![]() ![]() The monolith can’t be disassembled, but we do still have a way to gain access to the NAND flash memory chip inside. Our USB flash drive data recovery experts have to write custom software to emulate the controller and reassemble the raw data from the NAND chip.įor monolithic recovery cases, this task is a little more difficult. For us, reading the chip is the easy part. It is the job of the controller chip to make sense of all this. The NAND chip’s contents are a jumbled mess of both user data and the system data the flash drive needs to operate. The data on the NAND chip is nothing like what a data recovery engineer can find on a hard drive’s platters. ![]() In cases where the circuit board itself has been damaged or shorted, flash drive data recovery involves removing the NAND chip from the board and reading its contents using a chip reader. There may be some data loss or corruption to files we recover from flash drive damage, particularly if the USB flash drive was damaged in the middle of a write operation. After we repair a flash drive, recovering lost data from it is usually a simple matter. It takes a highly skilled engineer some time with our soldering equipment to repair flash drive damage like this so that we can start file recovery. This is one of the more common reasons people bring their thumb drives to us. If you have your flash drive plugged into a USB port and accidentally hit or bump the device, you could bend or shear off the leads connecting the plug to the circuit board. The connection between the USB plug and circuit board is very fragile. Tier 1: USB Plug Repairįor USB devices where all the components are discrete, there is one major weak point. The second involves cases in which the PCB has been damaged and the NAND chip must be removed from it. The first tier involves cases in which the connection between the USB plug and PCB has been damaged. There are two common “tiers” of flash drive data recovery cases we see here at Gillware. (Although that’s more of an aesthetic advantage than a practical one.) The main disadvantage is that it takes more effort for our engineers to access the data on the USB flash drive. And it bears a striking resemblance to the iconic monolith from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s smaller, more water-resistant, more durable, and cheaper to manufacture. There are a few advantages to this monolithic construction. All of the major components are still there-they’ve just been soldered together into a monolithic USB flash drive, or “monolith”. You may open up your USB drive and see, instead of a large black NAND chip and small controller chip on a green circuit board and a silver USB plug, a simple black rectangle with four gold “fingers”. But if you crack open your USB drive’s casing, you might not be able to see all of them. Bottom: The controller chip mounted to the underside of the PCBĪll USB flash devices have these components. Thumb drives removed from their casing for USB flash drive recovery Top: The 48-pin NAND flash memory chip mounted to the thumb drive’s PCB. Finally, there is the USB plug itself, which connects to the PCB and fits into the USB port on your computer. The controller pieces the data flowing to and from the NAND chip together. The NAND chip is attached to a printed circuit board along with a controller chip. While the technology is radically different, it plays the same role as the platters in a hard disk drive. This is where all the data and files on your USB drive are stored. Most important is the NAND flash memory chip. There are three major components to any USB flash device: the NAND chip, controller chip, and USB plug. Want to schedule a call for a time that is convenient for you? Click the button above to schedule a brief consultation with one of our client advisors.Ĭlick here to schedule a call What’s In a USB Drive? ![]()
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