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Did Mavericks drop support for express card SSDs?

I've been using a Wintec Filemate 128G SSD expresscard/34 as my OS disk (with a filevaulted homedir on the HDD) on my 17" (Mid 2010) Macbook Pro for awhile now. When I tried to upgrade to Mavericks it failed to boot showing the universal NO symbol, verbose boot showed it stuck waiting for root device.


Luckily I had another spare drive (I'd replaced my superdrive with another HDD to store most of my itunes libarary when I travelled last summer) and I was able to clone the SSD to the HDD just fine using target mode and my iMac. I can still attempt to boot off the SSD but when booting mavericks off the HDD, the SSD isn't even seen in disk utility.


I did a bunch of searching and didn't see any confirmation online that drivers for these expresscard ssds were removed, but it sure seems like it.


Is anyone else using one of these and not seeing this with Mavericks/10.9?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9), Mid-2010 17"

Posted on Oct 22, 2013 11:42 PM

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91 replies

Oct 23, 2013 7:33 AM in response to mmarionsd1

I got mine to work by downloading the latest driver which was still from 2011... had to use the ctrl-click then open and open again to get it to install cause it came up as unknown developer.


For some reason I could not change in prefs to allow anyone to install files under security... and I was in a admin account! The button would spring back to original postion as soon as you clicked 'anyone' which is another bug!!


But finally got it to do the install, rebooted, plugged the card/drive in and bang-zoom its working again. So try to re-install the latest driver you can find and cross fingers!

Oct 24, 2013 3:07 AM in response to mmarionsd1

I have the same problem. I have a mid-2010 17" MacBook Pro, and use a 48GB WinTec FileMate ExpressCard SSD as my boot drive.


When I tried to install Mavericks it just showed the "disk not found" error (an X, really).


I raised a support ticket with WinTec, who replied as follows:


Thank you for contacting us about the recent issue with the new MAC OS Mavericks and express cards and SSDs.
While Wintec Industries is a major manufacturer of express cards and SSDs, this is not an isolated event or issue.
This issue as evidenced in the apple community and in forums ranges from all sorts of express cards and SSDs.
While Wintec Industries can investigate with the controller manufacturer for support, we believe this issue is an Apple issue, and are looking forward to Apple addressing this issue with their update. Should we have any new information in regards to this issue, we will be more than glad to pass it along to our customers.


I really hope Apple fix this issue! I don't want to go back to booting from the internal drive. The performance increase by the SSD and separate media drive for my Aperture library is fantastic.

Oct 24, 2013 4:52 AM in response to Gareth Bourne

I have the exact same issue. I have a partition on my HDD that duplicates my ExpressCard SSD. I was able to install Mavericks on the HDD boot partition after a failed attempt directly on the ExpressCard SSD. After booting there is no sign of the SSD in Disk Utility.


The SSD still shows up find when booting (holding down the option key). I can even boot to it (still on Lion) and everything is fine. But as soon as I boot to Mavericks any sign that I have an ExpressCard drive vanishes -- there is no diagnostics to be done, it just doesn't exist.


The fact that I have an ExpressCard does still show up in System Information System Report (under PCI Card):


ExpressCard:


Type: AHCI Controller

Driver Installed: No

MSI: No

Bus: PCI

Slot: ExpressCard

Vendor ID: 0x197b

Device ID: 0x2363

Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x197b

Subsystem ID: 0x2363

Revision ID: 0x0003


Hope this gets fixed soon. I've been using this as a boot/applications drive for 3 years and am not used to my machine running this slow (booting from the HDD).

Oct 24, 2013 7:25 AM in response to mmarionsd1

I'm using a Wintec Filemate 128Gb for my iTunes library and it's not recognized... no expresscard icon on the menubar. I also use a Sonnet Tempo Edge sata expresscard - this is partially recognized, as the menubar icon appears. Beyond that - nothing.


I'm sure this will get sorted out soon, but it's annoying and frustrating to "upgrade" only to find existing functionality's been disabled/broken.

Oct 24, 2013 8:01 AM in response to krsmes

(Follow up to the above message)

FWIW, here is what the System Information, System Report, PCI Card shows under Lion:


ExpressCard:


Type: AHCI Controller

Driver Installed: Yes

MSI: No

Bus: PCI

Slot: ExpressCard

Vendor ID: 0x197b

Device ID: 0x2363

Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x197b

Subsystem ID: 0x2363

Revision ID: 0x0003

Link Width: x1

Link Speed: 2.5 GT/s


(This is for a 48gb WIntec Filemate ExpressCard/34 SSD).

Did Mavericks drop support for express card SSDs?

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