Received K9U with single USB cable - HD is not recognized on my iMac

Yep, I believe this is because the hard drives are probably bulk-loaded at a production facility, probably via a benchtop-direct SATA connection for speed and efficiency. THEN they are installed into the fancy pewter-metal enclosures with the USB connectors, and inserted into the retail or OEM packaging.

If anything goes wrong during the bulk-load, they probably get a message saying so and they bin the drive. But if the bulk-load goes fine and something goes wrong in the subsequent assembly or packaging phases, there's no real "check" of this and the customer receives a drive that doesn't work. So to the customer, it's all bad and it doesn't matter what portion of the process failed or how minor/simple it may have been.

 

I've received a faulty HDD as well. In this case the light comes on, the HDD spins up etc. but I get "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." It came with the Y cable - which I used as advised to no effect - both with and without an external powered hub.

I think it's a little ridiculous that it was sent in such inappropriate packaging - I thought it was common knowledge that disk drives do NOT cope well with being shaken around?! I'm further discouraged by the fact that people have been complaining about this for well over a year* and NI haven't done anything to address the packaging issue.

I've submitted my request to support... I guess I'll be waiting a while as they've probably got a few of angry customers with faulty HDDs to get through... urgh.

* complaints about the same issue with K8U from 2011: http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?147367-Bad-Hard-Drive-with-Komplete-8-Ultimate

 

"Urgh" is right. There is a definite problem here, which is why I purchase any NI products (that aren't downloadable) through a reseller. Sweetwater is always fast to respond and ship out a replacement drive, whereas NI might not be so competent at handling such issues.

Also, I think that the hard drive media, as many moving parts as it has, is more reliable than anything distributed on optical media, and may also be cheaper as a result. It's only a matter of time before DVD distribution is completely eliminated as a media option.

 

Yeah, I agree - I wouldn't have bought through NI if the offer was available at another retailer, but as far as I know this was a direct from NI only deal.

I think this approach to content distribution is great - I just hope that in future the products are packaged appropriately and perhaps are more robust (i.e. SSDs - though it's not really cost effective as yet). This sort of thing is just wasting both their time and that of their customers. It's just not acceptable.

 

Hi Nicko29....Mine is black color and could not find screw -- Komplete 9 Ultimate crossgrade...

 

Hi ...I could not find screw...

 

+1. I took xtc's advice and I had the exact same issue! I just slid the HD back into the circuit board, and I'm happily installing K9U as we speak.

Anyone who's remotely technical, I suggest trying this before you send it back to NI.

Good luck all, and thanks xtc!

 

Fully installed with no issues. Good luck all.

 

Nicko29 & xtc091157, you gentlemen have saved my life.

It never crossed my mind to open it up and see what's going on. I'm just so used to disappointment. I also opened it up, slid the drive into the circuit board, and it's spinning perfectly and looks like I'll finally be able to install today. Thank you a TON... I've been waiting almost a wweek now just for a return shipping label. I'm very gla they didnt send it... and I'm glad I checked back to this thread... something I normally don't do.

This is clearly a manufacturing issue that NI needs to be made aware of promptly. I will call and tell them once I have everything fully installed... just in case something goes haywire. But... whoever is putting these together in the factories overseas for NI is absolutely sabotaging NI and their customers. It just looks like someone was rushing on their shift and did not push it in all the way before the enclosure was screwed on. It's crazy how one bad batch... one careless person.. can effect so many people relying on them to do their jobs. This needs to be brought to NI's attention asap.

Hopefully a moderator has seen this thread with the solution by now. What a headache!!! I put a client off for 3 weeks b/c of this... ridiculous. At least it's up and running now... thanks a ton for figuring this out guys.

 

This was a direct from the manufacturer deal. I purchased the crossgrade since I also grabbed Maschine Studio... at the end of the day... I only paid $375 for K9U. That's insane lol. At that price... I couldn't even be mad having to wait for it for a month and then when finally receiving it and it not working. I was heated but... the part that kept me sane was knowing that I essentially got it for around 62.5% off.

 

i have recieved my k9u with the y usb and it does not recognize on my imac and wanted to try to open the hd up and possibly attach the drive to the connectors, i have the black crossgrade HD and i do not kno how to open it up. I see no screw on it

 

Same here. I see no screw I can use to open the box. I'd like to try the solution mentioned though.
Just don't wanna break anything getting inside. Been almost a week since I entered my ticket and
no response from NI Support.

 

Mine is black and plastic case too, I used little screw driver to open and change new enclosure and it works and spend time for installation around 6 hours....its contents to lacie rugged 1T thunderbolt...

 

Chotsaeng, can you elaborate on how you got yours open?
I also have a black enclosure and can't see any screws on it at all...did you just pry it open?

What I came to find out is that whomever loaded the drives loaded them using a WINDOWS NTFS compressed formatting (not FAT32, or other widely recognized formatting types)
What this means, especially for mac users...is that no matter how good the cable is, the drive won't be recognized as a MOUNTABLE drive...it'll see it (in disk utility) but nothing will happen.

So, I had the benefit of having a Windows PC running WinXP and I was able to get the disc to mount. Trouble is I don't use my PC for music.
I went to try to copy the contents to another drive and it stalled several times.

I did hear that IF you can get the disk to mount on a MAC you can use a terminal command or free application (there are many out there) that allows you to see hidden files. By seeing the hidden files you can copy the entire contents to another drive using drag-and-drop...then you can go about installing.

For me, though, I have been an NI customer since Komplete 3 and I have had to do more work fixing their errors (through the KORE debacle and other upgrades) that I have reached my limit.
I spent money for a quality hard drive, with a quality enclosure, and a no-hack-apporach to installation. When NI finally contacts me via the support ticket I will be asking for a replacement hard drive...even though there are several tricks to get your software to work.

I did NOT just pay for the software...I paid for the enclosure, the customer service, the experience, and the expectation that a company this big would have their act together by now. So metal vs. plastic isn't about metal vs. plastic for me...it's about the age-old truth of customer satisfaction...easy to lose and important to maintain.

 

I agree totally.

Tho it can't be FAT32 as its file limit is 2gb.

I can get it to start installing is i de-selete the last two Kontack library's (bass and wild africa), but it never finishes, stuck on the last 6/4/1 min even time i try it. I also leave it over night for hours stuck on that last bit but never finishes. Also formated my Mac and started from scratch, still didnt help.

 

Hi,....Just try to force up

 

I had the black enclosure as well. As Chotsaeng said - you basically just need to force it open. The top basically pushes and locks into place, so you'll break the enclosure in the process, but that's the only way to get into the black plastic caddy. I did this only after I got confirmation from NI from both Order Support and Technical Support that I should destroy the drive if it's not working, and they'll send out a new one. So I figured I may as well try and open it up.

I managed to get the enclosure open and tried re-inserting the drive, as well as using a different drive caddy (along with several different Y-cables and single cable configurations), but to no avail - in my case the drive is dead, so I'm waiting for a replacement from NI. It seems that I managed to speed things along by calling them, as they said they'll ship a new one out on Tuesday (as I hadn't heard anything yet via my support ticket).

I don't know if the same procedure's followed in the US (for some reason a lot of people in the US have mentioned having to return their damaged drives - this wasn't required in my case), but if they've told you to destroy the drive anyway, then there's no harm in breaking it open.