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[Solved] WDC 1tb hdd unable to initialize in High Sierra

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Nov 17, 2017
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Motherboard
Asus P6t (standard)
CPU
Xeon [email protected]
Graphics
Asus GTX970
My current system setup consists of three drives: Samsung EVO850 512gb (system), Seagate ST1000DM003 1tb and WDC Green WD10EACS 1tb. I have a problem initializing WDC in High Sierra 10.13.1. When OS boots up, I get "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer":


C2grhD6.png



Clicking "Initialize" brings up the Disk Utility app, but there's no WDC listed. I'm using AHCI for all drives and both Seagate and WDC are meant to me used as storage for macOS and Win, so both are exFAT formatted. Seagate works perfectly, but WDC won't. I've tried switching SATA channels for those two, and nothing changes (Seagate works, WDC still unable to initialize).

According to System information report, WDC is recognized by OS, but partition map type has been reported as unknown. Here's how it looks:


09ioskv.png


And here's the report for Seagate:



h6R31X9.png


Since both drives are exFAT formatted, it's obvious that macOS has some problem initializing WDC, and it has nothing to do with bios settings. Are there some kext for WDC, required to make it function properly in macOS?
 
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I've just discovered View/Show All Devices option under Disk Utility. It makes WDC listed but when I try to partition it, I got "Erase process has failed" along with description "Unable to write to the last block of the device":

AClBioL.png


What's happening here? It looks like macOS sees this HDD as damaged? I've never had any problems using it from Windows. Chkdsk never reported bad sectors for this drive and there aren't any strange clicking sounds or other sings of dying. Although it always performed a pretty slower then a Seagate, and sometimes it takes about 10 seconds for Bios to initialize WDC... Other than that, nothing else implies that it is about to die soon...
 
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Certain SATA controllers will have issues with AppleAHCIPort v329 (eg ICH10, 5 series, 7 series, ASMedia 1061) ---> Disks may fail to initialize, not readable or hot plug may fail.

Try Apple AHCIPort.kext v328 or Fix for ICH10.
Check [Solved] Drives not showing up in installer "Disk I/O error" and [Solved] ICH10R and High Sierra

Thanks for reply. I'm not sure if it is possible that this problem originates from SATA controller, since the other drive (Seagate 1tb hdd) works normally even when I plug it in WDC's port. It looks like this specific model of WDC can't be recognized by macOS for some reason. Anyway, I'll try those solutions you provided, and post the outcome.
 

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  • Kext_Utility.app.v2.6.5.zip
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To make things easier, I'm attaching both kext and utility for someone with the same problem. Extract both files and drag&drop Kext file to Kext Utility. Restart after completing installation.

Thanks! And to make things easier for me, I'm replying to this! ;-) Thought I liked this post and used it when I reinstalled on my one computers a few months ago. After doing updates recently, the drives started disappearing. I couldn't remember exactly how to fix it, so I spent a while Googling for this. Now that I installed it to /L/E hopefully this won't happen again.
 
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