Mavericks corrupts external hard drive

I've posted a few times but my case is interesting:

• mine corrupted drive is a Seagate 3TB drive
• it was wiped and reformatted as 'MyBook' [a WD term]
• however, i had the WD disk raid utility drive manager software installed [as i also have an older WD 1tbx2 drive]
• my WD drive was not affected but i won't plug it back in

Conclusion - the culprit is the WD software that can only be removed via terminal commands:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11005/session/L3RpbWUvMTM4MzQ1Nj MwOC9zaWQvRVY3ZXZvRWw%3D

Mavericks is also to blame as it allowed such a destructive process to execute annonomously.

I can't begin to explain what I've been through guys... it's a shame such topics have seen the light of day only now. I've lost all data from 3 of my drives 2 months ago on early beta of Mavericks.

How come WD has not tested it from the very first day the beta came out?

Just one question guys: when I wipe all the WD software, is using Mavericks safe then? Has anyone actually tested it? Please let me know.

Side note, regarding tips about recovering after this huge WD + Mavericks failure:

Btw if you want to recover your files: there is no better software than Data Rescue, trust me on this one. I've recovered most of my files (4TB). Don't recover music or any fragile files - there's no point.

I didn't have the problem with the Mavericks betas, not even the first GM, it only happened on the final version of Mavericks :S

I first reported this issue to Western Digital on 13th September (yes black friday) while using Mavericks Developer Preview 7.

There is an earlier report in the developer forums on Developer Preview 6 titled DP6 Partition/Data loss Promise Technology Pegasus R4 Thunderbolt RAID.

That report was filed with Apple as radar #15076993.

https://devforums.apple.com/message/875652 (developer access required)

I think there are more than one problem regarding data loss which seems astounding, there's the one with running WD software that causes it to reformat your drives as MyBook even if they're not WD drives, and there's also the one reported in that thread which seems to be about losing partition info but not a reformat.

It is not safe. I have an internal WD drive and lost all my data, including all OS files. I have never had any WD software installed.

In the compilation of all variables regarding external HD corruption for purpose of process elimination "WD software, RAID, bridge connection, firmware etc." ..

...the variables given these corruptions on 10.9 have been far too random to fall within a logical statistical pattern, leaving..

➕there has been NO due consideration in these two threads to Mac computer model and year of mfg.

while Mavericks is the introductory nexus for the corruption,... examination of peripherals and WD software / RAID control has yielded no clarity......dare I say almost "none whatsoever"

Hardware build differences may expediently reveal causation stemming from Mavericks install.

If additionally people can add information such as:

"Macbook Pro 2008"...... or "Imac 2009" etc. to aid in deduction of a clear chain of causation.

Intel vs. not-Intel,...and Mac hardware information (model and build year) is a glaring omission in these postings.

Peace 😊

"Mavericks is also to blame as it allowed such a destructive process to execute annonomously."

The Western Digital software was probably given those permissions when it was installed, so that it can do its low-level disk access that it needs to do to serve its actual purpose.

I reported it via radar on June 25 (14256955). Happened right after I installed an early Mavericks prerelease. Rebooted, and my Time Machine drive (MyBook connected via FW800) was wiped.

I was able to reproduce the data loss using both FW800 and USB connections, by the way.

I responded to a few requests for more info from Apple, and provided the WD software to Apple. I don't know where the ball was dropped. I was hoping Apple would notify WD, but it doesn't appear that WD has done much of anything, so who knows when they heard about it.

Incidentally, in June I removed the WD software, made peace with my loss of data, and have been running the same disk drive without problems ever since, on Mavericks.

"is using Mavericks safe then?Has anyone actually tested it? "

My MyBook drive, used for Time Machine, was hit by this back in June. I removed the WD software within hours of losing data. I never recovered the data (I'd written it off, so didn't bother trying to save it), but the drive hasn't given me any trouble since then, nor has any other disk drive I've connected to my 2010 MBP running Mavericks.

I think as long as you remove the WD software, you should be safe from this problem happening again.

In my experience, removing the WD files did not restore the data. However, removing the WD software prevented the data loss from happening again. (Prior to removing the software, I could reproduce the data loss pretty much at will. Just put some files on the drive, eject it, mount it again, find the drive empty again.

Since removing the WD software I have had no more data loss incidents of that sort. I wrote off the data loss, and I've been using the same WD drive without problems. But, again, I never got the data back (or tried).

Computer: 2010 MBP

Drive: Western Digital My Book Studio LX 1 TB FireWire 800/USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive

WDBACH0010HAL-NESN

I was able to reproduce the data loss with both connections (FW & USB).

Note: You may never have installed the WD software on your current computer, but the WD software may have been brought along during migrations from old computers. So it may well be installed on your computer even if you only installed it on a different Mac back in 2010.

The WD software is the kind of thing that doesn't have much of a visible presence, so is easy to forget.

If you are a developer who lost data now is probably a good time to:

• submit a feature request to Apple to resurrect ZFS support
• support MacZFS and/or Zevo

Full data recovery should have been possible.

WOW i just wathced it happen before my eyes.....!!!!

turned on iMac, WD studio drive mounted... the it just magically dissapeared off the desktop!!!!

I new what was going to happen next so I turned the drive off but it was too late.....data lost!!!!

Heres a snippet of the console log from the the crash event...... so to my untrained eye it looks like drive manager software automatically wiping the drive!

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x90460167 mach_msg + 63

1 com.apple.DiskArbitration 0x95b24050 _DAServerDiskGetUserUID + 188

2 com.apple.DiskArbitration 0x95b1f431 _DAAuthorize + 69

3 com.apple.DiskArbitration 0x95b1fb88 DADiskMountWithArguments + 412

4 com.apple.DiskArbitration 0x95b1f9e7 DADiskMount + 53

5 WDDriveManagerService 0x0000a39c WDDriveManager::DiskErasingStateMachine(__DADisk*, __CFDictionary*, __DADissenter const*) + 632

6 WDDriveManagerService 0x00007a84 WDDriveManager::StateCompletion(__DADisk*, __DADissenter const*, void*) + 98

7 com.apple.DiskArbitration 0x95b1fc3a DADiskMountWithArguments + 590

8 com.apple.DiskArbitration 0x95b1f9e7 DADiskMount + 53

9 WDDriveManagerService 0x0000a39c WDDriveManager::DiskErasingStateMachine(__DADisk*, __CFDictionary*, __DADissenter const*) + 632

I watched it happen in front of my eyes 3 times... tell me about it... 😟

@ishouldknow

That is strange, really. Are you sure about that? Have you checked Activity Monitor?