[goblues27]

I had all sorts of problems with contacting WD about Button Manager and Leopard and once I finally got an answer after 3 weeks of automated answers and general not reading the question, the answer was there's no estimated date for support for Leopard. This horrible customer support experience has made me decide 100% that I will NEVER purchase a WD drive again.

[Mat_WD]

Hi,
I am affiliated with Western Digital. Here are some answers to your questions/comments:
- I am sorry to hear about the issues that some of you experienced with the Button Manager under Leopard. A software update is expected to be posted on Western Digital's web site on Feb 6th.
- My Book Studio drives have 5 year warranty.
- My Book Studio drives are fanless as they use new GreenPower drives (low power consumption and operating heat).
Hope this helps.
Mat

[goblues27]

Hi Matt. Thank you so much for the update. Will this software update also be compatible with my MyBook Home (500GB) drive?

[Mat_WD]

As far as I know this software update is for the My Book Studio. You can send me a private message with more details about your situation. Maybe I can help.

Thanks.

Mat

[losaltos]

Here's the text of the Knowledge Base article on the Western Digital web site cited by sandbag1. I was checking out the WD Home Edition and Studio Edition for use with my Powerbook G4 both for Time Machine and for a bootable clone via Superduper. According to this item in the WD knowledge base, they won't work (and neither will several other WD drives) for making bootable clones on Power PC Macs; the claim is that that is not the case with Intel based machines.

-------------------------
Power PC based Macintosh computers are unable to boot to a My Book external hard drive.

Last Updated 01/23/2008 01:20 PM


Question

Why am I unable to boot to a WD My Book external hard drive using a Power PC (PPC) Based Macintosh computer?

Answer

Problem:

Power PC based Macintosh computer systems are unable to boot to the following My Book external hard drive:
My Book Pro II Edition
My Book Premium II Edition
My Book Home Edition
My Book Studio Edition

Intel Macintosh computers are not affected by this issue and are able to be booted from My Book external hard drives if the partition on the drive has been setup as a GUID partition scheme.

Cause:

This issue is a Macintosh bug cause by the Mac ROM code of the computer and how it attempts to boot from the first SCSI LUN it detects (LUN 0). In the case of the aforementioned hard drives, the LUN 0 device is dedicated to the button board and safe removal tools of the hard drive case and not the internal hard drive, thus causing booting to be impossible.

Resolution:

There is currently no resolution to this issue. If a resolution is found by Apple, this answer will be updated with this information.

-------------------------------
Bottom line: if you want to make bootable clones for use with a Power PC Mac, get a different manufacturer's drive. I have had success with a 250 GB La Cie for several years now. I was just looking for a larger drive and saw an excellent price on WD 500 GB and 1 TB drives at Costco. I guess I'll pass them up!

[tonypatti]

My drive also sleeps and dismounts itself if not used for a few minutes. It also will not boot under any circumstances I have been able to create, including installing a clean system. I actually replaced a drive that did the same thing and the new drive is no different.
These drives are unreliable, utter crap and Apple should be ashamed of selling them in their stores.

[switchtoamac]

I prefer to use Lacie drives.

[DHart]

I had a similar experience with a WD digital drive where their customer support was slow to respond and definitely less than clear and helpful. Didn't leave me with a positive feeling about the company at all.
I have and have had quite a number of LaCie drives over the years and have had exceptionally good service and excellent phone support (rarely needed) from LaCie. I'm about to add another LaCie Quadra Drive to my portrait studio, which is all-Mac-based and has been since day one.

[Mat_WD]

Just wanted to let you know that a software & firmware update has been posted this week on the Western Digital web site:

http://support.wdc.com/download/

The update is for My Book Studio and My Book Home. Select your drive and then download:

- WD Drive Manager (MAC)

- My Book Studio Firmware Update Mac or My Book Home Firmware Update Mac

Hope this helps.

Mat

[alvarorb]

Matt,

Those are great news!. But what does the update address?
There's no readme file. No info on the website. What does this 40MB firmware update do?

Call me crazy. But I would not install a firmware update without knowing what it is. What problems it solves. And what are it's known incompatibilities.

Alvaro

[Mat_WD]

Sorry I don't have all the details. I am not part of tech team. The Drive Manager is an update for the Button Manager software.

The Firmware update fixes some issues with Leopard.

Mat

[cmleys]

Thanks for alerting us to the updaters, Mat.

I have performed both updates on an iMac G5 running 10.5.2, and I thought I would post my experience for those who are apprehensive.

First of all, everything worked out well in the end. I now have a fuel gauge that works appropriately, and TM has had no trouble backing up to the drive since updating. I also now have a "WD" menu bar icon that indicates drive status.

I started with the Drive Manager software that installs on the Mac, since this seemed safer than updating firmware. The new "Drive Manager" installer seems to uninstall the previously installed "Button Manager" (which did not work in Leopard anyway). Drive Manager is a replacement for Button Manager, and seems to serve the same function, just a different name.

Unexpectedly, the fuel gauge light still did NOT work properly after updating the software alone. It seems the firmware update is necessary as well to make this work with the new Drive Manager. So, on to the firmware update.

The instructions for running the firmware updater indicate several things you MUST do or not do. One of those items states:
"WD Button Manager MUST be unstalled from the system"
"Unstalled" is not a word in the English language, but I took that to mean "uninstalled."
I was not sure if the new Drive Manager would be OK to have installed while running the firmware updater, so just to be safe, I UNinstalled the newly installed Drive Manager prior to running the firmware update (again, BM seemed to have been removed already). This may not be necessary, but a call to some clueless support rep in India did not clarify the question.

The firmware updater ran without a hitch. I restarted, then reinstalled Drive Manager, and all is well.

Hope this helps. Good luck to the rest of you.

Charles
Message was edited by: cmleys
Well, I need to retract my statement that "all is well."
After stepping away from my Mac for a while, it of course went to sleep. Upon waking from sleep, the WD My Book Studio spontaneously dismounted itself, and the Mac OS gave me the usual warning that a device was improperly removed, advising me to eject disks to avoid data loss, etc. I then tried a few different scenarios and found that the drive will go to sleep (pulsating light) and wake up fine -- as long as the computer itself does not go to sleep. If both computer and drive go to sleep, then the drive disappears on awakening. This did not always happen when I forced the Mac to sleep mode from the Apple menu (which also put the WD drive to sleep), but happened every time when the computer went to sleep based on idle time. I therefore suspect that the firmware is OK (drive can sleep and wake on its own just fine). Rather, the problem remains with the "Drive Manager" software and how it talks to the drive when the computer wakes from sleep. So, I UNinstalled the Drive Manager once again, and now, sure enough, the sleep-wake problem is resolved. However, I am now back to where I started before today -- a "fuel gauge" that STILL does NOT WORK under Leopard!!! At least the drive is functional. But COME ON WD! Leopard has been out for quite a while now, and the lack of Leopard support is disgusting.

[sandbag1]

Are you able to create a bootable backup copy?

[cmleys]

Time Machine does not create a bootable copy, and I have not tried using other software.
As others have pointed out, you can not boot a PPC Mac using this drive anyway, and I am using an iMac G5.
So, even with the new updates, still no booting for me.
But the Drive Manager update is not all it's cracked up to be. See the edit in my post above.
The fuel gauge does work under Leopard, but if you let your Mac go to sleep, you may have the trouble I had.
I ended up uninstalling Drive Manager so the drive would stay mounted when the computer wakes from sleep.