You are on the safe side, using Apple Disk Utilities.
I would trash any WD Software, older than September 2013
However, new formatting or partitioning would delete your data. Therefore, you have to copy the contents of your drive first. You may safe the contents as an image, but I do not know, whether this is a necessary or not.
Woodley43 wrote:
You are on the safe side, using Apple Disk Utilities.
I would trash any WD Software, older than September 2013
However, new formatting or partitioning would delete your data. Therefore, you have to copy the contents of your drive first. You may safe the contents as an image, but I do not know, whether this is a necessary or not.
Thought i would take your advise as WD didn’t offer any .
so i sent backup to trash as well as WD software, noticed here that over 500gb still showed as being used on this new drive.
worrying now.
opened disk utility selected drive then erase with mac os extended (journaled) pressed erase and no go error message says
failure as couldn’t unmount disk.
UP THE CREEK AGAIN.
Will try to get advice from WD next week won’t bother opening duo drive yet.
Just wondering does Apple recommend any external drives
THE WD software i have is WD smatrware v 1.3.6.1
and WD drive utilities v 1.1.7.5
if the software is the problemm why is WD still sending it out.??
This software now in trash bin.
FURTHER,
Ejected drive first then went into disk utility and formated ok .
will report further than this later
cheers H
Hi, I have had my Imac since 2007 and I have only upgraded once, from Leopard to Snow Leopard version 10.6.8. I am not a computer type wizard, just a general user and use the WD as storage as my Imac hard drive is 250GB and is near full.
I have read most comments here, and I confess the majority of it is way over my head. So I thought I would ask some simple questions that are relevant to me.
As I mentioned above, I have the version 10.6.8 Imac, the WD has the SmartWare 1.3.4.1, do I have to uninstall this software and If I do, will I still be able to use the WD hard drive, or will I have to install some upgrade software?
I am considering to replace my old Imac with a new 2013/2014 Imac, will the WD SmartWare 1.3.4.1 have the effect of wiping out all I have on the WD book when connected?
Or does this issue only apply if the Imac has been upgraded either by purchasing and installing a disc or updating via the internet. Thus the issue may just be for that way of upgrading, and not for purchasing a new Imac?
I apologise if you think I should know all these things, but as I have mentioned I am a general user, thus I do not know all the intricacies and to be honest I really do not need to, just turn it on, and use.
Regards
Flook
Flook wrote:
Hi, I have had my Imac since 2007 and I have only upgraded once, from Leopard to Snow Leopard version 10.6.8. I am not a computer type wizard, just a general user and use the WD as storage as my Imac hard drive is 250GB and is near full.
I have read most comments here, and I confess the majority of it is way over my head. So I thought I would ask some simple questions that are relevant to me.
As I mentioned above, I have the version 10.6.8 Imac, the WD has the SmartWare 1.3.4.1, do I have to uninstall this software and If I do, will I still be able to use the WD hard drive, or will I have to install some upgrade software?
I am considering to replace my old Imac with a new 2013/2014 Imac, will the WD SmartWare 1.3.4.1 have the effect of wiping out all I have on the WD book when connected?
Or does this issue only apply if the Imac has been upgraded either by purchasing and installing a disc or updating via the internet. Thus the issue may just be for that way of upgrading, and not for purchasing a new Imac?
I apologise if you think I should know all these things, but as I have mentioned I am a general user, thus I do not know all the intricacies and to be honest I really do not need to, just turn it on, and use.
Regards
Flook
Copy and paste your posting to the apple community forum site
https://discussions.apple.com/message/24158376?ac_cid=tw123456#24158376
you’ll get best advise from tech people here. My advise as a lay person don’t use WD software and format your external drives using disck utility on your imac . cheers H
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.
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.
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
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.
Do I understand correctly that there is no problem when I do not install the WD Drive Manager?
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.
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.
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 )
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