Mavericks does not recognize ExpressCard

I have the same model and none of my express cards are working on Mavericks.

I had the same problem after I upgrade to Mavericks. I downloaded the lastest driver from Sonnets and it worked. They have a couple of eSATA express cards so you have to be careful to download the right one (I didn't but I got great help from Sonnets).

Then you do not have a Mac Book Pro 2010 model.

It is not a 3rd party Driver issue - Apple did not include the neccessary KEXT to support PC Express cards.

This only affects the 2010 MBP 17" models.

So telling us we don't have drivers is not going to fix it.

I have filed a devloper bug report, but apple hasn't even looked at it yet. Maybe in 2015 if Apple isn't too busy porting the Mac to iOS they might look at it - but I doubt it.

I have the late 2011 MacBook Pro 17"(purcahsed July 2012) and have two Sonnett Technology Express/34 cards.

One is the plain 2 port eSATA card and the other is Sonnett USB 3.0 card.

After upgrading to Maverick and re-installing the drivers from Sonnett's web site, I found that the Time Machine Backups using the eSATA card to a NewerTechnology Voyager dock with a WD 2TB Cavier Green hard drive, was very much slower than with Mountain Lion. I have a second card by another manufacturer (forget the name) but both use Silicon Image S3132 chip set, and the most recent driver on Sonnett's web site (which works for both eSATA Express/34 cards) is from November 2011!

Also, the USB 3.0 card never really worked even in Mountain Lion although Sonnett has a 2013 driver update.

I have a Buffalo 1TB Thunderbolt/USB3 drive and a LaCie Rugged 1TB Thunderbolt/USB3 drive. Neither show up in Disk Utility or mount on the desk top using USB3. (I also own a spring 2010 MBP 17" which does not have Thunderbolt).

Of course there are much more recent drivers on Sonnet's web site for Windows than for Macs even though they prominently features Macs on their web pages. And all cards work fine in Boot camp Windows 7/XP Pro 32 bit. So it looks like I'll have to go back to Mountain Lion as Silicon Image doesn't care about supporting (updating drivers) for Macs.

By the way, where may I download the driver you mention in above reply to some one else:

"I re-installed the driver (using v1.2.6 release Nov 2012)."

What web site may I download this driver from.

Thanks very much.

Note that some of Sonnet's cards don't need Sonnet drivers. For those, the manual states that the drivers 'are installed as part of Mac OS X' and that the 'card is ready to use when you power on your computer.'

(quotes are from the manual for Tempo Edge SATA Pro 6GB ExpressCard34, 1-port version)

For cards that do need drivers, the absence of Mac ExpressCard support and the presence of 3rd party drivers may interact to produce a variety of observable results, good and bad.

That last statement is just me deducing, but I felt it might help clarify.

I did the same thing. Downloaded Sonnett's lastest drivers for plain 2 port Express/34 SATA card.

Maverick see the card and drive, but Time Machine backups run incredibly slower than when used in Mountain Lion.

Sonnett's driver is date November 2011!!!!!

Meanwhile, they have much newer drivers for Windows.

What gives? Sonnett Tech's web site features many images of Apple computers, yet they cannot get the chip makers they buy from to write updated drivers for newer Mac OS versions.

When I was having issues with my Sonnett eSATA Express/34 card I emailed them and got a very quick response. Overall we emailed back and forth and had the problem solved inside of an hour.

Thanks Cascag

I had tried everyting (I thought) but this actually solved my problem.

I am back in business and can access my array of various HDD/SSDdrives connected via Sonnet Expresscard on my 17" 2010 Macbook Pro.

Thanks a million!

Is Apple coming up with a fix for this? Seems to be mostly macbook pro 2010. Im using a Lacie express card 34

Message was edited by: ttd mediamusic

Has Apple sneaked in some updates? I booted my MBP this morning and the WinTec 128GB SSD in my ExpressCard slot appeared! Anyone else have similar results just lately? I checked Software Updates and the log and did not see anything recently that would suggest that a fix was delivered.

@cascag Thank you!!!! This worked for me. I'm using a Lacie USB 3.0 Expresscard34 So far so good. I did'nt do every step you mentioned but here's what I did. Oh my goodness I'm soo happy!!!

So, I did the following:

1)Go to your Mavericks /System/Lybrary/Extensions and save a copy to usb or pen drive of the kext IOPCIFamily.kext then delete it from your system

2)From a installed system of Mountain Lion go to the same folder /System/Lybrary/Extensions and copy the same file (IOPCIFamily.kext) to a pen drive or other place.

3) Back in Mavericks, download the Kext Wizard software and run it.

4) Go to the tab instalation and drag the kext copied form Mountain Lion inside the white box in the window software.

5) Install the kext.

6) Go to the Maintenance tab and select System/Library/Extension (Repair Permitions and Rebuild Cache) and Execute.

7) Reboot the system and conect the eSata HDD.

Presto! It's working again!!!

UPDATE: After a reboot, my WinTec 128GB SSD ExpressCard has vanished again. No idea what made it appear, but everything was still there and working perfectly, including a full VMware Windows 8 virtual machine. Interesting.

@Froggacuda: gutted... I was so hopeful when I saw your post, only to see your update straight after...

I'm so p***ed off with Apple, just ignoring the Expresscard slot at least on the mid-2010 17". And not even feeling the need to address it in one of the recent Mavericks updates. Or feeling the need to respond to developers filing bug reports (ok, they say they won't but this is quite a big(ish) omission to Mavericks - intentional or not)...

Just before the Mavericks release I saw at least 10 17" machines appearing on the refurb store and none since Mavericks got released - could this be related?

BTW: I'm trying also to get my Wintec 128GB Expresscard to work with Mavericks, have ML installed on it...would like t do the same with Mavericks...

Did anyone try if this has been fixed in 10.9.1 already?

There's nothing in the release notes indicating that they've fixed this... so I'm just wondering. I'm still on 10.9 with IOPCIFamily.kext from 10.8.5, works perfectly for me. :-)