Q: Mavericks corrupts external hard drive

I'm really concerned about all of this.

I've a MacBook Pro Early 2011 and I've a WD 2.5'' USB 2.0 / FireWire 800 external hard drive. I'd like to know if this issue exists even in the case of a fresh install of Mavericks.

I'd like to install Mavericks without any kind of external connections. I usually use the Drive Unlocker of my WD drive to put the password in order to open my drive, never installed and WD Smartware trash. Do you think I can have any problems in this way??

Tnx a lot

It's still unclear what the cause or fix is.

Some people report no WD tools, GetRealBro seems to be able to make the issue appear without WD tools. There seems to be different types of damage, PlotinusVeritas has been unable to reproduce it despite trying lots of disks on multiple Macs.

Why would you update to an OS could risk your data? Make multiple copies of anything you plan to connect & you will be fine, otherwise if you are a 'single backup will do type of user' I'd steer clear for now.

ValekC 

I've a WD 2.5'' USB 2.0 / FireWire 800 external hard drive.

I'd like to know if this issue exists even in the case of a fresh install of Mavericks.

Do you think I can have any problems in this way

Singular or binary causation hasn't been isolated yet to know a definitive answer.  WD has released new software to alleviate (presumably after exhaustive testing on their part) the problem on their end. (and even this isnt confirmed from the users end)

However the change in their software is something a coder needs to investigate, since WD will not say what commands they changed to make their RAID and external HD Mac 10.9 (Mavericks) compatible.

http://community.wd.com/t5/News-Announcements/New-Release-WD-Drive-Manager-for-M ac-Version-3-1-0-11-25-13/m-p/628437#M387

Drew is right of course, a singular data copy is insufficient in all cases before this issue, during it, and after it.

Anyone who states "I have A ......hard drive backup" (singular),... needs to fork over at the very least another $70 for yet another 1TB HD at minimum.

Its hard to imagine anyone's years of work, data saves and etc. etc. etc. is worth less than the cost of a $70 HD.

     With a single copy off-computer of your data,...it is like sticking your cash in a paper bag on the street corner.

Data redundancy is one of the extremely few aspects of life where it can be accurately said that paranoia is both prudent and advocated by professionals.

Peace

So at the really end, It's better and safer to stay with Mountain Lion: this issue ( WD is only a part of these problems ) and the inability of locally sync my iPhone/iPad with iTunes under Mavericks are really annoying. And they are making me thinking about this is the right time to leave the Apple universe. Really really really disappointed.

Apple please help us!!!!!

ValekC wrote:

I usually use the Drive Unlocker of my WD drive to put the password in order to open my drive, never installed and WD Smartware trash. Do you think I can have any problems in this way??

The "Drive Unlocker" is a software interface provided by WD to decrypt WD's proprietary hard drive encryption scheme. Personally, I would not trust it any more (or less) than I would the other WD software.

Mavericks provides FileVault 2 for system-supported encryption & decryption. If I wanted to encrypt a drive, that's what I would use.

R C-R wrote:

To that end, may I suggest that you post the results of EtreCheck for your system?

I've run EtreCheck once and found no 3rd party disk drivers etc. in the list.

I will post the results of a second run w/ the Seagate 3T mounted. If I can get the stinking drive to mount today.

My syslog says that the Seagate 3T is mounted right now. And the fsck_hfs log says it only had to do a QUICKCHECK. But the icon is not on my desktop and Disk Utilty says that it is not mounted and that it can't mount it

BTW I've been testing this drive with Spotlight enabled (i.e. the drive was not in the Privacy panel) becasue Spotlight was one suspected cause. This was the first time that I tried to mount it AFTER putting the drive in the privacy panel.

--GetRealBro

I will post the results of a second run w/ the Seagate 3T mounted. If I can get the stinking drive to mount today.

I ejected the Seagate 3T drive using Disk Utiltiy, unplugged and replugged in the FW800 cable and 8 minutes later fsck finshed another log run and the Seagate 3T finally mounted.

Here are the EtreCheck results...

Hardware Information:

    MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)

    MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,2

    1 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores

    4 GB RAM

Video Information:

    Intel HD Graphics 3000 - VRAM: 384 MB

    AMD Radeon HD 6750M - VRAM: 1024 MB

Audio Plug-ins:

    BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

    AirPlay: Version: 1.9 - SDK 10.9

    AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0 - SDK 10.9

    iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9

System Software:

    OS X 10.9 (13A603) - Uptime: 0 days 20:13:16

Disk Information:

    TOSHIBA MK7559GSXF disk0 : (750.16 GB)

        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

        OSX6 (disk0s2) <not mounted>: 100 GB

        Data (disk0s3) /Volumes/Data: 597.87 GB (40.03 GB free)

        OSX9 (disk0s4) /: 51.16 GB (15.93 GB free)

        Recovery HD (disk0s5) <not mounted>: 650 MB

    MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-898 

USB Information:

    Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

    Logitech USB Laser Mouse

    Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

    Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub

        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

    Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

FireWire Information:

    Seagate Backup+ Desk 800mbit - 800mbit max

        disk1s1 (disk1s1) <not mounted>: 262 KB

        Seagate 3T (disk1s3) /Volumes/Seagate 3T: 3 TB (2.37 TB free)

Thunderbolt Information:

    Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Kernel Extensions:

Problem System Launch Daemons:

Problem System Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

    [loaded]    com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

    [loaded]    com.barebones.authd.plist

Launch Agents:

User Launch Agents:

    [loaded]    com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist

    [loaded]    com.google.keystone.agent.plist

User Login Items:

    iTunesHelper

    Default Folder X Helper

    Canon IJ Network Scanner Selector EX

3rd Party Preference Panes:

    Default Folder X

    Flash Player

Internet Plug-ins::

    AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.04 - SDK 10.6

    FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 11.9.900.117 - SDK 10.6

    AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.04 - SDK 10.6

    Flash Player: Version: 11.9.900.117 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update

    QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

    Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

User Internet Plug-ins::

    Picasa: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.4

    Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: Unknown

Bad Fonts:

    None

Old applications:

    SLLauncher:    Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5

        /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Silverlight/OutOfBrowser/SLLauncher.app

    SLLauncher:    Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5

        /Library/Microsoft/Silverlight/OutOfBrowser/SLLauncher.app

Time Machine:

    Skip System Files: NO

    Mobile backups: OFF

    Auto backup: NO

    Volumes being backed up:

        OSX9: Disk size: 51.16 GB Disk used: 35.23 GB

    Destinations:

        TMSH13on [Local] (Last used)

        Total size: 2 TB

        Total number of backups: 6

        Oldest backup: 2013-11-20 15:04:34 +0000

        Last backup: 2013-11-27 22:02:31 +0000

        Size of backup disk: Excellent

            Backup size 2 TB > (Disk size 51.16 GB X 3)

    Time Machine details may not be accurate.

    All volumes being backed up may not be listed.

Top Processes by CPU:

        3%    WindowServer

        3%    mds_stores

        1%    EtreCheck

        0%    mds

        0%    ps

Top Processes by Memory:

    426 MB       firefox

    153 MB       mds_stores

    152 MB       com.apple.IconServicesAgent

    123 MB       Mail

    70 MB        mds

Virtual Memory Statistics:

    500 MB       Free RAM

    1.06 GB      Active RAM

    1.49 GB      Inactive RAM

    967 MB       Wired RAM

    2.74 GB      Page-ins

    0 B          Page-outs

--GetRealBro

Pardon my ignorance guys - I am a new mac user who moved to apple roughly a year back. I call myself new cause most of my work is done on a win platorm PC.

I have had both my segate drives wipped out - one expansion drive of 1 TB and another which was a backup drive with 512 GB HD (Go Flex). Post installation of Mavericks I plugged my expansion drive only for that to be recognized as a read only drive. I did not think much thought was a software error, demounted and mounted it back into the system only to get the message that HD was not mounted correctly and then showed 0 data when it finally loaded. I am not a professional user and hence have given my HD (1TB) to a professional recovery company as it contains 11 years of my work bundled with a large stock of photos of my son.

Now the question I have is - is all this happening cause Apple decided to make this software free and thought they would get the top dollar as support charge??? I hope not.

I always thought apple was better - honestly there isint much difference between the two (win & mac)

Now can anyone please tell me how i can move back to mountain lion and forget about mavericks like a bad dream

Z

PROBLEM SOLVED!! In my case anyway. I've read most of this thread yesterday seeking an answer to the problem I had like most here. I skipped to the end to share how I solved my problem. Hopefully this might help others. I hope I can explain this clearly enough for all to understand. I would ask for respect in case I don't use the correct computer lingo when explaining this, I know most here are far more smarter than I am. And forgive me if I'm redundant. Maybe someone else has already covered this. Here's my story:

Last week my wife and I went out of town so I shut my computer down. I have a late 2006 iMac that runs OS X Lion off a SATA external hd. The internal went out about a year ago. When I got home I fired it up and I got the dreaded question mark in folder flashing. I don't know what happened but I spent a week trying to get it to read my SATA but without success. Because I couldn't go very long without a computer I dug DEEP in my pocket and bought a 2013 15" MacBook Pro retina display. (I've been wanting one anyway). Luckily I had backed up my iMac using time machine on a 500 gig WD external hd. When I plugged in the WD to the MacBook (you guessed it), it didn't show up. I could see it in Disk Utility but it was ghosted. I tried everything I read on this forum but without success. I gave up and went to bed. When I woke up I had a fresh mind (praying helped!), and was ready to attack this again. I plugged the WD in and still nothing. The next thing I did was start "Migration Assistant" located in you Utilities folder. My WD showed up!! Yea!! Following the instructions on it completly restored everything! The thing you have to watch is make sure and select only what you want to migrate to your computer or it will clash and show up as incompatible. I know because that's what I did the first time and I had to do a complete recovery back to factory out of the box. The reason is because I was migrating Lion off of Time Machine to Mavericks on my MacBook.

I hope this helps somebody. If anyone replies and I don't answer right away, forgive me, we are going to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Blessings!

joe

Have you checked to make sure your installation of Default Folder X is the latest one, released about a week ago? Supposedly it corrects some "inconsistencies" the previous version was causing with Mavericks.

Zeusmyth wrote:

 

Now can anyone please tell me how i can move back to mountain lion and forget about mavericks like a bad dream

 

Z

Use the backup of the system you made before you installed Mavericks and follow here.

OS X Mavericks: Revert to a previous OS X version

Cheers

Pete

I was running Default Folder X v4.5.12, which was current when I did the clean install of Mavericks. I generally wait a month or more to install all but the most critical updates. But since I'm testing, I updated to 4.6.1.

---GetRealBro

LATEST FROM WD;

**** Please do NOT reply to this email ****

Dear WD Registered Customer,

As we previously announced, Western Digital received reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to OS X Mavericks (10.9). Our investigation to date has found that for a small percentage of customers that have the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and/or WD SmartWare software applications installed on their Mac, there can be cases of a repartition and reformat of their Direct Attached Storage (DAS) devices without customer acknowledgement which can result in data loss. We have an updated version of the software that fixes this issue. We strongly recommend that you install this updated software. Please contact our service and support team with any questions.

Below are links to download the software:

• WD Drive Manager for Mac Version 3.1.0.
• WD SmartWare Version 1.3.6 for Mac 10.5-10.9.

Sincerely,
Western Digital

I SEE WE ARE STILL A SMALL PERCENTAGE but an admission here that it is their software acting without customers permission.

GetRealBro wrote:

.....

Time Machine:

    Skip System Files: NO

    Mobile backups: OFF

    Auto backup: NO

    Volumes being backed up:

        OSX9: Disk size: 51.16 GB Disk used: 35.23 GB

    Destinations:

        TMSH13on [Local] (Last used)

        Total size: 2 TB

        Total number of backups: 6

        Oldest backup: 2013-11-20 15:04:34 +0000

        Last backup: 2013-11-27 22:02:31 +0000

        Size of backup disk: Excellent

            Backup size 2 TB > (Disk size 51.16 GB X 3)

    Time Machine details may not be accurate.

    All volumes being backed up may not be listed.

....

Note the last 2 lines above.

My Data partition has been being backed up. I checked inside Time Machine.

The important thing here is that EtreCheck does not correctly tell you which drives/volumes are being backedup/ignored by TM.

--GetRealBro

Back on nov 11 we posted this:

10   After using the zip the following has been left as a launchdaemon plist on the HD:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

  <key>Disabled</key>

  <true/>

  <key>Label</key>

          <string>com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller</string>

  <key>OnDemand</key>

  <true/>

          <key>ProgramArguments</key>

  <array>

                    <string>/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstall er</string>

  </array>

          <key>ServiceIPC</key>

  <true/>

  <key>Sockets</key>

  <dict>

                    <key>MasterSocket</key>

  <dict>

                              <key>SockFamily</key>

  <string>Unix</string>

                              <key>SockPathMode</key>

  <integer>438</integer>

                              <key>SockPathName</key>

                              <string>/var/run/com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller.socket</string>

                              <key>SockType</key>

  <string>Stream</string>

  </dict>

  </dict>

</dict>

</plist>

11     Also the following has been left as a privlegdedhelpertools exec file on the HD:

Last login: Mon Nov 11 11:41:34 on console

xxx:~ v$ /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller ; exit;

Nov 11 13:13:37 xxx.local com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller[994] <Info>: Starting up

Nov 11 13:13:37 xxx.local com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller[994] <Error>: Error checking in: %m

Nov 11 13:13:37 xxx.local com.westerndigital.WD-Software-Uninstaller[994] <Info>: Shutting down

logout

Once you give authorization to execute a dmg file any code can be written on your hd - including leaving hidden files behind after a so called uninstall.  As posted dialog boxes from code written by wd contradicts between the ext vcd uninstaller and new dmg uninstaller.