Data recovery after WD Security utility erase

Software WD Utilities
1

Hi everyone!

I am trying to recover files from WD Passport which was erased by WD security utility.

Background story: a fried ask me to help her with file recovery. She was using WD passport 500G external drive and installed WD security utility, thus drive was protected by password. One day she was forgot her passport and tried to enter it multiple times till message box appeared. Without paying attention she pressed YES and WD security utility wiped her drive. Now she knows her password but files are gone.

Things I have already tried:

  1. Created forensics image of drive
  2. Scanned image and drive with testdisk
  3. Scanned image and drive with photorec

Unfortunately no luck yet. Although I have done some successful recoveries, this is first time I faced encrypted files case.

So my question to community is:
Does anyone know what kind of format/erase WD security utility uses? Is it low format (zero format) or ordinary quick format?

Advises are welcome: tools, methods, link, etc.

2

Hello,

I haven’t try data recovery on a drive after being formatted by the application. Let’s see if the any of the users can share some information about it.

3

I don’t think it would be very “secure” if WD just did a quick format on the drive…