I’ve written before about some things to consider before attempting “DIY” or letting a friend or computer shop fix your flash drive. We recently recovered a SanDisk Cruzer USB drive which serves as another great example of the risks that come with these attempts. One assumption many people make is that computer repair shops are […]
The single most common failure for USB flash drives is a broken USB connector. Accidents happen easily; the drive is plugged in the side of your computer and somebody bumps into it, or your toddler knocks your laptop off the table, or you forget about it and shove the laptop in your bag without taking […]
We recently completed a flash recovery case where the drive was not repairable, and a chip-off recovery was not, at first, successful. Once Clint had determined that the device was not physically repairable, it came to me to dump the memory chip to attempt a logical recovery. The controller on the device was a Chipsbank […]
We recently completed data recovery for a customer with a 32GB Lexar Jump Drive which had taken an impact while plugged into a USB port, and, as is the case with many of these Lexar flash drives, the impact flexed the circuit board enough to lift the controller (Silicon Motion SM3267L AB) and tear solder […]
When it comes to flash memory devices – whether USB flash drives or memory cards like SD and MicroSD – there are two main types of construction: surface-mounted technology (SMT) and monolithic. SMT type devices are made of distinct components soldered to a printed circuit board, which requires a certain amount of space to fit […]
There are all kinds of ways to accidentally break a USB drive – accidents happen, and these little devices can be fragile. When they take a bad hit, the most common damage is just a detached USB connector, and if you’re going to experience a broken flash drive, that’s the way you want it to […]
Lexar, along with SanDisk and PNY, is one of the more common brands of USB flash drive we see in the data recovery lab. While many flash drives that we recover suffer from either a broken connector or a bad component (which can range from a simple blown resistor to a failing NAND), we’ve known […]
It’s not uncommon to see a USB flash device (UFD) with a broken connector. In many cases, the the micro traces get torn, so just replacing the connector won’t be enough to repair the device. If you are sure you just need to replace the connector, here are the common pinouts for wiring the USB […]
In this case we have a conventional Alcor AU6998SN based USB flash drive with a Toshiba monolith (THNU3EN00PL07) re-purposed as the NAND. With our PC-3000 Flash tool and the Spiderboard adapter from Ace Laboratories we can read the data directly from the NAND, bypassing the controller. You never know what you will find when you […]