Data loss in Externa Drive due to Device Removal

i have an ibook and connected an external hard disk. while the led in the ehd was still blinking, the wire got disconnected and the device removal error appeared.

AND MY DATA DISAPPEARED!

I did not do a delete, it was just reading/loading.

Anybody who has experienced data loss with a device removal error? and more importantly, how do i recover my files?

The external hard disk used to work before. It had 2 partitions. It still can be read and data can be written. It's just that the data that was there before vanished.

HELP!

If you want any hope at all of recovering those lost files, do NOT USE the drive! Even the act of attaching the drive to your iBook can cause overwriting of the data.

Data recovery software may work. Here's a good one: Link

Here's another: Link

Regards.

thanks! i tried data rescue but it will take a couple of thousand of hours just to scan!

I'll try the other one.

any explanation on why this happened? this happened with some usb disks too but my data remains intact.

On modern OS's when a drive is mounted, files are open. You say the activity light was blinking which indicates files were being opened or written to. To just pull the cable when activity is taking place can cause all sorts of damage. Some do it all the time and are very lucky they loose nothing. I have accidently pulled the cable many times and most nothing lost but a couple of times the whole drive was corrupted. I have had this with both Flash drives and norman HD's.