Mybook studio raid 0, empty after installing Mavericks

What was the name of the formatted partitions?

The Time Machine HDD was simply called “Time Machine”. The WD MyBook “Media”, backup drives had all sorts of names.

Funny thing, every drive I now plug in shows up with a visible EFI partition. The names of the individual partitions are retained (i.e. the Time Machine HDD still shows up as “Time Machine”), with the exception of the Western Digital drive – it pops up as “MyBook”.

Seems to be two different scenarios that can occur:

• external drives are initialized as single MyBook partitions with exposed EFI (looks non recoverable)
• external drives disappear under Mavericks but are still visible under Mountain Lion / Lion (at least initially)

Might explain the conflicting solutions. I'm trying to track the MyBook scenario.

The drives are visible on (Mountain) Lion, but they are “empty” after having been connected to the affected Mavericks Mac. The drives I tested were all non-RAID, run-off-the-mill USB drives by Toshiba and Hitachi.

I’m running out of drives to test, so I can’t risk my last backups. But it looks like any drive I today connect to the Mavericks Mac (without any WD software installed) gets initialised on connect, and appears to be empty on non-Mavericks Macs afterwards, too.

You can try the list of software I've listed on the recovery options page: http://wd-mavericks-data-loss.com/

Some of them have demos. I wouldn't pay for anything until someone who has actually lost data documents a full data recovery.

So far everything is just file fragments even when I've located the HFS magic numbers of the original partitions.

I'm currently rescanning drives with TechTool Pro and R-Studio.

Okay, it gets weirder. Just re-connected my Time Machine HDD. It NOW shows up as “MyBook” in both the finder and Disc Utility. What?

Somebody mentioned daisy-chaining earlier in the thread. And yes, a WD MyBook was daisy-chained to the Time Machine drive previously.

Perhaps it’s really an issue with the SATA drivers?

I’m baffled. And quite annoyed.

I am running a 15” retina display MacBookPro OSX 10.9, using a Seagate Backup Plus 4tb Drive for data storage; the drive is named Seagate Backup Plus, I was using the computer with a Thunderbolt connection to the drive I while ripping a DVD I noticed that the Seagate Drive had been renamed to MyBook. I was using a WD Mybook 2TB drive but this drive has not been connect to the computer for more than two months it was used for storage and Time Machine Backup for the computer. The connect drive renamed itself “MyBook” it now shows that there is 4TB available space with no files. I have used file recovery software and I can see a number of files but apart from ITunes Library there is nothing connect and really useable no Aperture Library, or .iso DMG, etc. So are we all in the same boat The iTitanic?

FWIW:

I've been running Mavericks on my iMac since the general release. (I do Mac support for a living).

I have two Stardom-branded external drives attached, RAID 1, both of which have WD drives installed (either Green or Black). One is connected by FW800, the other by USB. One is my Time Machine backup, the other a data storage of 'stuff'. Both external drives are hardware-RAIDS, where the configuration is done inside the case, not via a software interface from outside.

In Disk Utility (set with Debug menu to show all partitions), they both now appear have an EFI additional 'partition' that appeared subsequent to Mavericks upgrade that wasn't there before. Both drives were attached when Mavericks upgrade was performed. Both drives are always attached and on. There have been several subsequent shutdowns and restarts of both iMac and external drives. To date, both drives have not had any issues, nor the iMac with the drives. All drive content is totally accessible. I've done nothing extra to faciliitate this since they were first attached with Lion then Mountain Lion.

I have also had various external FW800 drives (2.5"/3.5" in generic enclosures, Seagate and WD and Hitachi) attached to iMac 10.9, with files exchanged, unmount, on/off, remount without any issue. These drives, too, have an 'EFI" partition showing in DU, in addition to their own multiple partitions. These drives were formatted by Disk Utility as GPT with HFS+ journalled ages ago. No data loss issues. These drives have also been subsequently used with Macs of other system versions, with no issue.

Whilst I have had both WD and LaCie branded enclosures attached previously, I have *never* installed or used their management software - I have *always* re-partitioned and setup with Disk Utility.

I have also attached bog-standard and SanDisk USB 8/16GB thumb drives that have been formatted with DU. They too also show the new 'EFI' partition. There has not been any data lost from them either.

I also have a Synology NAS with SHR RAIDing on WD Red drives 'networkedly-attached' and no issues there either.

I have another 2 iMacs 10.9 with a 'generic' USB or FW800 enclosures over WD HDDs, as a TM backups and storage. Again, both partitioned and setup through DU (back at 10.7/10.8). Both were attached and on during 10.9 upgrades. Both still up and running as expected without an issue.

So to summarise, in my case, there are no hardware-specific issues with either branded or generic external cases, with either USB or FW or network attachment, RAIDed or not, regardless of HDD manufacturer, or whether attached during or after 10.9 upgrade or not. All external drives are either self-mananged or setup via Disk Utility - no third party software is involved.

I have the same issue: external HD renamed "My Book" and showing as empty.

But the drive is not a WD drive. It is a Seagate 1TB USB drive, no raid, no third party drive software, formatted originally using Apple's Disk Utility. Up until today, there have been no issues with the drive.

I have opened a support case with Apple on this issue.

I am attempting to recover the files to a non-Mavericks Mac as I write this, as that seems to be the only solution. I don't believe there will be a quick fix, if and when Apple decides to respond to this.

Hi nggalai,

Did you format the external drives in GUID (makes the drive Bootable) or APT [Apple Partition Table(?)] (Doesn't make the drive Bootable)?

Somewhere in this thread was a comment that this may make a difference (GUID = Bad? | APT = Good?). I'm still using 10.8.5. My mate has upgraded, is using 1 or 2 WD (Passport-Pocket) HD for Time Machine back ups with no WD software installed and has yet to have any problems.... Don't know about the formatting standard used.

My Hitachi externals for TM backups are GUID formatted but I plan on reformatting one of them to APT(?) before upgrading. Wish me luck.

BEWARE OF LIVING ON THE BLEEDING EDGE ! ! ! ! ! { ;-0

I think the main question is still this: is Mavericks able, by itself, to label external disks as "MyBook"?

Simply question who require a simply and short answer, yes or no.

Yes, as we should think listening at those who experienced the problem without any kind of crapware installed?

So there's something very wrong with Mavericks.

No?

Probably you're unaware that something is running in your system and you should check for that very carefully.

An official response from Apple would be more than welcome right now.

Hi nggalai,

>But it looks like any drive I today connect to the Mavericks Mac (without any WD software installed) gets initialised on connect

Are you sure there are no files or folders with "WD", "WesternDigital" or "wdc" in their names in the following folders?:

/Library/Application Support

/Library/LaunchAgents

/Library/LaunchDaemons

/Library/Preferences

/System/Library/Extensions

One more place where WD software lurks is found. So far, the list of places to look for WD software is as follows. Please feel free to add.

/Library/Application Support

/Library/LaunchAgents

/Library/LaunchDaemons

/Library/Preferences

/System/Library/Extensions

/Library/StartupItems

Following up...

After a thorough search, this is the only WD associated file that I was able to locate on my Mac:

/Library/StartupItems/WDMyBookServiceStartupItem/WDMyBookService

I had deleted all of the rest of the WD software and associated files when the one My Book I have owned died a couple of years ago.

I deleted the file and its folder, and reattached the HD with the issue. Nothing happened - the drive is still named "My Book" and is empty (I didn't really expect that to fix the issue; my only hope is that it might prevent this happening any of my other drives.)

So... I am now back to my attempt to recover the files from the drive to my non-Mavericks Mac.

Perhaps this is a WD issue after all, though it seems that any drive - regardless of make or type of connection - can be affected.

So... It may be worthwhile for everyone to check their /Library/StartupItems as well as the other places mentioned.

I am still on Mountain Lion and doing my Time Machine backups on a WD studio hard drive. In Finder and in Disc Utility the hard drive is labeled My Book. No WD software downloaded as I just plugged the hard drive in and started using time Machine 3 years ago. Have had no problem but now I just saw another thread about time Machine not working in Mavericks.

Will certainly wait to upgrade to Mavericks.

Carol