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Trouble with WD MyBook 2TB External Hard Drive

I bought a new Western Digital MyBook 2TB external harddrive today. I've recently updated to Mountain Lion and for some reason the external won't let me access it to start backing up data. I've tried to format it and I get an error that reads "One of the volumes on the device is busy and cannot be dismounted." I've run disk utility to verify the disk and "the volume MyBook appears to be ok". Is anyone else having this problem? I have another External hard drive that is the exact same that I had purchased last year, before updated to Lion, and it still works just fine even after updating to Mountain Lion. I can't even tell if the WD Smartware is up to date, because when I try to install the newest Smartware that is on the hard drive is runs....but never finishes. I always have to force quit the installer because it never does anything. I've let it sit for about a half hour with no change.

Sorry if this issue has already been posted. I've seen other discussions of people having problems with their WD hard drives not mounting or being recognized at all by their machine, but I feel this is a little different.

iMac (24-inch Early 2009), OS X Mountain Lion, Western Digital 2tb MyBook exteranl

Posted on Aug 7, 2012 12:40 PM

Best reply

William Lloyd

Level 7

21,311 points

Posted on Aug 7, 2012 12:43 PM

Where did you buy it?

Before you start backing up to it, if it's brand new I would suggest reformatting it via Disk Utility. You'll want to ensure you format it as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). Chances are it came formatted as FAT32 which is a very old, archaic PC format that doesn't support everything OS X needs to back up properly.

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16 replies

Jan 2, 2013 1:58 PM in response to alexxedge

Sorry to jump on an old thread, but I've just bought the same drive and wondered why someone says it's best not to use the WD software?

my set up will be:

2tb external drive formatted for windows with only 450gb used

2tb WD my book NAS

1tb portable

i wanted to use the WD software to allow the ipad, iphone, galaxy etc to backup and use itunes and view photos from the NAS. Could i do this without using the WD software??

should i partition the WD and store the windows formatted pictures and videos on it so i can still access them via my mac mini and other devices.

this way i will then be able to have a 2tb and a 1tb, so i'd have the 2tb connected to the mac mini to save all iphoto and this would then backup to the 2tb NAS, and the 1tb, well i've not really thought about what that can be used for!!

can someone let me know the best way to set all this up?

Trouble with WD MyBook 2TB External Hard Drive