flash pen drive

[obrien11]

Hi,

I have a friend who had a usb flash pen drive plugged into her computer (in the usb port) and she accidently kicked the drive. It then stopped working and I looked at and it seems to not get any power. Windows will not recognize it in explorer, hardware manager, disk management, etc... It seems to be related to the kicking, because it worked fine before. Does anyone know of someone who can either repair or get the data off the drive? I talked to one guy but they wanted $2,000 which she can't afford. Any help is much appreciated,

Patrick

 

[stickybytes]

Perhaps try it on another computer with a usb port? Try using a flashlight and look at the connectors and see if any of them are bent or chipped.

 

[obrien11]

Thanks for responding. I've tried it on several computers with no luck. The computers just don't pick it up at all. I looked at the pins, but I don't see anything wrong, so I'm not sure if that is the problem, although it seems like it must be. Any ideas?

 

[jadinolf]

I think your problem is connectors inside the unit.

I have no solution. It's one for the experts.

 

[Slickone]

Your friend should accidentally kick the guy that wanted $2000 to extract the data.

 

[Cheetah8799]

You could try buying an identical unit and comparing the two, maybe swap some components if you are handy with a soldering iron. May need a pretty fine tipped iron though...

EDIT: I think kicking it is what broke it... Kicking any computer parts is not a good idea....

 

[VirtualLarry]

Recovery could depend on what chips it uses inside, and whether or not they have been physically damaged. Some flash drives use two seperate chips, one is a USB-interface flash-memory controller chip, and the other is the flash memory chip itself. Others use a single combination chip. Worst-case scenario, could purchase another unit, and physically de-solder the flash memory chip out of one and put it into another, but that operation carries a certain amount of risk to the chip too. A close visual inspection of the insides of the device would probably help here in deciding on the manner of failure-mode. It's remotely possible that kicking it out of the machine shorted out the USB-interface controller chip inside, if there is no visible physical damage anywhere. In that case, swapping the flash memory chip is your only solution.