Serious external drive problems after installing Mavericks

Robert Woodhead

* In my case, the PROBOX had been reliable for a long time.

To be certain the reliability of your PROBOX isnt in doubt, ...rather the question is ,.....is it a possible conflict after Mavericks interface with the probox bridge and firmware (if this any causative principle or not),....... or just Mavericks incapacity to read (and threfore corrupt) the structure of your probox.

😊

I assume this is your unit:

http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HF2-SU3S2-ProBox-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4

or no?

That's the unit.

Read my posts starting on the first page. I was able to generate silent read errors by copying large files from the PROBOX to the MBP internal flash drive.

PROBOX tech support cannot replicate the problem, but they use Seagate drives. We are both running the latest firmware. I am running extended test scripts to try and lock down a use case. Currently I am trying duplicating the file on the PROBOX volume, then comparing, using a WD drive. If that does not work I will move on to the original test case and see if that generates the error. Then I will try it with a Seagate drive.

See also my thread here re a corrupted G-Tech drive

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5506731

From Western Digital just a few mins ago:

Bill_S

Community Manager

6m ago

There are reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9). Western Digital is urgently investigating these reports and the possible connection to the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software applications.

Until the issue is understood and the cause identified, WD strongly urges our customers to uninstall these software applications on their systems before updating to OS X Mavericks (10.9), or delay upgrading. If you have already upgraded to Mavericks, WD recommends that you remove these applications and restart your computer. WD has removed these software applications from our web site solely as a precaution as we investigate this issue.

I have concerns like everyone else who posted here. I have WD Smartware on my desktop but I have never used anything that is in the folder. I have 2 WD external HD, one I use for Time Machine, the other holds all my ITunes music and videos. So far I have not had any issues. But I am also not as advanced as most of you who have posted here. All I did when I bought these Hard Drives was plug them in and designate their use. I know nothing about Raid 1 and many of the other software discussed here. I don't know if I should feel lucky or if I am sitting here and just waiting for it all to come crashing down.

Also many of the reported issues with Mavericks here on the support community I have not experienced. Matter of fact it is working fine. I did turn off Time Machine for the time being just in case. My iTunes files are recoverable from iTunes so hopefully if I have an issue I can just download them again. I have a MacBook Pro.

I will keep checking the support pages in case something of intrest turns up, but so far I am in good shape.

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 WD or 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 Milesdesign,

I've tried to connect the HDDs to a OSX 10.6 macbook to see if it was possible to see the contents of the HDDs but it didn't work.

In my opinion the only way to recover the data is to use a software to recover the data as Disk drill or Rescue 3 or others but I didn't try yet.

Currently I've simply disconnected and switched off the external HDDs in order to recover the data as soon as I have some time. I've also removed the Wester Digital drive manager from the Macbook Pro.

Based from what I read about your experience it seems that the problem is caused not by Western Digital but by Mavericks itself.

If you have any useful suggestion from Apple please share it.

Hey GaryB,

Okay... Yes, I once had a WD drive that died a few years ago (I have avoided WD products since then and all of my current drives are Seagate...)

So, I had checked in my Applications folder, the Utilities folder and in the other places suggested in this thread or the several other threads that are going about this issue, namely:

/Library/Application Support

/Library/LaunchAgents

/Library/LaunchDaemons

/Library/Preferences

/System/Library/Extensions

And I didn't find anything associated with WD...

BUT, I have now located one file - WDMyBookService - located in /Library/StartupItems/WDMyBookServiceStartupItem (though it was not listed in the Login items in the User system preferences.)

I had not noticed that file or location mentioned in this or any of the several other threads I am following on this issue.

Anyway, I deleted the file and its folder, restarted, 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 to 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.

GaryB,

I agree that deleting any WD software now is too late to save any drive that's already been damaged, but deleting it might just save this happening to any other drives. The drive I lost was really just an archive of old files, so I can probably live with whatever I'm unable to recover.

My concern now is preventing this from happening to my Time Machine or other remaining drives...

I have not bought anything from WD since the one drive of theirs I did have just suddenly died a couple of years ago. I use only Seagate drives now and I always reformat them myself with disk utility before using. I NEVER use third party drive software.

And, yes, I am also mad at Apple right now. This is not a minor bug, if it causes people to lose data from drives that were operating perfectly before Mavericks.

I have been following all this thread mostly by email I receive with postings. Here is my situation. I have a WD external drive a little one that is portable has no electrical connection only a USB to my MacBook Pro and it is named "IPhoto" and I store my photos and my ITunes on it. It is 500gb. I also have a WD external named "Back Up My Apple" which runs my Time Machine back up. It is a larger black book end type of WD hard drive that connects to the electric in the wall and also via USB to my computer. I do not have the WD Smartware loaded on my machine. There is an icon that says WD Smartware that is on my desktop, when I click on it, there are several software choices. None are loaded as I can recall and I can't find them on my internal drive.

I want to report that I have had no data loss as of yet. I loaded Mavericks the first day it was available. Maybe it is because I never loaded the WD software or maybe because none of my drives are named "my book" as these two situations seem to be common to many of the issues that others are reporting.

I am just reporting what I know. I continue to be interested in everyone else's experience and also if anyone wants to comment on my experience I would appreciate that as well. If anything should change you will hear back from me for sure. In the meantime I am making no changes as I am afraid it could set off a chain reaction.

I ran into a similar issue with my external WD Studio II and Buffalo DriveStation, both connected in a FireWire daisy-chain. Both drives suddenly showed up as "MyBook" and the data is gone.

An even more interesting fact is that after a 'Deep Scan' with 'Data Rescue 3' all files including the directory structure and the original file names could be recovered from the external 'Buffalo' disk. The same scan on the WD Studio II only found files without any information about directory structure or even the original file name.

I have experienced the same problem. I've lost all content of my USB digital signature (not WD)!!

It's a nightmare

I too have bee experiencing drives crashing mavericks but with LaCie d2 thunderbolt /usb3 drives I can access files through an older system but time machine restore to the new mavericks mbp retina just no go. Have been on the line to LaCie who have opened a 'ticket'? For this I will try to transport to another drive case with quadra interface as my gut feeling is that the thunderbolt firmware is not compatible with mavericks at this time and needs updating will update as my progress bares results.