I have a Lacie 500GB external hard drive SAMSUNG HD501LJ Where the power adaptor failed and the data is gone. Yes, GONE.

I have scanned the drives for HFS+ or any others but found nothing at all. Rstudio, nucleus, mediatools, x-ways, etc etc, nothing found.

Weird, does anyone have this experience in the past?

The drive Samsung HD501LJ checked using UDMA and all working fine.

How does the disk appear in Winhex?

Also check the disk in a hex editor (winhex). Save a lot of time. You should be able to see if data is on the disk or if it's all zero's. If 'data' can be seen try UFS Explorer, then try a file signiture search.

Winhex screenshot:

File header search, none found.

Is it the same values throughout the disk?

no, i see some different data when i scroll it down.

Was it your Lacie or from customer? I suspect some intervention...

Customer's, i asked did anyone look at it before me, he said nobody.

Is it encrypted? What about results from a file signiture search?

ahhhhh HDD Spaz, you have given me a brilliant clue now, the LACIE has biometric finger print , maybe its encrypted after all. I'll check it out tomorrow. thanks.

Not bad for a spaz eh?

Ask your client to send his finger in the post. Or you could look for prints on the unit and mould it with synthetic skin. then place print over your finger, wallaa! Yes, I watch too much CSI.

I have worked with 128-bit AES encrypted flash drives where the raw contents look like this. That was my first guess.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Had one of these recently with the fingerprint scanner. Unfortunately customer would not send in his finger so couldnt recover

Actually, customer was no help at all and as soon as I began explaining about encryption he requested his media back so never really got a chance to look at it. No doubt it will be difficult.

Good luck with it

thanks guys, the drive indeed encrypted, I chopped customer's finger off to get the data.