spontaneous overnight hard drive wipe ???

Garyali wrote:

Were you able to roll back from Mavericks to Mountain Lion. I am trying to do that from the reccovery following the advise from (https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6161) but when I try to erase disk0 the disk utility gives me a error saying that - "disk utility secure disk erase - can't unmount disk".

The error means the disk is in use, either because it is the startup drive or some application is using files on it. You need to start up from some other drive or partition, erase the volume with Mavericks on it, & then install Mountain Lion on it. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5943 describes what you need to do.

Note that user tips like the one you were looking at are not necessarily endorsed or recommended by Apple & may include personal opinion or dubious or unnecessary procedures. In particular, it is not necessary (or desirable) to completely erase the drive, which would remove the Recovery HD partition. Erase the drive as per Apple's instructions for best results.

Also, there is no need to do a secure erase, which basically will do nothing to make the drive more reliable & will just subject it to unnecessary wear. (It will also make it impossible for software recovery tools to recover any data from it, which is its only purpose & why it is called a security erase.)

Also, there is no such thing as the WD uninstaller software here -http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=124&sid=214&lang=en. Which one did you use?

It looks like WD has removed the link to the uninstaller, I guess because they want you to use the new version of the utilities. It might be possible to contact WD support & get a link to the now-missing uninstaller but if not, you could try the semi-manual method mentioned by "Totalsupport" on page three of this WD blog. I have copied that below in case you have trouble finding it:

Steps to completely remove WD SmartWare from your Mac:

• Run the SmartWare uninstaller application located in /Applications/
• Using Apple’s Activity Monitor from /Applications/Utilities quit the following processes:

WDDMServiceWD Quick ViewSmartwareServerApp

• Delete /Library/LaunchDeamons/com.wdc.WDDMService.plist (Entry that causes WDDM to start.)
• Delete /Library/LaunchDeamons/com.wdc.WDSmartWareServer.plist (Entry that causes the SmartWare Server to start.)
• Delete /Applications Support/WDSmartware (Removes all SmartWare support programs)
• Delete /Application/WDSmartWare (SmartWare user interface)
• Delete Library/Preferences/com.wdc.smartware.plist
• From System Preferences->Users Login Items remove WDQuickview for all users. (Entry that runs WD Quick View when a user logs in. There should be a single entry for all users. Deleting it from one any account should remove it for all accounts.)

Message was edited by: R C-R

The various WD uninstallers appeared to work on mine - 3 drives of different vintages, although only one experienced the problem - the one with Time Machine of course - and that well after the upgrade to Mavericks. I am not going to the effort of rolling back to Mountain Lion, but wait with anticipation to see if Apple and WD between them can come up with a fix which would include data recovery. In the meantime, I am starting Time Machine on another, non-WD, drive. Not sure I'll go for WD again for anything, I was uneasy about using their driver software in the beginning, but now I'm sure about it!

The process wdhelper is not linked to Western Digital. It is a helper for WirelessDiagnosticsSupport.framework per discussions on forums other than this one and should not be killed or deleted.

I had the "wipe" problem with a WD drive in october and (after contacting WD) removedthe drive manager from the computer. 2 weeks ago the same thing happend AGAIN on a different computer with no drive manager installed. It was a Toshiba drive (as I will never buy WD drives again), unfortunately it turned out to be a WD OEM drive.

So, my conclusioon is de-installing the WD software is NO solution !!!!

Anybody with another idea? I´m afraid to connect any external drive to my computer now and that´s not acceptable at all.

I´m grateful for every hint, solving this problem

I also would be greatful if APPLE comes with an official statement (at least) or even better an update solving this problem. As this problem seems to exsist since 4 months now, I think it´s time.....

fanboy-nomore wrote:

I also would be greatful if APPLE comes with an official statement (at least) or even better an update solving this problem. As this problem seems to exsist since 4 months now, I think it´s time.....

Apple have, don't install WD software, it is not needed and potentially harmful

WD are offering free data recovery software for anyone affected by their software.

I would also appreciate if WD gave me help. After promising it, there has been nothing. Useless. I will never buy WD again. I'll add Toshiba to the list also.

Have you contacted WD? Did you lose data?

Yes, it wiped my Time Machine. Returned the drive to unused state.

I thought I had disabled the WD software.

What did WD say?

They have eventually sent me a link for some "data recovery software". I haven't used it yet, will try it soon, nothing to lose.

Good luck.