If you are about to upgrade to OS X Mavericks you might want to stay away from Western Digital external hard drives until your upgrade is complete.
The company on Sunday sent an email to customers, warning of data loss that can be experienced when upgrading to Mavericks. The problem arises if the Mac user performing the upgrade has Western Digital Drive Manager, Raid Manager, or SmartWare applications installed on the Mac,
Western Digital responded to the external hard drive problems after numerous users starting complaining in a company support forum . Users were quick to complain of their experiences with data loss after upgrading to Mavericks with the applications installed.
Thankfully for users who have not yet upgraded their is an option to keep using your WD external drive. Simply uninstall all three pieces of software listed above, upgrade to the new Mavericks OS, and then reinstall the software and plug in your hard drive. That process will save your data and ensure a smooth upgrade to the new OS.
Western Digital has removed the software download from its website until a suitable upgrade fix can be offered to future Apple Mavericks OS customers.
While the OS X Mavericks OS has been highly touted for more than 200 new features and better memory management, it has not been without faults. Many users, this writer included, have experienced maxed out CPU usage that slows down their old and new Apple systems. Other users have complained that after coming out of sleep mode audio no longer works on their Macbook-based devices.
Apple has not responded to all of the problems associated with the OS X Mavericks upgrade.
Have you upgraded to the new free Apple OS? What are you initial thoughts on the platform, is it a big win worth the download or could you have lived without it?