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Q: Mavericks corrupts external hard drive

My WD MyBook studio 2TB (fw800) suddenly shows up empty on my desktop after a Mavericks upfrade on my mid 2009 mbp.

 

Disk Drill is now scanning the WD, and the files are there, about 1,4 TB of it...

 

How do I get the disc structure back?

 

I have no Mountain Lion OS-mac to test the WD in..

 

I had a bootable Mountain Lion on the WD, could that be the problem?

 

In Disk Drill MyBook has four units; EFI(200Mb), MyBook(1,8Tb), Unallocated 128Mb and Lost partition (200Mb)

iOS 7, Ipad mini + ios7

Posted on Oct 24, 2013 1:08 AM

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Q: Mavericks corrupts external hard drive

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  • by dtise,

    dtise dtise Dec 10, 2013 7:59 PM in response to estApple
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 10, 2013 7:59 PM in response to estApple

    estApple

     

    and any others considering recovery

     

    I purchased both Data Rescue 3 and Disk Drill. I found the Disk Drill gave me the most usable recovery of MyBook Studio Duo ll operating in Raid 0 with 2 partitions. It will still be a nighmare putting what I did get back together.

     

    I have still not reformatted the original drive, but am waiting for Apple to release 10.9.1 and/or acknowledge the issue and to see if any furthur recommendations are ulitmately made to recover better informatin - but I'm not hopeful there. I am running a MyBook Thunderbolt Duo that is working fine, but have backed it up with a MyBook USB3 drive, attached only for backing up the Thunderbolt Drive.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Dec 10, 2013 8:04 PM in response to MacUser4_20
    Level 5 (7,659 points)
    Notebooks
    Dec 10, 2013 8:04 PM in response to MacUser4_20

    I like Terminal to find things that Spotlight cannot handle (it won't show /System or hidden files etc).

     

    sudo find -x  /  -iname com.wdc.\* -or -iname com.westerndigital.\*

    -or -iname com.wd\*

     

     

    That should at least find any files that WD had the courtesy to name with their own identifiers (only on the boot volume).

     

    I understand if you don't want to run 'sudo' commands from any random person on the internet, It will need to be done in an admin account.

     

     

     

    It may find non WD software - so use your own discretion before you delete anything (also backup first!).

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Dec 10, 2013 8:15 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 5 (7,659 points)
    Notebooks
    Dec 10, 2013 8:15 PM in response to Drew Reece

    Here is a list I pulled together from these threads & a couple of pages on the WD forums…

    It's not definitive, but it could be a starting point.

     

    /Applications/WDSmartWare

    /Library/Application Support/WDDriveManager

    /Library/Application Support/WDSmartware

    /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.WesternDigital.WDSmartWareD.plist

    /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.wdc.WDDMService.plist

    /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.wdc.WDDMservice.plist

    /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.wdc.WDSmartWareServer.plist

    /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.wdc.drivemanagerservice.plist

    /var/tmp/com.WD.WDDriveManagerService

    ~/Library/Preferences/com.wdc.smartware.plist

     

    /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller.plist     #WD UNINSTALLER

    /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller     #WD UNINSTALLER

    ~/Library/Caches/com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller

     

     

     

     

    WD Sources:

    http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/External-Drives-for-Mac-Exper iencing-Data-Loss-with-Maverick-OS/m-p/614699#M8427

    http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/External-Drives-for-Mac-Exper iencing-Data-Loss-with-Maverick-OS/m-p/615091/highlight/true#M8445

     

     

    Others on these discussions have suggested combing through the following for 'WD' software - be careful, some Apple software uses 'WD' in the job names.

    /Library/LaunchAgents

    /Library/LaunchDaemons

    /Library/Preferences

    /Library/StartupItems

    /System/Library/Extensions        #<<-- be very careful in here!

  • by MacUser4_20,

    MacUser4_20 MacUser4_20 Dec 10, 2013 8:37 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 10, 2013 8:37 PM in response to Drew Reece

    Thank you very much!

  • by blindeyetom,

    blindeyetom blindeyetom Dec 10, 2013 8:57 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 10, 2013 8:57 PM in response to Drew Reece

    Here's what I did to remove the WD software I found on my machine. I followed these steps and the info posted by  AKabas  and brobertson2 on this thread.

     

    The WD software wasn't in the Applications folder, instead I found files in:

     

    • /Library/Application Support (WDDriveManager)

     

    • /Library/LaunchDaemons (com.wdc.drivemanagerservice.plist) 

     

    I ran the Western Digital uninstaller, which seems to be no longer available from the WD website. Maybe someone's hosted it elsewhere or can these files can be just manually deleted?

     

    • After running the WD uninstaller, I then manually deleted the uninstaller pref file from /Library/LaunchDaemons

     

    • Then manually deleted com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller from /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools

     

    I also trashed the WD uninstaller.

     

    I then ran etrecheck http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck to see if there was any WD software still on my machine, which there wasn't.

     

    That worked for me to remove all the WD software & files from my machine.  I think. Touch wood no problems since then.

     

    You can also look at the following steps:

     

    Using Apple’s Activity Monitor from /Applications/Utilities quit the following processes:

    • WDDMService
    • WD Quick View
    • SmartwareServerApp

     

    • Delete /Library/LaunchDeamons/com.wdc.WDDMService.plist (Entry that causes WDDM to start.)
    • Delete /Library/LaunchDeamons/com.wdc.WDSmartWareServer.plist (Entry that causes the SmartWare Server to start.)
    • Delete /Applications Support/WDSmartware (Removes all SmartWare support programs)
    • Delete /Application/WDSmartWare (SmartWare user interface)
    • Delete Library/Preferences/com.wdc.smartware.plist
    • From System Preferences->Users Login Items remove WDQuickview for all users. (Entry that runs WD Quick View when a user logs in. There should be a single entry for all users. Deleting it from one any account should remove it for all accounts.)

     

    I will not be installing the new WD Drive manager software.  I have no need of it in any case.  In regards the affected drives in my experience - my RAID 5 configured array (Seagate drives in an OWC enclosure) and a WD MyBook Studio II belonging to one of my students - no data recovery tools I've tried have been able to recover the 'lost' partitions.

     

    Luckily almost all of my work was backed up on other drives.  My student's MyBook was however her only copy...  Data Rescue 3 has given me good results in regards to file carving and recovering data, but of course, no folder structure or filenames.

     

    Both Apple and Western Digital have been unable or unwilling to answer any of my repeated questions on what caused this problem with the Mavericks OS/WD software incompatability in the first place and more importantly (in my mind) as to why this was missed/ignored in beta testing.

  • by R C-R,

    R C-R R C-R Dec 10, 2013 9:01 PM in response to jeffsphoto21
    Level 6 (17,685 points)
    Dec 10, 2013 9:01 PM in response to jeffsphoto21

    jeffsphoto21 wrote:

    Beg to differ. It's been well established that the problem of wiped/reformatted/whatever was a generic Mavericks problem, regardless of the drive you use, e.g. WD or Seagate.

    There is no doubt that if the drive is reformatted with the characteristic two partitions, EFI & MyBook, the problem is with the WD utility software. The reason is simple: Nowhere in the Mavericks code is the name "MyBook" to be found. It is only in the WD utility software. (If you doubt this, use EasyFind or a similar utility to search for that name with it set to look inside files & search the entire startup drive. It will take a long time but you will not find that string anywhere in any of the code supplied by Apple.)

     

    Since the "MyBook" partition name exists only in the WD software, it can not possibly be coming from any other source. Period. The name isn't being spontaneously generated out of thin air or by random coincidence; the WD software is initiating the reformat & supplying the name for the volume, exactly as it does if you intentionally use it to format the drive.

     

    Note that it has nothing to do with the brand of drive(s) affected. Seagate & other external drives are just as vulnerable & have been affected in exactly the same way. There are several mentions of this in the WD blog that has been referenced multiple times in this long discussion. In every case in which the drive was reformatted, it ended up with two partitions, one of which is named "MyBook," even if it was a Seagate or other brand of external drive.

     

    Further, the WD software has to be installed on the startup drive. It is not in the firmware of the drive; it can't install itself on the system without user action. For whatever reason, some users were not aware of its presence, but running EtreCheck has shown it to be present.

     

    And once again, I will emphasize this is true only for the cases in which the drives were reformatted. It has nothing to do with file or file system corruption, which causes errors when trying to access files. That is a different issue (with several different possible causes). There are no errors when the drive is reformatted. It just shows up as empty, because the reformat has removed all the directory structures (but not the data itself).

     

    That's why data recovery software is needed. Disk Utility won't help with that because all it can do is repair file system errors. There are no errors to fix because the old directory structures have been wiped out & replaced with new ones. The problem is they are empty, just like after any other drive format operation. And since these structures store file metadata, that is also gone.

  • by jeffsphoto21,

    jeffsphoto21 jeffsphoto21 Dec 10, 2013 9:10 PM in response to R C-R
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 10, 2013 9:10 PM in response to R C-R

    So why is this problem only happening in Mavericks?

  • by mikkibarry,

    mikkibarry mikkibarry Dec 10, 2013 9:15 PM in response to R C-R
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Dec 10, 2013 9:15 PM in response to R C-R

    Yes, my drives were Seagate and a Promise Pegasus RAID.  The drives weren't reformatted since there was no WD software on the mini.  However now the internal drive is unrepairable with disk utility, and errors with an invalid key reference.  It's been 2 weeks of dealing with these crazy issues.

  • by R C-R,

    R C-R R C-R Dec 10, 2013 9:16 PM in response to PlotinusVeritas
    Level 6 (17,685 points)
    Dec 10, 2013 9:16 PM in response to PlotinusVeritas

    PlotinusVeritas wrote:

    1. You need to read the post a little closer before making a comment, it was stated:

    "new era of issues"            Referring to the (Dec 8th I recall) new release of WD firmware causing a "new era" of issues specific to WD (some) drives.

    What new release of WD firmware are you talking about? I can't find any firmware release on WD's site with a newer release data than last June. That is available at http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/firmware.asp?id=wdfGeneric&os=ma c

     

    That has nothing to do with the reformat issue caused by the old version of the WD Drive Utilities. The new, Mavericks compatible version of the WD Drive Utilities has a publish date of 9/2013 & is available at http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=217&sid=157&lang=en. This is software that runs on the host computer, not firmware that runs the WD drive itself.

  • by jeffsphoto21,

    jeffsphoto21 jeffsphoto21 Dec 10, 2013 9:19 PM in response to R C-R
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 10, 2013 9:19 PM in response to R C-R

    And BTW - I never fromat my drives , Seagates and G Drives, with mfg. supplied software. As soon as I plug a new disk in I format with Disk Utility.

  • by PlotinusVeritas,

    PlotinusVeritas PlotinusVeritas Dec 10, 2013 9:40 PM in response to R C-R
    Level 6 (14,806 points)
    Dec 10, 2013 9:40 PM in response to R C-R

     

    R C-R wrote:

    What new release  '(and problem with same)'   of WD firmware are you talking about?

     

    That has nothing to do with the reformat issue caused by the old version of the WD Drive Utilities.

    Firmware Version 02.43.03 – 022 (10/7/2013)

    • Resolved compatibility issue with Time Machine in OSx Mavericks 10.9.x

     

    (nobody should install this above until contacting WD about same)

     

    As mentioned here:

    http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/WD-kill-my-My-Book-Studio/td- p/630651/page/2

     

    http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/My-Book-for-Mac-not-recognize d-on-new-macbook-pro/td-p/628875

     

    http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/External-Drives-for-Mac-Exper iencing-Data-Loss-with-Maverick-OS/td-p/613775/page/14

     

     

     

               RCR ~That has nothing to do with the reformat issue

    Yes, as you look back, I mentioned this as something to look out for, not that it is related to the EFI/ Mybook issue herein.     Hence the statement "new era of issues"  regarding this firmware issue specific to WD.

     

     

    As per your:     "The reason is simple: Nowhere in the Mavericks code is the name "MyBook" to be found."   (hence all such corruption and metadata loss is sourced to WD software)

     

    All too true indeed, agree, valid and logical.........., and further said WD software can and has propagated to non-WD drives, in as far as those here who have declared same in seeing "EFI / Mybook" after corruption.

     

    for those who report something different, ...... unknown;     or insufficient information on their end that same was the source for said occurrence.

     

     

  • by R C-R,

    R C-R R C-R Dec 10, 2013 10:04 PM in response to jeffsphoto21
    Level 6 (17,685 points)
    Dec 10, 2013 10:04 PM in response to jeffsphoto21

    jeffsphoto21 wrote:

    So why is this problem only happening in Mavericks?

    Because the old version of the WD utility software installed both system & user level code, some of which isn't fully compatible with Mavericks (the daemon, agent, login item, etc. that has been mentioned countless times in this discussion).

     

    It isn't unusual for third party additions to the system to cause problems with new OS versions. Apple gives third party developers plenty of warning about changes in upcoming new versions of the OS (typically at least a year) so they can test their code for issues long before it reaches consumers. But sometimes obscure bugs triggered by rarely occurring combinations of events aren't detected or the developers just don't test with enough different system configurations.

     

    That is why you so often see suggestions in these forums to run EtreCheck or the kinds of tests Linc Davis often suggests. Anytime there is unexpected behavior after an OS upgrade, particularly when only some users see it, one of the first things to check is if the user's system was running any third party (IOW, not supplied by Apple) software that might have not been updated to be compatible with the new OS.

     

    Sometimes this kind of out-of-date or not fully compatible software interferes with the OS update process itself; more often it just interferes with the normal operation of the new OS once that is installed. Typically, it takes a certain sequence of events to trigger the issue, so it can remain dormant for some time & then occur without warning. (That's one reason these things can get through testing undetected.)

     

    For this reason, you often see recommendations not to install any of this stuff you don't need. Even if it works perfectly with the OS you are using now, there is no guarantee it will with the next one.

  • by R C-R,

    R C-R R C-R Dec 10, 2013 10:35 PM in response to PlotinusVeritas
    Level 6 (17,685 points)
    Dec 10, 2013 10:35 PM in response to PlotinusVeritas

    PlotinusVeritas wrote:

    Firmware Version 02.43.03 – 022 (10/7/2013)

    • Resolved compatibility issue with Time Machine in OSx Mavericks 10.9.x

     

    (nobody should install this above until contacting WD about same)

    That is a firmware revision only for the "My Book Live Duo" model, a network-connected two drive "personal cloud" storage device. Less than ten different users seem to be having any trouble with it, & like with all firmware updates that may be because of power interruptions or user error when following the instructions for applying it. The symptoms are entirely different from what has been reported here -- the drive is completely dead & not even the power indicator will come on.

     

    Users that have one of these drives may want to contact WD about the advisability of installing this firmware update, but it has nothing to do with either of the reported issues discussed in this already too confusing discussion.

  • by Basilic,

    Basilic Basilic Dec 10, 2013 11:49 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Dec 10, 2013 11:49 PM in response to Drew Reece

    Ran the WDuninstaller a month ago, I still can find the following

     

    ~/Library/Caches/com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller

    ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.wdc.WDFirmwareUpdater.savedState

    /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.westerndigital.WD-Drive-Manager-Installer

    /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller

     

    Drew Reece wrote:

     

    I like Terminal to find things that Spotlight cannot handle (it won't show /System or hidden files etc).

     

    sudo find -x  /  -iname com.wdc.\* -or -iname com.westerndigital.\*

    -or -iname com.wd\*

     

  • by PlotinusVeritas,

    PlotinusVeritas PlotinusVeritas Dec 11, 2013 12:50 AM in response to Basilic
    Level 6 (14,806 points)
    Dec 11, 2013 12:50 AM in response to Basilic

     

    Basilic wrote:

    Ran the WDuninstaller a month ago, I still can find the following

     

    ~/Library/Caches/

    ~/Library/Saved Application State/

    /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/

    /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools

     

     

     

    From the above might I correctly assume you installed (ala caches, saved application state) that you:

     

    1. installed 2 diff. (newer and older versions) of WD software (or twice in general at some point.)?

     

     

    In which case the WD uninstaller package did not catch the far reaching 'nature' and spectrum of the WD software (or in this case softwareS) installed on your Mac that it was intended, but failed, to fully remove.

     

     

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