I got a wd 3.5 hard drive from a customer used in a pc as discussed drive and it was asking for formation.

I scanned the whole drive with r-studio and only the files that came with hard drive (like wd manual and logo).

The customer is very confident that it have a lot of documents and pic and videos and this is the original hdd.

What could be the issue here? Does disk compression can case this issue?

It sounds like the drive came from an external enclosure (eg My Book Essentials), in which case the user's data are encrypted. The end of the drive has a SmartWare area which is not encrypted. That's what you are seeing.

Go to WD's warranty verification page and input the drive's serial number. This will tell you the product that the drive was installed in.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

+1

_________________
http://www.alfadatarecovery.com

Inspect some common areas of the drive with a hex editor, what do you see?

_________________
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town