Jump Drive Recovery :)

[coffee]

Got a fun one in. Customer has a Lexar 8 gig jump drive (flash stick). The stick is non responsive. There is some melting on the outer plastic case where the usb connector is. My thinking on this is that for whatever reason the controller chip overheated and died. What I am thinking of doing is getting another identical Lexar 8 gig and do a memory transfer. Either that or do a controller transfer. However I have a 16 gig Lexar that I thought I would experiment with first.

First thought - Can a 16 gig stick be used instead for a donor stick? Well, Biggest difference is that instead of one Nand chip (8gig) it has two. One on each side. So, Thought is - Can it function with just one stick on it and report just 8 gigs instead of the original 16? So, I removed the mem chip from the underside and plugged it in. Nope. Didnt like that. We come up with some errors in addressing the stick - lol. But the looks of the jump drive is exactly the same.

Now my thinking is, The controller may be programmed for 16 gigs either firmware wise or its just hardware compatible with 16 only.

As for the original jump drive from the customer all the supporting components on it test fine. There are no burn spots of any kind or other indications of letting the magic smoke out. So, It comes down to either the Nand is bad or the controller. Since the melting plastic is where the controller is in relation to the packaging I think its fair to say the controller has gone south on this.

So, Anyone venture into this territory? I will be experimenting a bit further with this 16 gig chip and might break out another 8 gigger to screw with.

Thoughts anyone ? I do see some Nand chip readers but they are going to be way out of my price range.

coffee

 

[coffee]

Is the data on this thing valuable enough to send it out for recovery?

If not, why are you wasting your time on it?

(Too harsh? Sorry - it's one of those mornings where I've had to reheat my first coffee of the day twice already and the phone still won't stop ringing!)

Its important. I would have to ask the customer.

Why spend the time on it? A learning experience really. Its good to learn new things and I like to tinker around with stuff. So, Its not really a waste of time as long as I learn from it.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Drive recovery of this nature requires specialized training and tools, I don't think you can just swap the chip to another key and have it work. I could be wrong, but if you're wrong while learning away goes the data. So tinker, but tinker after the customer has given up.

 

[lcoughey]

Transfer to a donor might work, but the odds of your finding an exact matching thumb drive with the exact same controller are very low. I do chip-off recoveries of Lexar thumb drives all the time and don't think I've encounter the same thing twice.

You need more than a NAND reader to recover from these devices. It requires specialized data recovery tools which are listed in the resource section and are not simple plug and play programs either.

 

[coffee]

My thinking exactly.

Playing with new tools and techniques is fun (and necessary), but not at the client's expense.

Which would be foolish.

I have not touched the clients drive and do not plan too unless I am able to repair it. At the best, I will probably return it and give a recommendation to someone.

@Icoughey - whats your ball park figure to tell a customer?

 

[coffee]

Transfer to a donor might work, but the odds of your finding an exact matching thumb drive with the exact same controller are very low. I do chip-off recoveries of Lexar thumb drives all the time and don't think I've encounter the same thing twice.

You need more than a NAND reader to recover from these devices. It requires specialized data recovery tools which are listed in the resource section and are not simple plug and play programs either.

If anything I do exercise my soldering skills.


coffee

 

[lcoughey]

The typical hard drive stores the firmware in the hidden service tracks in the platters. The data on the PCB keeps tack of how and where to access those tracks.

When it comes to flash it is a little bit different. Not only does the controller store how to access the service data off the flash media it also keeps track of how the data is split and encrypted and several other things in order to store the data.

Basically when it comes to thumb drive and camera card recovery that is a lot more complex that are hard drive and requires the expensive tools to decipher the data otherwise if you are just a reason memory chip completely scrambled. Unfortunately was each variation of controller and each variation of nand we have found that we can have the same controller and different nand configurations we can have different capacities with each nand we can find different capacities and different controllers and of course the mix and with interpret there's even more random.

Does further compound things a stickler model at nand may have one two or even four different subparts or crystals. So a 128 gig trip could have 2 x 64 gig parts or 4 x 32 gig parts making for even more complex recovery if you have multiple chips and multiple parts to put together.

You can always reference the websites of each of the flash recovery tools to get a better understanding.

Sorry for typos...dictating while walking my dog.

 

[GTP]

Glad you explained the typo's lol. I thought it may have been beer oclock where you were! Hic!

 

[fencepost]

whats your ball park figure to tell a customer?

Based on his website, I'm going to guess it's in the $700ish ballpark (considered "major" flash recovery), but that's from a third party.....

 

[coffee]

I have a small business customer that insists on backing up to a jump drive / flash stick / whatever. They scare the *ell out of me. I keep waiting for that eventual phone call about not being able to access their backups.

I tried to put them on idrive but I fear they just get lazy and do not ever check on it or perform a manual back up to it. Im afraid the eventual call will come and it will just be a sad site indeed. Hard lesson to learn really.

 

[lcoughey]

@Icoughey - whats your ball park figure to tell a customer?

Sorry...missed that question. If it is a chip-off recovery, it is $900 CAD before discount and exchange rate. As of right now, that translates to about $720 CAD after discount or about $575 USD, if recoverable. If not, no charge for the attempt.