Western Digital warns of disk data loss in OS X Mavericks upgrade
Western Digital has emailed customers warning them about possible data loss issues between external hard drives and the latest version of Apple's Mac software, OS X Mavericks (10.9).
Customers received the email over the weekend. Many have already taken to the company's forums to complain of issues. It follows earlier reports of driver issues relating to Thunderbolt drives and arrays earlier this month.
A Western Digital spokesperson confirmed to ZDNet in an emailed statement that there were problems with Western Digital and other external hard drive problems experiencing data loss when updating to OS X Mavericks.
The company is "urgently investigating" the reports, and examining a possible connection with its own software, notably the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software applications.
Western Digital "strongly urges our customers to uninstall these software applications on their systems before updating to OS X Mavericks, or delay upgrading," the spokesperson said.
As a result of the possible connection between its own software range and the Apple desktop and notebook operating system, the company has pulled the aforementioned applications from its website while the investigation is ongoing.
However, numerous threads include concerns about data loss, even when the Western Digital software was not in use.
"I have had multiple cases of data loss on WD drives since upgrading to Mavericks, and I do not use any WD software," according to one user.
Others have taken to Apple's own forums to seek support and assistance.
We've put in questions to Apple, but did not hear back at the time of publication. We'll update this post once we learn more.