Dead Emprex 4GB USB Flash Drive

[Laputa]

Doesn't recognize at all and I have tried different PCs. Anybody know how to test the circuits on this thing or know which resistor to knock off to do a hot connect. Anything that might lead to a solution will be greatly appreciated!

 

[nboy22]

I'm not sure about the original question, however what I would do in this situation is open it up and see if there appears to be anything that was burnt/shorted that I could see with my own eyes. Or maybe there is a connection that became unsoldered.

It will probably be pretty difficult, I'm no electrical engineer but you could learn to use a voltmeter/multimeter and test each component to see where your ohms are really high (I think that is right, because ohm is resistance, and there would be 100 percent resistance through a broken resistor.)

 

[C1]

Emprex is bottom end junk & not worth anyone's time. Learned my lesson with Emprex and thus always buy memory devices from reputable manufactures which make memory (Corsair, OCZ, Kingston, etc.)

 

[corkyg]

Thumb drives and flash memory chips just die now and then. They are basically expandable. Like C1 says, don't waste your time. Replace it.

 

[Laputa]

Hehe, thanks, but it's a challenge to get it working and pull the stuff off it. Whether it's a bad drive to start with is not important at this point. Drive has been opened and didn't see anything wrong, I'm suspecting an electrical issue. Question is any insights on testing this thing. I got an Emprex 1GB and opened it and the stuff in it are different, so I can not swap anything over...haha, I bet they have a terrible engineering issue. Possible solution is to send it to an advance data recovery company where they can pull the flash chip out and do a raw read and then regenerate the data structure. What I want to see if I can just replace a chip or two to get it working for 30 minutes or so. All I need is for it to work for 30 minutes to pull everything off. The only problem is I can't seem to find any same parts to swap things around, any other solutions or leads will be appreciated.