Q: Mavericks corrupts external hard drive

Thanks GaryB,

Tried your suggestion.  Deleted the file, but it didn't make any difference in accessing my files.  I think I will have to wait patiently for an Apple / Western Digital Solution.

Not sure how something like this would me missed in testing based on the amount of activity on this forum, and considering how Western Digital has carved out a premimum niche with Mac Minded hardware.  HDD acces just shouldn't be this hard.

Seems my Toshiba 1TB HD has issues too, stalled out on Time Machine back up, then after restarting comp, won't recognize the drive... any thoughts?

Mid 2012 Macbook Air running Mavericks

tks

what kind of Toshiba ext. HD?

Firewire or Thunderbolt interface I assume ?

Ive tested nearly 15 Toshiba drives, however all were bare HD, or  USB toshiba, ....and a 3 in 1 array cotaining Toshiba 1TB MQ01ABD100.

Its a USB 3.0 ext HD v63600-C

Hmmm, that doesnt make any logical sense on that one unless your SATA bridge failed.

that V63600 is a very simple drive, ive cracked many open, it only contains a plain jane USB sata bridge card.

verify on another Mac if you can, otherwise its just the sata bridge which failed

Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD

If I run Disk Utility on either my Air or my friends Pro, it recognizes the drive but returns a "Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files. message on both comps. Is this consistant with SATA bridge issue or other?

sata bridge issues are consistent across any machine yes, though their behavior is both what appears like a bad HD, and less frequently like a power issue.  Both are SATA caused,

see this post on SATA card issues:

Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD

OK thank you, will try a housing swap to see if can recover my data. Hoping for the best.

Hey Guys... I was having the same spinning issue with my externals hard drives and this firmware update seemed to fix the problems. The update for the WD drives available on the WD support page.

Pick your drive on: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?level1=4&lang=en

Under "For Mac" select: My Book (your drive trpe) Firmware Update - Mac

I also installed the "Turbo" software... don't know if it helped or not.

I'll try to post this info around for others to fins as well... additionally, if the problem persists I'll let you guys know.

•••• I know that this goes directly against some of the other advice posted in this thread, but that advice was what caused me to start looking HD MFG software in the first place.

Just for fun I tried the free trial version of Data Rescue 3 to see if the files were indeed still there and it seemed to recover everything ok.. Should it purchase the full copy and do a recover...or purchase a HD housing and do the recovery that way? thoughts anyone? tks

having a HD dock is almost a vital tool, if you have lots of HD, its an absolute must have tool.

that choice is yours however.

HD dock is $40

heres the best cheapest one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Uspeed-USB-3-0-eSATA-to-2-5-or-3-5in-SATA-HDD-SSD-Dockin g-Dock-Station-/330892855571?pt=US_Drive_Enclosures_Docks&hash=item4d0ac04913

At this point I would like to know if WD and Apple geniuses are working on ANY, ANY way of reversing what went wrong to bring the original volume back and yet they are still silent.

I never saw anything like this. It's a hard drive for god's sake! It is unbelievable that the disk is erased without any warning! It is unbelievable that WD did not test their software on prerelease Mavericks! Total irresponsibility. I still don't see any warning on both WD and Apple web sites!

Totally agree with you. I've lost my 5 TB (backups, iTunes media, DVD, CD archive and 20 years of my software projects and even more resources, paid articles/books/libraries etc.) this morning. Everything was fine last night. Today, system erased everything without any warning!!!

I'd rather prefer a $ 50.- OS to an free OS that has not been tested for basic and critical errors in development. This is very poor software engineering and they are disgrace for my profession.

I can only think of only one possibility except poor engineering; some insane unscrupulous person put  a virus or malicious code in this release?!!!

Let's cool down and think positively... We should be able to mend most manmade mistakes...

I am also in the same situation, I'm desperate, I have 13 years of photos and videos LOST!

The second backup disk is a WD and therefore this has been canceled.

I'm trying on a hard recovery with Data Rescue 3, it seems that the data are there, but it will be very hard to reconstruct the entire folder structure.

I groped a firmware update, you think it could worsen the situation?

thanks