Mavericks corrupts external hard drives!

SethWilliams wrote in post #16401614
I haven't had any problems with my Seagate containing all of my Time Machine backups.

My Seagate (connected to the Time Capsule) will not mount. Downloaded the newest Seagate software and will try to figure it out soon.

So WD sent out an email to their registered customers. Of course this message can't be found as an official warning on the front page of their website >>>

"Dear WD Registered Customer,

As a valued WD customer we want to make you aware of new reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9). WD 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 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.

The WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager, and WD SmartWare software applications are not new and have been available from WD for many years, however solely as a precaution WD has removed these applications from our website as we investigate this issue."

Sincerely,
Western Digital"


There's only this post from a "WD community manager" on the WD forum >>>

"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."

FarmerTed1971 wrote in post #16412515
My Seagate (connected to the Time Capsule) will not mount. Downloaded the newest Seagate software and will try to figure it out soon.

This is a USB drive connected to the new (tower) or old (flat square) Time Capsule? Had it been working before? I have found Time Machine to be rather unreliable since Snow Leopard.

Old flat square Time Capsule. Had to reset it and now it works fine. Hooked the external Seagate up to the computer directly and it works fine. Have yet to hook the Seagate back up to the TC and see if I can access it over Wifi though. Perhaps tonight.

For those of you with issues still I just came across this articleand thought I'd share. Maybe it may help(maybe not).
I do not have Mavericks installed so cannot verify if it works, or if it will help with the WD software issue. But if this can help anyone I figure it's worth sharing.

"One easy fix involves changing a little bit of text in your server connection URL. Here's how it works: In the Finder, choose the "Go" menu and select "Connect to Server..." (command-K). Type "cifs://yourservername​" and hit Return; the server should mount.

CIFS (Common Internet File System) is just another name for the SMB protocol, but using it in the server URL forces the Finder to use the older (not broken) SMB1 implementation, rather than the buggy SMB2. It worked for me with both my NAS and my Windows PC, so there's a good chance it will work for you."

Will this affect WD Passport drives when connected to the new late 2013 RMBPs too which comes shipped with Mavericks?

Dear WD Registered Customer,

UPDATE: November 1st, 2013

As a valued WD customer we want to make you aware of new reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9). WD 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 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. If you have already upgraded to Mavericks and are experiencing difficulty in accessing your external hard drive, please do not save anything to the drive, disconnect the drive from your computer, and contact Western Digital Customer Service at http://support.wd.com/​country/ for further assistance.

The WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager, and WD SmartWare software applications are not new and have been available from WD for many years. However, solely as a precaution WD has removed these applications from our website as we investigate this issue.

Sincerely,
Western Digital

Source:
https://discussions.ap​ple.com …475136?start=16​5&tstart=0

I feel like an ostrich buried my head in the sand. I have 3TB WD myBook drives that I've already unplugged since I've become aware of the problem. Now I am hearing that Seagate are also affected? My Time Machine and some data files are on a 2TB goFlex. aaargh makes me shivers.

Although I have not experience what everyone has reported. Should I be so careless and keep on using it ?

It's a shame that very little is coming from Apple to help us identify where the issue is coming from. But then again I hear this is normal with Apple when it comes to bug fixes
At least we're getting something from WD now. Here's hoping for the best.

I use a Seagate Free Agent GoFlex external hard drive and backed up my laptop yesterday following the Mavericks upgrade last Saturday. No problems encountered so far, although, it did take about 45 minutes to do a full backup.

I decided to leave it a week in case I encountered any bugs/issues after the Mavericks download.

My broadband speed is quite slow at 3.65mbs, but I managed the download of Mavericks in just under 3 hours and then 40 minutes to install on my 15" Macbook Pro Retina. I bought the laptop new on 12th August last, so still quite new.

So why all the anger at WD, when clearly it is an Apple issue?

My anger/annoyance is directed at both.

speedync wrote in post #16419223
So why all the anger at WD, when clearly it is an Apple issue?

Because the problem is not with WD drives, but the supplied software with them. The developer previews of Mavericks has been out for months. WD should have found the flaw in their software and released an update before the public release of Mavericks. Apple shouldn't be responsible for third party software not being fully comparable. This is exactly why Apple releases developer previews before the public release.

CallumRD1 wrote in post #16419494
Because the problem is not with WD drives, but the supplied software with them. The developer previews of Mavericks has been out for months. WD should have found the flaw in their software and released an update before the public release of Mavericks. Apple shouldn't be responsible for third party software not being fully comparable. This is exactly why Apple releases developer previews before the public release.

Some quotes from the Apple forum >>>

I first reported this issue to Western Digital on 13th September (yes black friday) while using Mavericks Developer Preview 7.

There is an earlier report in the developer forums on Developer Preview 6 titled DP6 Partition/Data loss Promise Technology Pegasus R4 Thunderbolt RAID.

That report was filed with Apple as radar #15076993.

https://devforums.appl​e.com/message/875652 (developer access required)

Source:
https://discussions.ap​ple.com …475136?start=21​0&tstart=0

Good grief! If folks have years of data on a hard drive I would think Computer 101 would be to make sure it was backed up. And then to make sure it was recently backed up before doing an OS upgrade.

It sounds like technology has exceeded our ability (willingness?) to deal with it.

That said, I have a WD MyBook attached via USB as my TimeMachine drive - no issues.
I also have a Hitachi 1 TB attached via fire wire and a NewTech dock with no problems. This drive contains my images from many years back and is backed up locally and off-site via BackBlaze - $5/month insurance policy protecting all my images.