software.  One idea I had (I haven’t tried it) is to boot from a drive with an older OS - like 10.6 Snow Leopard - and install the WD software on that drive to run those utilities, if you really need to.

 

 

–ScottyT

is it safe now with the latest updates from WD and Mavericks 10.9.1 to work with the MyBook Studio EditionII in Raid1 modus. 

As I photographer I am working on the external devices and all my pics are stored there. I am using Raid one for safty reasons - but now one of my three WD devices shows nothing anymore (fortunatly the one without pics).

How can I recover the one WD Book, that lost the data? Do I get a tool from WD? I don´t mind so much for the device, but there is a lot of work on that devices.

So far I was very satisfied with the MyBooks Duo - but this is very bad!

Hallo eswarmalbesser

Unfortunately one does not consult community pages until there is a serious error. WD should have contacted all registered WD users, as Mavericks OS 10.9 creates some bugs within WD software. “Deleted” disks and repartitioned RAID 1 drives have been reported many times since October 2013. That a simple software bug can wipe an apparently safe RAID status is very disappointing!

I would immediately disconnect both Duos. Do not try to read or write something on the “deleted” drive.

Copy the contents of the functioning drive to a free volume, delete, reformat (perhaps first exFAT to delete blocked areas, and then HFS+ again) and partition the drive for RAID 1 with Apple Disk Utilities. Copy your contents back on the reformatted Duo. No error has been reported to occur with WD drives when they were partitioned/formatted with Apple Disk Utilities.

I would write or phone WD Support about how to safe the contents of the “deleted” drive. They can give you some advice or - if you are lucky - they even may have a program available for fixing the drive. These procedures are very time consuming and tricky for amateurs. In my case, it did not work as the file allocation table disappeared.

Good luck! (I forget about RAID1 and use now always 3 single drives for one archive. For the case that a crash may occur when syncing drives!)

eswarmalbesser wrote:

is it safe now with the latest updates from WD and Mavericks 10.9.1 to work with the MyBook Studio EditionII in Raid1 modus. 

As I photographer I am working on the external devices and all my pics are stored there. I am using Raid one for safty reasons - but now one of my three WD devices shows nothing anymore (fortunatly the one without pics).

 

How can I recover the one WD Book, that lost the data? Do I get a tool from WD? I don´t mind so much for the device, but there is a lot of work on that devices.

 

So far I was very satisfied with the MyBooks Duo - but this is very bad!

It should be fine to use the drive with the updated software on Mavericks.  If you need help with your drive, WD Support will help you with it.

1 Like

Woodley43 wrote:

Hallo eswarmalbesser

 

WD should have contacted all registered WD users, as Mavericks OS 10.9 creates some bugs within WD software. “Deleted” disks and repartitioned RAID 1 drives have been reported many times since October 2013.

_______________________________________________________________________

Woodley43,

We did send emails to all our registered users as soon as we found out about this issue.  We also sent follow up emails to notify registered users of the updates once they were ready.

I also opened this thread with a public notice of what was going on with this issue; and I also posted the notice in a couple of other threads.  We did all that we could to notify our users of the situation.  So, please keep that in mind.

1 Like

Hey Bill,

What about the issue users are having, where after installing the new software WD provided through email, the external hard drive isn’t recognized by the PC/Mac at all?

Are you guys addressing this issue as well? Was this something on WD’s end?

http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/WD-kill-my-My-Book-Studio/m-p/630651#M8785

http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/My-Book-for-Mac-not-recognized-on-new-macbook-pro/m-p/628875#M8761

Yes, we’re investigating it now.

Sorry, I agree. However, the message came too late for many users and obviously, a large number of users do not register. The Mavericks/WD software problem shows also the advantages of being a registered user.

Woodley43 wrote:

Sorry, I agree. However, the message came too late for many users and obviously, a large number of users do not register. The Mavericks/WD software problem shows also the advantages of being a registered user.

Unfortunately, that’s going to be the case when an issue crops up.  But thanks to the community, we can respond much faster than ever before.  Please know that the moderators do escalate all product related issues they encounter, and we do investigate them. 

It would also be very helpful if users that are reporting product issues would also respond to their private messages.  There are times when we need to get more information, because we can’t replicate the issue, but users don’t respond to our private messages.  When that happens we’re stuck waiting until someone else encounters the same problem and does respond.

Hi,

I’m a bit at loss. I will be getting a WD Duo Thunderbolt and was unaware of this problem when running Mavericks.

  1.  Do I understand correctly that there is  no  problem when I do not install the WD Drive Manager?

  2.  To be able to set  Jbod, Raid-0 or Raid-1 do I best use WD Drive Utilities or Apple’s Disk Utility?

I am unable to figure this out in previous messages. 

If you get the new WD software (Oct 2013) or if you use Apple Disk Utility to format or set up for RAID, you are on the safe side! Its the old WD Software which caused some fatal glitches after Mavericks fumbling.

1 Like

Thanks for the info.

Is there any advantage to using the WD Drive Utilities as opposed to using Apple Disk Utility?

Latest WD Drive Utilities I could find on the site is v1.1.7.5 dated september 19, 2013!

Well, WD Drive Utilities include many more features than Apple disk utilities. Its no necessity and a matter of taste, if you want to use them. I generally try keep the number of programs on a reduced level, as they may age, as long as there are no automatic updates. In addition, you depend on what Apple always changes with any new update - and any Apple system updates (after OS X 10.5!) need always nasty work to keep some drivers working again! 

Last time, Apple changed something (perhaps unnecessarily) with its Mavericks update, and many people lost data on WD drives, setup with WD software. Apparently, Beta testing did not reveal the “glitch” and many, but only a minority of WD users were affected Latest WD utilities are dated September 19, 2013, but people did not load these down, before the WD “data loss mess” was public. Only people affected by data loss started to consult the community pages or WD support.  Registered WD users apparently have received a mail to install the new software in October. 

1 Like

Woodley43 wrote:

… if you use Apple Disk Utility to format or set up for RAID…

Really? Is it possible to set up/change RAID modes via Apple Disk Utility?

(I have a WD My Book Studio Edition II, 2 x 1TB, for RAID 0 or RAID 1

http://support.wd.com/product/download.asp?groupid=114&lang=en )

coxorange wrote:


Woodley43 wrote:

… if you use Apple Disk Utility to format or set up for RAID…


Really? Is it possible to set up/change RAID modes via Apple Disk Utility?

(I have a WD My Book Studio Edition II, 2 x 1TB, for RAID 0 or RAID 1

http://support.wd.com/product/download.asp?groupid=114&lang=en )

 

coxorange wrote:


Woodley43 wrote:

… if you use Apple Disk Utility to format or set up for RAID…


Really? Is it possible to set up/change RAID modes via Apple Disk Utility?

(I have a WD My Book Studio Edition II, 2 x 1TB, for RAID 0 or RAID 1

http://support.wd.com/product/download.asp?groupid=114&lang=en )

 

Just open the Apple Disk Utility (Festplattendienstprogramm) and it will show “Delete” “Recovery” “Raid” etc options. If you reset a RAID drive, you loose the data on the drive.

Using only Apple’s DiskUtility indeed works fine.

On first thought I used the WD Disk Utilities but that kept protesting that one of the discs was ‘not compatible’ (both were identical!). that irritated me. Also I discovered that ik loaded automagicallya Helper app which in my opinion is useless. I hate to have apps running that are of no apparent use to me.

So erased the whole thing, tested both HD’s thoroughly using a docking station, reinstalled them and formatted with the Apple programm. They have been running now intensive for almost 24 hours and all works fine.

This advice is no good to people who did not receive the email and upgraded to Mavericks, resulting in this loss of data. So my needs are:

  1. Is there a way of recovering the data? It is (was) my Time Machine.

  2. Is there any way of getting a reply from WD after raising a case on their support site??? Not a sausage since I raised it! They are rapidly being struck off my approved suppliers list!

Woodley43 wrote:


coxorange wrote:


Woodley43 wrote:

… if you use Apple Disk Utility to format or set up for RAID…


Really? Is it possible to set up/change RAID modes via Apple Disk Utility?

(I have a WD My Book Studio Edition II, 2 x 1TB, for RAID 0 or RAID 1

http://support.wd.com/product/download.asp?groupid=114&lang=en )

 


Just open the Apple Disk Utility (Festplattendienstprogramm) and it will show “Delete” “Recovery” “Raid” etc options. If you reset a RAID drive, you loose the data on the drive.

Oh, that sounds good. But I thought the WD Drive Manager / WS RAID Manager would also be helpful for displaying an alert in case one of the two internal drives would become defective. How else would we know this…?

I just purchased a new 1TB Passport for Mac and decided against using any of the WD software given the Mavericks problems that I had been been reading about. Now looking at this board I’m seeing reports of problems even on drives with no WD utilities installed. Overall, it appears that the safest thing to do would be to reformat the drive with Apple’s Disk Utility before I begin to use it, and ignore the WD utilities completely. 

Are there any disadvanatages to this, or anything else I should watch out for?