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Nov 26, 2013 5:01 AM in response to Trocafishby GetRealBro,Hmmmmm.....
Is the new WD software a fix to a problem with the previous WD software or a fix/workaround to a problem in Mavericks or both? In other words, should those of is who are not using any WD software assume Mavericks is OK?
FWIW I have been able to replicate the problem I've had unmounting and then mounting the Seagate 3T drive using the FW800 interface several times now. I can't quite do it a will, but pretty close. In each case I have been able to "recover" from the problem by running Disk Utilty in 10.6.8 to verify/repair it. Disk Utiltiy mamanges to mount it despite claiming that it had not been able to repair it. And Mavericks then mounts it on reboot.
This may be a "personal problem" with this one drive or a problem with the Seagate FW800 interface/base or a problem with Mavericks or any combination permutation thereof.
---GetRealBro
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Nov 26, 2013 6:03 AM in response to GetRealBroby Carl Berger,I echo GetRealBro's reply!
I'm still seeing drop-outs of my Drobo (4 WD Drives) and Seagate TM drive. Been working with Apple for two weeks on a realted Aperture problem. Absolutly no coment about drive problems from support.
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Nov 26, 2013 6:22 AM in response to GetRealBroby R C-R,GetRealBro wrote:
Is the new WD software a fix to a problem with the previous WD software or a fix/workaround to a problem in Mavericks or both?
There is no way to be certain but it appears this specific problem was with the WD software, not Mavericks. That problem is unexpected reformatting of external HD's without user action or permission. That erases the file system directory & associated info about where on the drive file data is located, as well as any metadata stored in the file system about those files.
Note that it does not actually erase file data or any metadata stored as a part of that data, but once the old directory & associated info is erased the system has no way of knowing where that data is, how to access it, or protect it from being overwritten with new data. That's why it takes special file recovery software to find it, why that software can't restore any metadata previously stored in the file system, & most importantly why users must stop using the drive immediately if they want to attempt to recover its 'lost' data.
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Nov 26, 2013 6:54 AM in response to R C-Rby GetRealBro,R C-R wrote:
GetRealBro wrote:
Is the new WD software a fix to a problem with the previous WD software or a fix/workaround to a problem in Mavericks or both?
There is no way to be certain but it appears this specific problem was with the WD software, not Mavericks. ...
Please forgive my doubts, but if I remember correctly this spontaneous repartitioning did not happen when these same WD drives/drivers were running in previous versions of OSX. So saying that the problem was not with Mavericks begs the question.... Why did this only happen after upgrading to Mavericks?
It seems to me that Mavericks may not be the principal culprit but Mavericks was/is, at the very least, an accomplice.
---GetRealBro
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Nov 26, 2013 6:59 AM in response to Trocafishby GetRealBro,This AM I plugged the FW800 cable of the troublesome Seagate 3T drive into my MBP and it didn’t mount. So I opened the Console to read the system log — NADA. I then launched Disk Utility, selected the partition and clicked Mount. After a while DU dropped down the message that it could not mount the single partition and suggested that I try verifying the disk. An all too familiar pattern. But while I was setting up the desktop to take some screen shots of the windows the Seagate 3T partition MOUNTED!
The Disk Utility log read…
2013-11-26 08:17:06 -0600: Disk Utility started.
2013-11-26 08:18:09 -0600: Mount of “Seagate 3T” failed
And the System log read….
Nov 26 08:20:08 GetRealBros-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s3: journal start/end pointers reset! (jnl 0xffffff803a1ed8e0; s 0x41e000 e 0x41e000)
Nov 26 08:20:08 GetRealBros-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Seagate 3T on device disk1s3
Interestingly the partition mounted 2 minutes after Disk Utility told me it could not mount it. BTW Disk utility continued to claim that it was not mounted, despite the fact that I could open the partition in the Finder. Patience grasshopper
— GetRealBro
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Nov 26, 2013 7:12 AM in response to GetRealBroby Shareef Yousef,It's not a WD thing. I have two Seagate drives that have been failing to mount and no WD or Seagate software installed. It's purely a Mavericks issue and Apple needs to address it, or at the very least acknowledge it.
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Nov 26, 2013 7:17 AM in response to miglio74by R C-R,miglio74 wrote:
WD is happy to announce the release of WD SmartWare Version 1.3.6 for Mac 10.5-10.9.
- Fixed an issue related to reports of some customers, under certain conditions, experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9).
Please feel free to post your experiences or questions in this thread.
I have a lot of questions, essentially no answers, & a few comments that might help clarify things slightly. All my questions revolve around which pieces of the available WD software for OS X do what & how useful those things are, so I've broken it down (as best I can) by product name:
1. WD Drive Utilities for Mac. According to WD this has five functions:
- Run drive diagnostics
- Manage RAID configuration (For RAID supported models)
- Erase and format drive
- Set drive sleep timer (on supported drives)
- Register drive
Of these, running drive diagnostics (checking S.M.A.R.T. status) might be useful, since by itself OS X does not support doing that on external drives. The RAID & erase/format functions seem redundant/unnecessary since Disk Utility does that already. Setting drive sleep time might be useful for some users, assuming it is supported. There are probably other ways to register the drive with WD, so that seems of questionable value. (However, it wuld be a good idea to register the drive since WD did contact all registered users about the problem as soon as it became aware of it.)
2. WD Quick Formatter. This formats a drive with a single partition NTFS file scheme. WD says this 'optimizes the performance of the drive' but OS X can only read from & not write to NTFS without some other 'non-native' software, so it seems of limited use for most users.
3. WD Security for Mac. This apparently provides hardware level encryption in the drive, which might be useful for some users, but for most I think Filevault 2 would be adequate. Also, from the description it isn't clear if this is separate from #1 above or what. Anybody know anything about that?
4. WD Macintosh +TURBO Drivers. This is some kind of 'performance based Turbo drivers and drive icons for WD USB and FireWire drives.' Assuming it actually speeds up file transfers, it might be worth using if maximum transfer speeds are really needed (like for hi def realtime video editing or something) but otherwise it seems like something to avoid.
5. The WD "Smartware" mentioned above. It isn't really clear to me what all this might do, but it primarily seems to be an automatic backup utility. For most users I think Time Machine or possibly automated clone software would be better suited for that, but maybe it offers something neither of those things do?
6. Firmware update for Mac. Like the name says, this is a utility for updating the firmware in WD drives. From the release notes, it looks useful for correcting certain problems. And to WD's credit, few drive makers offer firmware updaters that run on OS X, so if you need it you won't have to find a Windows PC or use BootCamp to run it.
What I would really like to know is which of the above are just regular applications & which rely on kernel extensions, launch agents & daemons, startup items, and/or login items to function. I think the ones (if any) that are just regular apps should be relatively safe. The others, not so much.
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Nov 26, 2013 7:24 AM in response to Shareef Yousefby Basilic,@Shareef Yoousef, GetRealBro et al
I don't want to be unpolite, but unless you had your external drives repartioned as per the description on the first post of this thread (EFI, MyBook), may I suggest your raise another thread to discuss this mount/unmount problem you're facing.
This thread is about what's depicted here http://wd-mavericks-data-loss.com. In this case the faulty drive mounts OK but with an empty partition and unmounts OK.
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Nov 26, 2013 7:29 AM in response to Basilicby Chastings,Basilica,
I disagree, this one thread has highlighted a number of issues which are related possibly.
Curt
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Nov 26, 2013 7:30 AM in response to Basilicby Shareef Yousef,@Basilic
The thread is named "Mavericks corrupts external hard drive" so my comment regarding my Seagate drives applies.
Also, the first post doesn't state anything about repartitioning. Either way, the external drive is paritioned with the same formatting as the internal boot drive, so that's not the issue. And by failing to mount, I meant that the drive is there, but the data is not (same issue as original post).
The point of lumping all these comments into a more generic thread (external drive issues) is to hopefully get Apple's attention to actually look into this issue.
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Nov 26, 2013 8:01 AM in response to GetRealBroby R C-R,GetRealBro wrote:
Please forgive my doubts, but if I remember correctly this spontaneous repartitioning did not happen when these same WD drives/drivers were running in previous versions of OSX. So saying that the problem was not with Mavericks begs the question.... Why did this only happen after upgrading to Mavericks?
Presumably because the WD software installs system level components that are not fully compatible with those provided as a part of OS X 10.9 itself. It isn't all that unusual for these things to need updating because they rely on OS X frameworks & core services for functionality, so when those things change, code written for the older version may not comply with the requirements of the new ones.
Apple typically provides developers enrolled in the Apple Developer Programs plenty of warning about such changes well in advance of the release of a new OS version (& it is a virtual certainty that WD is among them) but even the most diligent developers sometime fail to discover an obscure problem that occurs in some relatively rare circumstances until users encounter them & start complaining about it.
Shareef Yousef wrote:
It's not a WD thing. I have two Seagate drives that have been failing to mount and no WD or Seagate software installed.
That is a different problem with different symptoms. The one we are discussing here does not prevent drives from mounting; it (sometimes) causes attached drives to reformat spontaneously, but the reformatted drive still mounts normally after the reformat.
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Nov 26, 2013 8:25 AM in response to Shareef Yousefby R C-R,Shareef Yousef wrote:
The point of lumping all these comments into a more generic thread (external drive issues) is to hopefully get Apple's attention to actually look into this issue.
These forums are intended for users to discuss technical issues with each other. Posting here is unlikely to get Apple's attention, partially because not even the moderators can keep up with the huge volume of messages posted to the dozens of ASC "communities" every day, & partially because most of the posts lack the detailed technical info Apple engineering needs to track down the cause of the problems users mention here.
That's why Apple provides http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html for comments to reach the people that need to hear them.
For the most effect, use that form, be sure to include all the requested info (like HW/SW configuration for bug reports), & include as much relevant technical info in the comments section as you can, like the model(s) of your drive, the model identifier of your Mac (obtainable from the System Information report), & so on.
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Nov 26, 2013 8:51 AM in response to Shareef Yousefby Basilic,@Chastings, Shareef Yousef.
OK fair enough.
Considering the amount of pages of this thread and mixture of possible root causes at this moment in time, I made up my mind and started downgrading to Mountain Lion from scracth, a stage where all was working fine for me. On top of that considering the issue and my understanding on the way disks and file system over all are handled with OSX, I don't believe we'll receive a DIY sw "fix" to recover our lost data structure.
Prior to downgrading to ML, I opened two incident tickets, respectively with Apple Care and WD support for which I contributed (without WD/Apple asking for it) with loads of screen shots and extracts of Console logs and Terminal screens plus my own personal timeline day by day, hour by hour, with my own memory to detail the course of actions I took before being faced to the issue. This took me a whole day and unfortunately I did that too late after this issue arose because system logs have been purged. I can tell you I've discovered weird things happening in OSX in background which might not be the source of the problem, but remains questionable. I am talking about some WD files disappearing, on its own, 5 days after the Maverick upgrade, out from the /Library/Application Support/WesternDigital/WDDriveManager folder. I might be wrong, this might not be the cause but it is odd.
I have tried many of those sw tools (inc. the one proposed by WD) to recover data but none of them has been able to recover the folder structure. Getting back thousands of files with brand new names is a good start but not enough for me as a video editor. Plus I don't want to get back files I had purposely deleted 2-3 months ago.
My lost data is priceless and I decided to have my faulty drive scanned with eventually data recovered by one of WD preferred partner in Europe. Did not hear back anything as yet. I aslo approached WD to get my drive replaced (under warranty anyway), as it is and will remain unreliable.
I decided also to go back to ML because I saw weird behaviours with Finder where windows can lose their size and position on the screen when going out from display sleep, or a Finder window simply disappearing upon a mouse click on something.
The $1M question, which process got enough privileges granted to repartition the ext. disk. Why OSX would have done that? Or, the WD firmware on the disk did it on its own, just before the disk to be handled by OSX, because some WD files and one of the .plist file had disappeared?
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Nov 26, 2013 9:37 AM in response to GetRealBroby Drew Reece,GetRealBro wrote:
And the System log read….
Nov 26 08:20:08 GetRealBros-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: jnl: disk1s3: journal start/end pointers reset! (jnl 0xffffff803a1ed8e0; s 0x41e000 e 0x41e000)
Nov 26 08:20:08 GetRealBros-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Seagate 3T on device disk1s3
It looks like this just removed the contents of the disk journal (assuming that is what the s and e signify).
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Nov 26, 2013 9:40 AM in response to Basilicby Drew Reece,Basilic wrote:
The $1M question, which process got enough privileges granted to repartition the ext. disk. Why OSX would have done that? Or, the WD firmware on the disk did it on its own, just before the disk to be handled by OSX, because some WD files and one of the .plist file had disappeared?
The 'why' is an important question, however anything that is installed & runs jobs at the system level will have access to everything.
Once you give the admin password to install anything you become vulnerable to any flaws in that software.