Q: Mavericks corrupts external hard drive

PlotinusVeritas wrote:

coxorange wrote:

 

"including..." (before the list) does not mean "limited to".

 

purely speculative.

But historically probable, since Apple almost never mentions all the details of the change made in an OS update.

However, for something as serious as potential data loss, it is highly unlikely there would be no mention of that if in fact Apple found anything in its code that could cause that.

Thanks for that tip. There it is, WDMyBookServiceStartupItem. I've never used any of the software included on an external drive. Most of my external drives were bare 3.5 drives I installed in enclosures, but as the price of storage has come down, I've tended to go with Seagate or WD drives, and would wipe the drive clean and reformat it before putting any of my data on it. Not sure how that got there. And actually, my WD drive is my Time Machine drive, which is functioning just fine. The drive that got hosed and renamed 'My Book' is a Seagate drive. I've seen a couple posts from folks whose drives appear to have spontaneously reverted to a functional state. Mine's unplugged, I'll try again tomorrow when I've got some time and hold off on reformatting and copying all my music back onto it for now. Thanks again.

"There it is, WDMyBookServiceStartupItem."

So, you have WD software installed in your system. Then it is less scary. Clean WD software all out. You might have installed the WD software with the CD coming with Mybook and forgot about it.

"The drive that got hosed and renamed 'My Book' is a Seagate drive."

The WD software may be  incompatible with Mavericks and caused the problem. So whatever disk is in the enclosure (case) got set to empty. .

Darth 

There it is, WDMyBookServiceStartupItem

another case of cross-contamination by WD-ware onto another HD mfg. innocent drive.

ack

R C-R wrote:

...

However, for something as serious as potential data loss, it is highly unlikely there would be no mention of that if in fact Apple found anything in its code that could cause that.

I'd word that a little differently...

However, for something as serious as potential data loss, it is highly unlikely there would be ANY mention of that WHETHER OR NOT Apple found anything in its code that could cause that.

But hey, I've only been exclusively using Apple computers for 3 decades. And I still vividly remember the first point upgrade to OS X 10.0 (Cheetah) when the OS X  (AKA Unix) weenies at Apple didn't cover the possibility that an OS X  User's boot partition might have a space in the name.... OOPS - blank boot partition! I don't remember Apple ever fessing up to that snafu.

--- GetrealBro

I think for reason to be found out, the WD software issue command(s) to Mybook to format the disk in it. (Reset to factory default?) The firmware in Mybook executes accordingly. This is independent of the brands of disks actually inside the enclosure (case).

estApple wrote:

This is independent of the brands of disks actually inside the enclosure (case).

yes, this is all well established, look back at page 46 and forward. 

Darth,

Is the Seagate drive that was wiped a RAID drive? Just curious.

Nope, just a plain-vanilla, single partition, GUID formatted drive for my iTunes media.

Oh well. Here we go again. Just upgraded to 10.9.1 on my new iMac. Opened the shrink wrap on a new 4TB Seagate drive. USB 3. plugged into MacBook pro (mid 2009) running clean installed Mountain Lion. Shows up fine. Erased then reformatted with Disk Utility. Then plugged into new iMac and used Disk Utility two create two 2TB partions. One for big iTunes folder the other as a Time Machine. Shows up and works on new iMac running 10.9.1 - both as a a Time Machine and iTunes. Then got the random dreaded "Disk Improperly Ejected" warning. Tried shutting down and reattaching Seagate, which works a couple of times - then nada. Doesn't show up anymore under Mavericks and Disk Utility doesn't see it. Plugged it into my MacBook Pro running running Mountain Lion and everything is fine - Disk Utiliy says so and the data is still there and it mounts properly on the Mountain Lion desk top - but not on the iMac running Mavericks. So looks like Mavericks still won't play nice with external drives.

jeffsphoto21 wrote:

 

the random dreaded "Disk Improperly Ejected" warning.

There is no random, dreaded "Disk Improperly Ejected" warning. That is probably caused by a physical problem on the USB bus. Perhaps a bad port somewhere. If the same drive works fine on another machine, then perhaps the problem in on the first machine.

This is precisely why people should never, ever wait for some magic update to fix some operating system bug that, for some reason, only seems to manifest itself on 9 machines about 25 million. The only thing you ware waiting for in such a situation is for your warranty to expire.

jeffsphoto21 wrote:

. Opened the shrink wrap on a new 4TB Seagate drive.

Outside of Mavericks, Macs etc.   would recommend returning the 4TB Seagate for a 3TB or 2  2TB drives.

4TB drives, both Seagate and WD have excessive mechanical issues (likely due to overall platter / armature mass / spinup/ access).    WD 4TB drives have such an extremely high failure rate..... recall?  

While nice in concept having a 4TB monster in a single drive they are:

1. currently mechanically 4TB are very plagued

2. rubs against the premise of single nexus/HD failure of massive amounts of data (or the 'too many eggs in once basket' premise).

Peace

quote of jeff.. "So looks like Mavericks still won't play nice with external drives."

same here, i updated to 10.9.1.

both of my "mypassport 2GB 2,5" " will NOT show up under 10.9.1, like in 10.9, no improvement

BUT they show up in 10.8 on the old macbookair of my wife.

so, should i sell my 2 wdmypassports, or wait?

will western digital build the driver or apple?

it seems we have to wait several month from now, until the driver is fixed, i presume.

what do you think? ( i am not willing to revert to 10.8 at all because of western digital, 10.9 is much better and faster )

LexSchellings wrote:

 

In all OS do not install WD software at all !!!

It is not just Mavericks, also (M)Lion....

Thanks for the warning re Mountain Lion.

I'm using WD My Book Studio II (2 x 1TB as Raid 1) under ML.

Which problems could happen if I wouldn't remove the WD software?

I never had a problem. What do you know about this?

Many thanks!

Possibly these sorts of reported problems and admission from WD.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5475136?start=0&tstart=0

Pete