Trying to dig up my notes - idenitfying bplist file

[stawastawa]

Hello,
So I went to do a clean install of OSX 10.9 mavericks on my computer and didn't realize my notation velocity notes were deleted in the process (3 years worth).
I am now trawling through the disk with PhotoRec for plist files trying to find it. Any tips or hints on how to identify the notes file? I have had a few files that looked promising but would never open when I renamed them and pointed NV to them.

Two files attached are what I have been looking at for reference, that are what was stored on an old backup.
Notes & Settings ahmad.txt
Notes & Settings.txt

Two files appear to be the right format but give the error "data could not be serialized" when NV tries to use them.
f77017936 copy dir20.txt
f122206208 copy hoping.txt

Tips for what to look for or how to modify the files found to open them?

Much appreciated,
Nicholas

PS:
(great to see that simple note syncing is up and running! I will use that in the future! (dropbox didn't really work for me when I tried to set that up in the past))

[stawastawa]

A useful bit of information would be to know how large the file could be. I have been expecting something near 1MB, but the two examples above are much larger.

[stawastawa]

I think I found the file, but it has extra data appended to it, how do I determine where to truncate the file? anyone point me to resources on plist files and way to edit them (wont open with plist editor, been doing pattern recognition with my eyeballs and text edit ^.^ )

[stawastawa]

Ah, I did it solution pasted below:
or see it on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/9d31km/help_notational_velocity_trying_to_recover/e5i4iru?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

Huzzah! I used 0xED and was able to truncate the file successfully.

how? my eyeballs basically... I noticed that NSmutableset and Troot appear near the end of existing functioning files. But there are some other gobblydegook characters after that. I had a sense of where I might need to truncate, but was unable to do so in text edit. thats where I was stuck.

Then I got 0xED to look at the file in Hex (for another reason), but decided to look for the ending too. I noticed that there was a hex character at the end that does not appear as text in text edit. Followed by several null characters and then more gobledegook. Truncating here worked! I was able to restore two files (which were recovered using photorec after wiping my HD) and now have all my notes again! time to go back up and synch with simplenote!

image on reddit ... I think