WD My Book doesn't power down

Was some piece of software responsible for this behavior in Tiger (or whatever you were previously running)? It is possible that this is broken in Leopard.

I can't be sure about all MyBook drives as two of mine are rarely ever disconnected - one on my AE and the other on my Mac Mini.

However, my 1TB MyBook Pro II does indeed power down when my MacBook Pro is shutdown, as it does when it unmount the drives.

Which MyBook do you have and what interface is it on USB, FW400 or FW800?

I'm currently using a fire-wire drive and it still powers down when i unmount and shutdown after installing leopard, but when i use the usb interface it will not power down. I need to switch as i want to do some video editing which is done via fire-wire. Someone please help. these drives get very hot.
Cheers

I have 2 external drives both Maxtor and they behave differently. I have a 250gb that I have had for a few years and it never fully powered down in Tiger and still doesn't in Leopard. I bought a new 750 gb for Time Machine and it does power down and runs much cooler than the 250gb.

Could be something inherit in the drives themselves. One difference is I loaded the one touch software that came with the first drive but I didn't on the new one.

Thanks. There is no special software for my drives. It was basically i bought a drive and an enclosure.

The strange thing is that it powers down when on Fire-wire but not on USB. When connected to a Windows via Bootcamp they power down on USB.

I have found that firewire works better for external drives. I used USB for my first drive originally and it wasn't always mounted when I started my computer. Never have that problem using firewire.

Did you try reinstalling the Button Manager: http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&swid=56 ? Also see http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?pfaqid=1462 .

I have contacted WD with regards to support with Leopard, and after a month they still have not replyed, however one other user managed to get a reply.

I use 2 WD My Book Pro's 500GB. One clones the other as I am a DJ and have an extensive music collection that I back up. At the moment both mine will power down on shut down, but the 'button' will still pulse every once in a while, but this is the same behaviour as Tiger.

I use WD Button Manager to shutdown the second drive, but at the moment the Button Manager software under Leopard doesn't work, as confirmed by the other user from WD directly.

They are currently 'working on' the update, so hopefully with this, we should be able to power down our drivers.

We hope !

: )

- Neil

Hi, i have the same problem,

tring to reinstalling Button Manager,
verify if
WD Button Manager Service is just present in system profile
right on boot
but anyway work only sometimes 😐

My book PRO ! edition

the solution ... maybe is to "update the firmware" ?

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&pid=21&swid=65

But how can uninstall the WD Button Manager program before upgrading the firmware ?

Thank an advice for any help.

Why do you need button manager?

I found I never used it - and also saw a number of console messages detailing errors with it.

Unless you actively use it - don't install it.

My "MyBook Premium Second Edition" 1TB drive shuts down when I power my MacBook Pro off (very rare) or when I unmount them (more frequent). I use FW800 on this drive.

I can't speak to the other two MyBook drives behaviour - as one is on my Mac Mini and it never powers off - and the other is my AirPort disk.

Double check the power switch on your external drive. Some external drives have a 3-way power switch: Always Off, Always On, and Automatic. If your external drive works this way, make sure you have the switch in the Automatic position.

Turning off the drive is really a function of the electronics in the drive itself. When it senses that there is no longer power on the cable socket into the computer, it shuts off. When power reappears at the cable socket into the computer it turns back on. As such, there really isn't anything Leopard could have done to break this.
--Bob

Hi Lethal,
I need button manager for shut down the external HD
but only on iMac G5 (PPC whit Leopard) it work well.

On iMac Intel with Leopard don't work.

If i shut down don't work. (firewire 800)
If i use USB is just the same.
If i trash the disk dosn't work.
If i log out, it run again.

I have another USB disk for TimeMachine what don't work like this,
fortunately.