OS X Mavericks Having Data Issues on Some External Drives

While many Mac owners have been dipping their toes into the latest Mac OS update, Mavericks, a few have been having some other strange problems. According to growing complaints from the Apple Support Communities forum, some users have found that their Western Digital and LaCie hard drives have been turning up… empty after upgrading to the new OS. In most of these cases, users have configured their drives using third party utilities or manufacturer-provided software like the Western Digital Drive Manager.

To what I'm sure will be the relief of many, the data isn't actually gone, it's just not being accurately reported to the OS. If you've upgraded to Mavericks and find yourself missing some critical data, there are a few things you can do.

First, you should try to create a secondary back-up using an additional computer if you haven't already done so. If something goes wrong down the line, you at least have a back-up for your back-up. Next, check with the manufacturer of your external drive; many of them have updated utilities that you can run that will solve the problem.

If you're still having trouble, you can try to roll back to an earlier version of your OS, but depending upon whether or not you've been using the now non-functional external for Time Machine updates, that may present its own array of challenges.

Apple has yet to officially acknowledge the issue, but chances are good that there will be a fix before too much longer. Until then, keep checking Apple Support Communities, your HDD manufacturer and, of course, Google, to make sure you aren't risking your data unnecessarily.

Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

  • antilycus
    Or, instead of being happy you spent 8x's the asking price of a compariable PC, you just install Debian Linux on it, which is free. YOu can create, open, edit and save Microsoft Office documents. You can connect to an exchange server, you can surf the next and get all the flash of a new operating system. all for free... www.debian.org
    Reply
  • ohim
    You`re by any chance the spokesman for linux OS`s? As much as i hate Apple, i hate this kind of replies even more.
    Reply
  • smokeybravo
    I've been using Mavericks since it was released and I have not encountered a single glitch.
    Reply
  • house70
    11825886 said:
    Or, instead of being happy you spent 8x's the asking price of a compariable PC, you just install Debian Linux on it, which is free. YOu can create, open, edit and save Microsoft Office documents. You can connect to an exchange server, you can surf the next and get all the flash of a new operating system. all for free... www.debian.org

    According to what you said, one would be better off if one will just spend 1/8th of that price on a Windows PC (which makes perfect sense). The whole Debian thing is just fringe stuff for majority of people, anyways.
    Reply
  • swordrage
    @antilycus, but windows is free.. if u know what I mean.
    Reply
  • Darkk
    Switching from MAC OS to Linux won't fix the issue. I am a long time Linux user and been very happy with it. Just telling folks go Linux and be happy isn't going to fix all their problems at one setting. My mom is perfectly happy with Linux Mint as it does all the things she needs to do such as checking emails, surf the web and office documents.

    Anything major like Adobe Photoshop can't run in Linux natively without going through Wine. Yes there are apps that will provide similar functionality as the big boys without high licensing cost and in most cases it's free.

    It's great that we have a choice of what OS to use. It really boils down to what the needs are and how friendly is it for the users to use. Mac, Windows and Linux Desktops are very to use. Just all work in different ways. Some are used to work in one way while others may learn how to do it differently. Those are the two kinds of people we have to deal with every day.
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    Another issue with Mavericks is incompatibility with older software. I have a nonprofit trying to update their systems to Mavericks, but will have to wait because it does not work with anything older than Office 2011 Mac. Thankfully they are a nonprofit, so there is Techsoup to get them a cheap upgrade, but I could see this being an issue for companies who were once flush with cash and upgraded to all mac systems, but now after a few years of a bad economy can't afford several copies of office for their machines for the 'free' Mavericks upgrade.
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    Oh dear, in the last couple of months we have had iPhone 5S with BSOD, defective batteries, iWorks has been raped for iOS7, now Mavericks is screwing with drives

    Steve Jobs is spinning in his grave right now
    Reply
  • therogerwilco
    Another fine example of how Apple lacks quality these days. Jobs probably did QA for everything before he died, seems like Tim Cook doesn't use Macs at all.
    Reply
  • stevejnb
    Wilco, I don't think the ceo of a company using the OS himself is going to do much for this type of quality control. These are not ubiquitous problems so unless the CEO happened to be one of the unlucky ones, said CEO using the software wouldn't do squat.

    I suspect the problem is more a case of Apple finally feeling the pressure of competition and now they're starting to tighten deadlines and budgets and try and do more with releases - in short, over extend their software development and QA departments. Even if they commit more resources, just throwing money at an piece of software doesn't make it better - a bigger, more well funded team working on a bigger project needs better organization for things to come off as smoothly as a smaller team working on a smaller project, even if the dollars/manpower vs time/scope of project ratio works out in favour of the larger team.
    Reply