Western Digital External Drive unmounts when USB used

I have a Western Digital 1TB My Book Studio edition external HDD. Its been unmounting recently without warning. I fianlly narrowed it down to when I plug or unplug a USB device such as a headset.
The drive is running in FW as I dont have any spare USB ports. WD are now blaming the computer. After reading other issues people have had with WD I dont believe them. I'm about to install 10.5.8 but I doubt this will fix it, also the HDD has the latest firmware.
Has anyone else had this sort of problem or have any suggestions?

I have a Western Digital 500 GB My Book that mysteriously mounts or doesn't mount about 50% of the time. Am using it in FW, though I've also tried USB with no change in behavior.
The drive gets fiercely hot - I suspect this might be contributing to the bad behavior of the drive. If I check the System Profiler when the drive doesn't mount, it is showing in the System Profiler - but doesn't appear on my desktop.
Out-of-warrantee support is $50 - or I can throw it out and buy a different brand for about $100! Guess which one I will choose!

Similar Messages

Mac Mini conflict with Western Digital External Drive

My Mac Mini used to work fine with my 2 TB Western Digital external drive, but now when I plug it in my desktop goes blank and the drive won't mount. I have tried it both USB and Firewire. The drive DOES work with my Powerbook G4.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Hi-
Please clarify.
What mini are you using? One of the new 2009 models?
As for the drive, is this a Firewire 800 drive or a Firewire 400 connection?
If it is a firewire connection, are you daisy chained to another firewire device? If so, in what order is the hard disk?
If it is a firewire 400 connection, what adaptor/cable are you using?
For a USB 2.0 connection, are you connected to a hub, or directly to the mini? Is the hub powered or not? Have you tried a different USB port? Same results?
Did you plug in both the USB and Firewire cables at the same time?
What is the model of your WD ext drive?
When you say that your desktop goes "blank" what exactly do you mean? The computer is still on, but there is no image on the screen?
You mention that the drive works with your Powerbook G4. By Firewire? USB?

IMac G5 with OSX 10.5.8 does not recognize my Western Digital external drive containing the majority of my music library. Is there any way to access that drive and recover the music stored there?

I have an iMac G5 with OSX 10.5.8 that does not recognize my Western Digital external drive. I had no problems with this until I upgraded to 10.5. Most of my music library is stored on the external drive. Is there any way to access it to recover the music?

How is it connected? Have you tried different port? How about logging in as a different user then trying to mount the drive.

My external 2TB Western Digital external drive just vanished.

My external 2TB Western Digital just vanished as well. [I have read many posts very similar to mine in the MacRumors forums and also Western Digital forums.
I never installed any WD software when I purchased it , or since, but formatted the drive with 2 partitions as usual with Apple Disk Utility.
I have been using it for months and no problems. Then yesterday I tried to access the drive and it gave me the message "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" and asked if I wanted to Initilize it.
I then checked with Disk Utility and where I formerly had 2 partitions it showed only one and said it was empty!
No data at all!
I have been using this drive with OS 10.9.2 for a while, it was fine untill everything vanished yesterday.
I then updated to 10.9.3 but the drive is still 'gone'.
So far no fixes posted.
Help me Apple....what have you done?!?!!!
Adam
I have a MacBook Pro.

Apparently WD released a new WD 'Smartware' Version in 2013 to address this problem with Mavericks and WD External drives. I can find no confirmation from any source that this works and indeed many warnings against using any WD software for setting up or fixing their drives when used with Macs and Mavericks. Anyway...this is just for Smartware.
http://wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/wdsmartware.asp?id=wdfGeneric&os=mac
I can find no Firmware updates for the issue anywhere.
Have filed a case with WD Support a couple days ago; still waiting for any response.
The MacRumors Forums, Western Digital's forums, and Apple's Support Communities all had threads about lost data after connecting Western Digital external hard drives to computers after updating to Mavericks.
WD is happy to announce the release of WD SmartWare Version 1.3.6 for Mac 10.5-10.9.
Fixed an issue related to reports of some customers, under certain conditions, experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9).
The WD SmartWare update is available for download from Western Digital's website.

Western Digital Raptor Drives Unmounting

I put two Western Digital Raptor drives (74 gig) in my Mac Pro and they are recognized. I've formatted them and data is stored on them. I've run scans on them to ensure that they are healthy, disk checks indicate that there is no issues. HOWEVER, when I come out of sleep Mac OSX automatically unmounts both drive automatically. I can repro this every time. Apple support has no clue. Help.
Thanks,
Ryan

My 74GB Raptor does the same exact thing on my 8-core Mac Pro. I think it's a firmware issue with the drive and since Western Digital doesn't offer firmware updates on these drives, we are SOL.
It worked fine on my Dual 2.3GHZ G5. I talked to WD today and they said to put a jumper between 5 and 6 to make the drive compatible with SATA 2 logic boards but that did nothing. It still unmounts after waking up from sleep.
We just have to buy a newer Raptor. It's really frustrating to deal with this for "enterprise" products.

Problem using a Western Digital external drive

All,
I am using Oracle 11.2.0.1 32-bit Windows on Windows Vista Ultimate, in conjunction with McAfee Antivirus Plus.
I have issues using an external Western Digital Elements USB drive, which has the Flash Recovery Area. Please note my Windows Backups to these drive also fail with the same error 'Can't find sector'
The error stack in Oracle is following, but this can also happen during archiving
Spooling started in log file: diskerror.log
Recovery Manager11.2.0.1.0
RMAN>
Starting backup at 09-06-2011
using target database control file instead of recovery catalog
allocated channel: ORA_DISK_1
channel ORA_DISK_1: SID=81 device type=DISK
channel ORA_DISK_1: starting compressed archived log backup set
channel ORA_DISK_1: specifying archived log(s) in backup set
input archived log thread=1 sequence=2532 RECID=2694 STAMP=753243442
input archived log thread=1 sequence=2533 RECID=2695 STAMP=753265574
input archived log thread=1 sequence=2534 RECID=2696 STAMP=753286016
input archived log thread=1 sequence=2535 RECID=2697 STAMP=753314521
input archived log thread=1 sequence=2536 RECID=2698 STAMP=753315118
input archived log thread=1 sequence=2537 RECID=2699 STAMP=753327717
input archived log thread=1 sequence=2538 RECID=2700 STAMP=753331024
channel ORA_DISK_1: starting piece 1 at 09-06-2011
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ===============
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-03009: failure of backup command on ORA_DISK_1 channel at 06/09/2011 08:31:51
ORA-19504: failed to create file "H:\ORACLE\FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA\ORCL\BACKUPSET\2011_06_09\O1_MF_ANNNN_TAG20110609T083149_%U_.BKP"
ORA-27044: unable to write the header block of file
OSD-04008: WriteFile()-fout. Kan niet naar bestand schrijven.
O/S-Error: (OS 27) Het station kan de aangevraagde sector niet vinden.
I have already disabled Mcafee Antivirus Plus Real life scanning, this didn't work.
I have yet to isolate this doesn't happen on other drives, but I already relocated the FRA, because a different external drive was too slow.
(and archivelog failed because of this)
I tried looking for error 27 on Technet.Microsoft.com but failed.
What should I do, apart from re-formatting the drive using my own laptop (it came pre-formatted)? I downloaded a WD tool to check the drive, and it came up with nothing.
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA

Hi Sybrand,
I just wish to please check below:
1.As Aman suggested to deinstall anti-virus program
2.free space on external hard disk
3.Path and Permission issue (if any)
4.May be filesystem of the external drive issue
5.May be issue of filesystem size limit.
5(i).FAT32 is 4GB and NTFS is 16 exabytes. FAT16 (mainly DOS) was 2GB, but some instances supported 4GB. A windows server class machine is almost 100% going to be using NTFS. Same issue on SQL Server with a local account trying to do things on an NFS. Use a domain account/NTFS.
Source:http://dbaforums.org/oracle/lofiversion/index.php?t20108.html
6.ORA-27044: unable to write the header block of file
OSD-04008: WriteFile()-fout. Kan niet naar bestand schrijven.
O/S-Error: (OS 27) Het station kan de aangevraagde sector niet vinden.
I just understood the message of ORA-27044; rest line's messages may be of your country's languages; but i think its all something related to RMAN is not able to write the file.
If you please resolve the issue by your own way/findings, i wish to request to please post the solution too.
Regards
Girish Sharma

USB keyboard and Western Digital external drive

Hi,
I can plug my WD MyBook into the USB ports on my iMac's keyboard, and it works great. I can't, however, do the same with my newer, smaller WD Passport. It just turns on and off, on and off, etc. Why?
-Brandon
Message was edited by: Brandon318

The MyBook (I believe) is a 3.5-inch hard drive and the enclosure has its own power supply. The Passport is a smaller 2.5-inch laptop drive (I believe) and gets its power from the USB port. I'm not that familiar about WD external drive products, so please correct me if I am wrong about the above.
Depending on the iMac model (and type of keyboard), you may or may not be able get enough power from the port on the keyboard. But if the drive is self-powered, the USB port only needs to be there for a data connection, so the power aspect is not as critical. In either case, however, you should probably connect an external drive to a direct port or to a USB hub that has its own power supply.
Note: There as some larger capacity 2.5-inch hard drives that required more power than typical. External drives that use such drives, even though they are the smaller size, may need to have its own power supply. Some come with a extra USB connector, to draw power from a second USB.

HT3275 I need to use a Western Digital external drive on both my Mac and a PC. To do this I need to format the drive in FAT 32. However, Time Machine won't recognize this format. Is there a work-around?

I need to use my external drive on my Mac and a PC, so I formatted it in FAT 32. I found that Time Machine doesn't recognize this format and cannot back up to it. So, if I want to use Time Machine I need to go back to a Mac format. Is there any way to get Time Machine to save onto a FAT 32 formatted drive?

It's usually not a good idea to use a Time Machine drive for anything else. It's too easy to make mistakes, or not do regular backups, or run out of space. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions #1 and 3.
But you can create a second partition on the drive, for use with Windoze.
See #5 in the FAQ for formatting instructions. You'll need to select 2 partitions. It's usually best to put the Time Machine partition first, and it should have the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Format. Make the second one MS-DOS (FAT), although you might prefer ExFAT.
Be sure to specify the GUID Partition table.

Western Digital External Drive and a VERY slow computer. Is my HD failing?

Hello, thank you for looking at my question.
First off, I am NOT very tech-savvy, but I'm willing to research and learn, I'm just afraid to make a mistake and blow up my computer.
I have had my Macbook for 2 years. I have not backed up my hard drive during that time. Bad, I know.
Recently I've noticed my Mac getting slow with the "spinning beach ball" showing up more often and everything getting slower. Usually a reboot will help. Yesterday, for the first time, the reboot took about 8-10 minutes! I figured that wasn't a good sign, so I headed down and picked up an external hard drive (Western Digital Essential model, 1TB) and figured I'd back everything up. I formatted the drive according to the Mac partition model (tech support from WD helped over the phone) and got it going. From 1530 to 0800 this morning, of 52 GB it had only backed up 15.3 GB. The fan was running at high speed the entire afternoon and night. That's about one GB per hour. Is that normal?? Then, it froze and wouldn't respond, or back up at all. Just nothing. I held the power button down and restarted it.
At this point, I am concerned that perhaps the hard drive is failing (hence the speed and fan issues) and that maybe I should be taking it in to a repair shop (we don't live anywhere near an Apple store)
Do you think this may be the case? Is there any way to back up my hard drive faster - before it dies? I have two years worth of photos and papers, etc on there, music and such and it would be a tremendous loss if it all crashed.

carroteye wrote:
Hello, thank you for looking at my question.
First off, I am NOT very tech-savvy, but I'm willing to research and learn, I'm just afraid to make a mistake and blow up my computer.
Good! Better to inquire than leap!
I have had my Macbook for 2 years. I have not backed up my hard drive during that time. Bad, I know.
Yup.
That's about one GB per hour. Is that normal?? Then, it froze and wouldn't respond, or back up at all. Just nothing. I held the power button down and restarted it.
No, not normal at all.
At this point, I am concerned that perhaps the hard drive is failing (hence the speed and fan issues) and that maybe I should be taking it in to a repair shop (we don't live anywhere near an Apple store)
Do you think this may be the case? Is there any way to back up my hard drive faster - before it dies? I have two years worth of photos and papers, etc on there, music and such and it would be a tremendous loss if it all crashed.
As slow as that backup was, anything else will be nearly as bad.
There are four common causes of this:
Your startup drive is nearly full (less than a couple of GBs of free space). If that's the case, find something big you can "archive" to CD/DVD or copy to the external HD and delete.
The drive is failing.
Corrupted directores, etc., in the file system
One or more "runaway" processes, usually from incompletely-installed or partially-deleted apps
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It's a toss-up; try to diagnose what's wrong, or try to get a backup.
The fastest way to back up, with the least "thrashing" of your hard drive, would be to start up from your Leopard Install disc and use the Restore tab to make a copy of your internal HD on the external.
That will copy any file system problems "as is," but if your internal HD is beginning to fail, at least you'll have a full copy of the data (corrupted or not) on the external HD.
Check this to be sure your WD drive will boot your Mac: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?pfaqid=1787 If not, do all the steps below except #4.
Here's what I'd recommend:
1. Start up from your Install disc, per the yellow box in #1 of [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html]
2. Reformat the external HD, with a single partition, per the blue box there. You'll want the +Mac OS Extended (Journaled)+ Format and either the GUID or +Apple Partition Map+ *Partition Map Scheme* as detailed there.
3. Use the Restore tab to copy your internal HD (almost certainly named +Macintosh HD)+ to the external HD, per #7 in the link above. Note that will copy the name of the internal HD to the external.
4. When that's done, quit Disk Utility, then select +Startup Disk+ from the Utilities menu in the menubar (per the yellow box above). Select the external HD and start up from it.
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The copy may take a very long time. There will be a progress bar, but they're notoriously inaccurate under the best of circumstances. If it completes, and you can start up from the external, post back and we'll see if we can find the problem, and either fix it or confirm that you need to take it to Apple.

Snow Leopard and Western Digital external drive

Hello, I have a fairly new (2 years) external Western Digital drive (the big black one that looks like a Bible) that has all of a sudden (once again) become unrecognizable by my iMac running the latest Snow Leopard. Just for a test, I hooked it up to my old G3 Blue and White and the data all showed up fine on it's desktop! That machine has since bit the dust within the last few days, and I cannot remember the Mac OS version on it; it was whatever did NOT require a DVD drive to install... maybe Tiger. I am using FireWire to hook it up, by the way.
Why would the drive just up and become unrecognizable? My trusty LaCie external I have had for many more years NEVER had any issues. I will buy another one without question... but the Western Digital is another story. I really do not trust them after this debacle.
Thanks for any insight. I would love to get this drive running again to pull a bunch of data off from it!!

Thought you could use this info about getting FireWire to work!
First, you should always Repair Permissions in Disk Utility before and after any update; I would do that now. If you installed your update with FireWire plugged in, your Mac may not recognize it anymore.
Try resetting your FireWire ports by disconnecting all FW devices, shut down your Mac and unplug it from AC power (wall socket) for 30 minutes. plug it back in and try FW.
If that didn't work, download the combo update from this site (yours may be corrupt), not Software Update, disconnect all firewire + USB devices except keyboard + mouse, Repair Permissions, re-install update, Repair Permissions again + try.
If that still didn't get it Zap the PRAM. While restarting Mac hold down the following key combo Command-Option-P-R. Keep holding those keys down till you hear the second start-up chime, then release.
A bad internal PRAM battery can also cause FireWire to not be recognized, so make sure it's good!
Also, here is Apple doc.#88338 on getting FireWire to work.
Here's another Fw Faq.
DALE

Western Digital External Drive

I am planning to go to Best Buy tonight and pick up a Western Digital My Book Premium 320 GB external hd. Does anyone have any experience with this?
I have several video tapes I have been pulling into iMovie and am quickly using space on my iMac drive, plus I'd like to back up all my photos. Since I've never used an external drive, I'd like some feedback.
I've read about backing up and cloning, but I'm not sure I care about that. I'm really just concerned about 'archiving' my data, should anything happen to the computer. My applications and computer are replaceable. That being the case, do I need to partition (I've never done that and don't know how, so would need to be 'taught').
Also, I've read about backup programs, ie. Retrospect, and I believe the drive comes with one from Western Digital. If I understand how they work, they copy designated files to the external and then periodically compare with the internal, and if there are changes, back them up. What happens to the 'original' file. What I'm really wondering is...if I am getting this as an archive, so I can remove certain photos and videos to make space on my main drive, but still want access at some point, will the program see this as a change, and discard the original from my archive?
This is probably pretty basic, but I just want to understand what I'm doing before I start. Thanks!
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4)

Also, I've read about backup programs, ie. Retrospect, and I believe the drive comes with one from Western Digital. If I understand how they work, they copy designated files to the external and then periodically compare with the internal, and if there are changes, back them up. What happens to the 'original' file. What I'm really wondering is...if I am getting this as an archive, so I can remove certain photos and videos to make space on my main drive, but still want access at some point, will the program see this as a change, and discard the original from my archive?
If you use SuperDuper, which I wholeheartedly recommend, you can partition your new external drive (use Disk Utility to do this), and use one partition to clone your drive (automatic backups will reflect what's on your main drive, so if you delete media from it, it will be deleted from the backup as well), and the other partition to archive your photos and videos. The second partition will not be affected by any backing up you do with SD. I suggest getting a large firewire drive, so that you will have space to do both.
I have been using a LaCie Porsche drive for a couple of years and have had absolutely no issues with it.
Miriam

Yosemite: Western Digital External Drives fully supported?

I use a Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II 2TB via FireWire as my TimeMachine backup drive. I still run Mavericks on my iMac 27" 2012 model (Core i5, 2.9 Ghz, 8GB Ram, 1TB Fusion drive).
It had no problems with Mavericks since I updated to wd drive manager 3.1.0.14, which had been released after reports of data loss with WD Drives. There is still no update from WD for Yosemite. I hesitate to update to Yosemite since I found this post: http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/WD-4T-MyBook-studio-II-extrem ely-slow/td-p/815385. Did anyone try it?

There is a similar query here. http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/WD-My-Passport-for-Mac-1TB-an d-OS-X-Yosemite/td-p/811837
Initial reports do not look good
This had got to be one of the most debilitating bugs ever, particularly for users like me with an Air who rely on external HDDs for the majority of storage.

HELP!!!!! How do I back up using Western Digital External Hard Drive

I just bought a western digital external hard drive dual option media center and combo external storage. It came with a Dantz Retrospect Express backup software. I can't seem to get it to work. It installs ok, but when I try to open up the software it opens and closes with an error message. What am I doing wrong? How do I back up my files, programs, iTunes and Movies? Is there an easy way to do this? I've ask a lot of people and know can seem to give me a straight answer. PLEASE HELP!!

Hi Marc and welcome!
It is possible that the version of Dantz Retrospect does not work with Tiger. You do not need to use that program. In fact, a lot of people feel it is rather clumsy and feature-crippled to the point that it is not really useful.
Is that drive a combo FireWire and USB drive? IF so, there is a phenominal program called SuperDuper that does much, much more than Retrospect. It will clone your hard drive which means it will make an exact copy of every last bit and byte and then make it bootable so you can actually boot your Mac from your external drive in the event of a hardware or software problem. It costs only $27.95, but it is well worth it and highly recommended.
There are other programs that do what SuperDuper does, but I like SD best. Carbon Copy Cloner, and LaCie's SilverKeeper are the others most often mention, but their support is not as good as SD's. Both required updates to work with Tiger while SD worked from Day 1.
Plug the drive in and open your Mac's Disk Utility and partition it if you want. One it is formatted in HFS it will work fine.

Hallo ,why is it that when I delete a photo ,which is backed up by time machine and western digital external hard drive , that I am able to restore the photo okay but not the titles and descriptions . I have a Macbook 4.1, mac osx 10.5.8 . Iphoto 7.1.5 ,

QUESTION.
Hallo , my question is ;whenever I delete a photo and restore it through Time machine and Western digital external hard drive , I am able to restore the photo but not the titles and descriptions . Western Digital inform me that it isn't their external hard drive problem and suggest that it is an Apple software problem ?
I am using a Macbook 4.1 , with Mac OSX 10.5.8 . I photo 7.1.5 , last modifie4d 01/05/2010 -universal . Should I be upgrading Iphoto ?
I hope that someone is able to help in this matter , as i have to restore 12000 photos !
Thanking you in anticipation.
Alan from Wigton

Hallo Kieth ,
I am not quite ready to restore the full iphoto library , as I have days of work re - imputting titles,descriptions and enhancement . I hope that your suggestion works , as I use my Macbook basically to work with digital photography. Through time , I will need to delete my library to recover more disc space and I would hate to have to spend more time re - imputting titles and descriptions all over again .
Thanks for your interest and advice.
regards - Alan

I have a western digital external hard drive that needs to be re formatted for use on my but iMac but I do not want to lose existing data

I have a Western Digital external hard drive that needs to be re formatted for use on my iMac, but I do not want to lose existing data, is this possible ?

Formatting a disk always erases all the data on it. Your only option is to back it up elsewhere and restore it once formatted.

Western Digital External Drive unmounts when USB used

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