Repair broken flash drive?

[Number6]

Morning all! Another week begins!

 

One of our teachers, despite constant reminders to the contrary kept all her important data on a USB stick. The inevitable has happened and she has now broken the stick, she dropped the laptop and bent the stick. Strangely enough she says it no longer works! She has no other copy of this data :rolleyes:

 

I've said I'll have a go at repairing said stick. Does anyone know of a good set of instructions to do this? I've never dismantled a USB memory stick, I know (I think) that there are four pins connecting the PC to the chip?

 

Anyone ever attempted this? Did it work? Tips?

[Dos_Box]

YouTube

 

YouTube - repairing usb drives

[bossman]

@Number6:

 

How good are you with a soldering iron is the question?

heat will damage the PCB if too much but you should be alright if you attempt it in the proper manor.

 

As you have stated its the four pins which have broken so it shouldn't cause you too much grief, I would of course cover yourself, get the teacher to sign a release form which basically states that if you attempt and fail at recovering her data then you yourself will not be held responsible.

[difinity]

I repaired a USB stick which had suffered the same fate a couple of weeeks ago.

 

I use an old IDE cable cut down as the wirer to join between the flash board and the USB connector.

 

Take your time when desoldering the USB connector from the board you don't want to pull the contact points off the board.

 

If i can find a camera i'll take a photo as i still have the repaired stick on my desk.

[broc]

Just be careful about what you plug the repaired drive into; we had the USB controller on a DELL Precision system board trashed because of a faulty USB stick repair. Plug it into a hub if you can.....

[robmal]

Soldering those joints back is the prefered way - but the contact pads may have been broken off the board, making it a really tricky job.

 

Our Physics tech can do most of the repairs we send him, long enough to get the data off. We then advise it get thrown in the bin. Last week he met one that he didn't like the look of, he filled the casing with blu-tack which applied enough pressure to hold the four contacts together for the time it took to get the data off!

 

OP's advise about only using repaired memory sticks on a remote hub apply - good common sense that

 

Have fun

 

Rob

[savard1120]

This is a great resource for anyone looking to repair a broken flash drive. You want to make sure to be very careful to know what your doing before taking the risk of losing the data on your flash drive. It never hurts to consult a professional.

[savard1120]

I had good luck with these guys when my I needed flash drive repair.

[Nikolaus]

Just be careful about what you plug the repaired drive into; we had the USB controller on a DELL Precision system board trashed because of a faulty USB stick repair. Plug it into a hub if you can.....

 

Yes Obviously it seems so risky to connect a faulty USB Drive to the computer...

I've a broken USB stick and didn't repaired it..

However there are some useful documents inside that...

But I just want to access that data and copy somewhere else..

Does the techniques mentioned in YouTube videos will be helpful for me in this regard???

[CapEnd]

Ive had these issues on many occations.

I managed to just bend the stick while it was in the computer and hold it while I copied all the data off.

Basically bend it the opposite way to where they have snapped it tends to work and prevents you damaging it with a soldering iron.

Other option is to use conductive paint/glue to stick it without heat.