Data recovery from the damage USB flash drive

Artem Makarov aka Robin
14.12.2008
14751 view

A client brought a USB flash drive A-Data for recovery of information. At the try of disc access the system creates a message about absence of access to the disc and proposes to start the formatting procedure.

Error message

Error message

The flash drive itself is designed unusually; it is necessary to turn a case part clockwise to draw the USB contacts out of the case. Such a failure, having such signs can be due to two reasons - either a logical failure of USB flash drive file system, or a carrier physical fault.

USB flash drive Adata

USB flash drive Adata

Drawn out contacts

Drawn out contacts

If the flash drive failed, data recovery can be done only with hardware repair. I need to dismantle flash drive, unsolder memory chips and read their content with the help of programmer, and then arrange the dump logicality.

"Physical" access to the drive distinguishes a logical fault from a physical one, if we use third part utilities, for example, WinHEX instead of standard OS means. If such a utility gets access to all the working area of the drive, it is necessary to take a dump off and start logical analysis.

In my case a virus destroyed one of two FAT copies on the drive. For data recovery I have to make a detailed analysis of all the first copy remainder and compare it with the second copy to create a correct virtual FS.

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