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(More customer reviews)I have been using the WD Studio II 2TB on my 2008 iMac OSX 10.5.6 for two weeks. Connection: firewire 800. Today, it did not mount when I booted the computer.
Checked the WD Website Knowledge Base.
Discovered two things:
1. Knowledge Base Answer 1697: "This issue is caused by the external hard drive's built in auto on/off functionality not correctly receiving a command from the computer system to wake from a power saver mode."
Why does the auto on/off functionality not correctly receive the command from the computer system? WD goes on to suggest installing their WD Drive Manager.
Well, WD Drive Manager is already installed, how else could a user have arrived at this impasse to begin with?
And then they suggest to dismount the drive. How do you dismount an unmounted drive?
2. Knowledge Base Answer 1680: "This is an technical limitation between the FireWire interfaces on the Macintosh computer and the external hard drive."
By "the external hard drive" WD means THEIR brand of external hard drive. I have never had this specific problem with any other brands of external hard drives connected to my Macintosh computer.
When is WD going to fix this "technical limitation" that they have built into their Studio II external hard drive? I would say, that is a pretty serious "technical limitation."
1680 goes on to explain the workaround solution, essentially a routine disconnecting the power cable and reconnecting. Nice.
My hope is that this entire situation is the result of following the apparently misleading instructions shown in the Studio II manual: chapter 7, "Turning Off/Disconnecting the Device."
Since "Auto-off" is the first entry in this chapter, it leads the user to believe that this is the preferred way to operate the drive. Guess not: as it turns out, the hidden "technical limitation" of the firewire connection will eventually cause the problem I have described. I suppose I can't rely on "Auto-off." Use "Safe Shutdown" only, even though the instructions in the manual differ from the instructions presented in WD Knowledge Base Answer 976!
And, speaking of conflicting instructions, compare WD Knowledge Base Answer 1386 with the Auto-off instructions in the manual.
Based on all of this information from WD, conflicting and otherwise, my guess is that the Auto-off feature is problematic (at least with Macintosh computers) because of firewire "technical limitations" caused by the WD external drive design. This fact, if it is a fact, should be expressed clearly in the manual.
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