back to article Western Digital 'fesses up to Mavericks data loss mess

Western Digital (WD) has pulled some versions of its data management software after users of external disk drives from Western Digital reported data loss after they upgrade their Macs to OS X Mavericks. WD's forums are aflame with scarily-named threads like External Drives for Mac Experiencing Data Loss with Maverick OS, All …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. ThomH

    Standard "no problems here" comment

    I have a Western Digital 'My Passport' USB 3 1TB device. It's just for Time Machine so I plug it in and ignore it. Everything is working without issue.

    Naturally I haven't installed any of WD's custom software because I'm about as enthusiastic about that as I am about consumer printer drivers — one just assumes it'll inexplicably install a 2GB boot-time kernel extension in order to be able to say in a booming voice "You have 20GB of space left; visit www.westerndigital.com to buy another hard disks" every ten minutes. And probably require a network connection.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Standard "no problems here" comment

      I tried the WD software when I bought my drive a few years ago and ditched for being slow as hell and not seeming to provide anything over Time Machine.

      Still, I was impressed to receive e-mails from WD advising of possible problems and against upgrading to Mac OS 10.9 (Mavericks).

      Having been burned by Apple's releases in the past I'm more than happy to wait for the biggest bugs to be fixed first, though I've given up hope that they'll ever fix the Firewire bug they introduced in Snow Leopard which causes my system to stall every time Time Machine starts talking to external drives.

    2. GuyFromThe80s

      Re: Standard "no problems here" comment

      I have a Western Digital 'My Passport' USB 3 1TB drive myself and just experienced data loss just yesterday having it attached to a netgear nighthawk r7000 router sharing it with Mavericks and Windows. Lost nearly 10 GB worth of data.

      Not using Western Digital software by the way...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ThomH

    Have a standard "No problems here" useless comment downvote.

  3. JamesTQuirk

    My Book Live 3TB

    I have experience that it will not work directly with Linux, try it with 5 different flavours so far, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, DSL, Mint, Debian, Mac osx being a labotimised rehash of it, doesn't suprise it don't work with them .....

    I have to WIN7/WinXP to access drive, either real via booting in OS, or a VM, under linux the drives can be accessed, it is a pain, I sort of replaced it with USB 3.0 4TB seagate, but it is still a good Backup, even if I have to Boot my win7 install on laptop, as a VM under Linux, Windows is only a mouse click or 2 from GOING AWAY .....

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: My Book Live 3TB

      Mac osx being a labotimised (sic) rehash of it (Linux)

      Obviously you need to brush up on operating systems 101 as well as your spelling…

      1. JamesTQuirk

        Re: My Book Live 3TB

        Sorry did I miss the "shit" in mac ?

        1. Frankee Llonnygog

          Re: My Book Live 3TB

          I've had no problems running WD drives on Macs, Windows and various Linuxes. Obviously I formatted them first and binned any proprietary software.

          Oh, and about the Mac OS being based on Linux: it's based on NextStep which shipped in 1989. Linus started working on Linux in 1991. I know that Macs come with Time Machine but don't take that literally

          1. JamesTQuirk

            Re: My Book Live 3TB

            Not sure about that, i thought it was Ubuntu, one of the "favourite things" I do for my Mac user Friends, is installed VLC (debian) and kill itunes, so I assumed, sorry ......

            1. jubtastic1

              Re: My Book Live 3TB

              VLC isn't debian, are you trolling? it's not hard to check the heritage of OS X or VLC.

              Also, introduce your friends to Plex for their any format media playing needs.

              1. JamesTQuirk

                Re: My Book Live 3TB

                Fools and macs are soon routed ...

                http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-debian.html

                I meant it was a debian package ......

                PLEX ? never heard off it, VLC runs on anything, plays everything ...

                1. Frankee Llonnygog

                  Re: VLC runs on anything, plays everything

                  Well, exactly - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

                  1. JamesTQuirk

                    Re: VLC runs on anything, plays everything

                    See you only had to look, I didn't know they made a MAC Version, I've been the standard stuff, it works ....

                    1. Frankee Llonnygog

                      Re: VLC runs on anything, plays everything

                      "See you only had to look"

                      Quite - the information is cunningly hidden on the VLC home page in a large bright orange font

  4. Slap

    Treat third party drivers with caution

    As a long time Mac user I tend to treat with extreme caution any disk system, be it singular or RAID, that needs it's own driver software to initialise volumes, and thereafter run the drive.

    Bascially I dump any manufacturers software straight away and use Disk Utility for any formatting needs. Some RAID systems do require proprietry software for the intial RAID setup, but thereafter everything is formatted with Disk Utility.

    These days you shouldn't need a 3rd party system level driver to do something as basic as initialise and run a disk. If a disk product does absolutely need a proprietry driver on a Mac then run away fast.

    1. William Donelson

      Re: Treat third party drivers with caution

      I agree. If it won't run with Apple's own drivers, then it's a mutant and I won't touch it.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Treat third party drivers with caution

      My My Book Live doesn't need 3rd party drivers.

      "Users say the problem hits WD My Book products, plus storage devices from Seagate and LaCie. USB, FireWire and Thunderbolt connections all experience the same issues."

      So we can deduce that there seems to be a problem with the brand shiny new OS.

      Nothing to see here, wait 10.x.1 or 10.x.2 before updating, as per usual.

      1. Snapper
        Unhappy

        Re: Treat third party drivers with caution

        @Dan 55

        You didn't read the article, did you?

        There are problems losing data when the WD software is installed, not with Mavericks itself. WD has known of this problem for a long time as it was reported on their own client forum when Mavericks GM came out over six weeks ago.

        A LOT of people have lost a LOT of data due to this. And don't say 'backups' as they could have used a WD drive for that as well.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like