My Book Studio Edition II - Lion compatible? Not buying until positive reply. [ Edited ]

[Bruno77]

Dear all,

I can see several users are having problems with the Western Digital (2TB) My Book Studio Edition II and the new Lion OSX. I'm looking into buying excactly one of these drives, but am holding off until an official statement of compatability is made. 

Is there a time schedule for this?

Will it involve a firmware update?

Will this mean new drives will have to be released?

Thanks in advance, I've put email notivicatoin on for answers and am waiting to see if I should get one of these or a compeeting brand.

Cheers

Bruno77

[oxter]

Normally, when a drive is compatible with an OS, WD listed in they Website. At this moment, Lion is not listed as supported.

Try to contact WD Tech support directly, they can give a direct answer if there is  a firmware update in the work.

[Wayne]

If it's one of the smartware drives, then it should work.  but if it's one of the older drives, then I doubt it.  those are already considered end of life.

[paul55391]

The app "WD Drive Manager" on the CD that came with the drive, crashes during the installation. I then downloaded a version that is supposed to work with Lion. It doesn't install either although the installer reports success. The Console reports use of a deprecated system call and indefinitely repeats a "Bad file descriptor" error. Here follows a portion of the system log:

<snip>

10/31/11 10:10:11.440 PM authexec: executing /Volumes/WD Drive Manager Installer.app/WD Drive Manager Installer.app/Contents/MacOS/WD Installer
10/31/11 10:10:16.824 PM [0x0-0x49049].WD Drive Manager Installer: 2011-10-31 22:10:16.821 WD Installer[1321:5c27] CFURLCreateWithString was passed this invalid URL string: '/Library/Preferences/loginwindow.plist' (a file system path instead of an URL string). The URL created will not work with most file URL functions. CFURLCreateWithFileSystemPath or CFURLCreateWithFileSystemPathRelativeToBase should be used instead.
10/31/11 10:10:21.356 PM [0x0-0x49049].WD Drive Manager Installer: 2011-10-31 22:10:21.354 WD Installer[1321:5c27] CFURLCreateWithString was passed this invalid URL string: '/Library/Preferences/loginwindow.plist' (a file system path instead of an URL string). The URL created will not work with most file URL functions. CFURLCreateWithFileSystemPath or CFURLCreateWithFileSystemPathRelativeToBase should be used instead.
10/31/11 10:10:23.909 PM [0x0-0x4c04c].6.0: <handleKernelQueueEvent> An error occurred (event count -1). The error was Bad file descriptor.
10/31/11 10:10:26.910 PM [0x0-0x4c04c].6.0: <handleKernelQueueEvent> An error occurred (event count -1). The error was Bad file descriptor.
10/31/11 10:10:29.911 PM [0x0-0x4c04c].6.0: <handleKernelQueueEvent> An error occurred (event count -1). The error was Bad file descriptor.

<snip>

[Bruno77 · Accepted solution]

I finally gave up on this drive

Either too many bad reviews, confusing responses from this site, or the feeling that WD simply does not want to solve this. Other drives like OWC, ICY Box works fine with lion.

Good luck.

[paul55391]

I called Western Digital tech support today and was told that they would be releasing a version of their software for Mac OS X Lion within 1 to 2 weeks.

Forget about the version on their website that purports to be for Lion. It doesn't work. (Look at the system log using Console when you try to install the software and you will see what I mean.)

[anneUK]

I checked your specification for My Book for MAC drive, model number WDBAAG0010HCH 1 TB and it states that it's compatible with Snow Leopard, the spec does NOT state that it's compatible with MAC OS X LION.

I need to be sure that I'm purchasing a drive that's compatible and ready to go for use with OS X LION 10.7.3. I asked tech support to direct me to a SPECIFICATION in writing that states compatibility with Lion.  

I received the following response: "we launch a firmware update to create the compatibility between the drive and the Mac OS 10.7x Lion. The WD Universal Firmware Updater 3.1.0.10."

This is a fix and not ideal.  When do you plan to launch a 1TB external drive that is fully compatible with OS X LION 10.7.3?  Do you have a date  or timeline?

[Wizer]

All of the latest drives work with Lion

Even the one you are mentioning which is a couple of years old

updating the turbo drivers is the only thing required in most cases

[anneUK]

Thank you, appreciate your feedback, that seems the only solution for now.

I'd still like to see "Lion compatible" stated on the spec sheet.

[Wizer]

I see

this is just because at the time of the spec sheet Lion was not available

and as you can see this drive is not even displayed on WD's web anymore

it's been discontinued.. but support info still available