The dissertation, the payroll, the one copy of the wedding, all on a stick that bent in a port or died halfway through a copy. As such, recovering data from a USB stick is small-parcel work, which suits York nicely: once you have your quote, an envelope in the post today is on the bench tomorrow. Dead controller, deleted files, snapped connectors: the majority of sticks will give their contents back once someone stops putting them into different sockets.
All USB stick/flash drive jobs are diagnosed free. Each diagnosis comes with a fixed written quote, and it arrives before a tool is ever used.
In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Chip level, electronic and mechanical repair is charged at 50% at start-up, and the other 50% only upon successful recovery of your data; all BitLocker, ransomware, forensic and CCTV/DVR recoveries are charged at start-up when you accept our fixed quote. More information can be found on the data recovery cost page.
The first job on any USB stick/flash drive is matching the symptoms to the fault. After twenty-odd years, these 25 problems represent just about everything we see come through the door.
A knee, a bag strap, a passing chair: leverage beats force. The connector is rebuilt under the scope, or the data read right out of the chip when the board took the brunt.
Something enumerates, but gibberish follows: something is talking over your data, probably a controller or firmware failure. Your data still exists.
The controller had come online without a copy of the map of its own flash. Chip-off reading of the flash and a software rebuild reunite the two.
You have a torn file table above good files. Turn the "offer" down flat, get a quote on 0800 689 0668 first, then post the stick just as it is.
It will remain retrievable until the freed space is reused, and not one second longer. A drawer is now the safest place for the stick.
Some component has been shorted and is slowly burning out. Get it out of the port now. Every warm minute eats into your margin.
A stick left standing in a socket becomes a lever with feelings. Its joints fracture, but the memory chips seldom even notice.
There are no chips to remove or replace with these devices. Instead of removing a chip we use our probes on the mapped test points that lead us to the files written to the device. It takes longer, but ultimately leads us to the same data as if we had simply removed the chip.
In some cases, twice. Cleaned and dried properly on our bench, sticks that went through the wash do far better than expected. Just never plug one in while it is still wet.
After a stint in a shared PC, look-alike shortcuts replace everything. The original folders generally sit hidden right beneath the con.
The marketplace classic. Writes loop over the actual chip; anything written before the looping started carves out clean.
The two most common exits are the "neck snap" at the root of the connector and the "abrupt 0 MB". This workshop has standard routines for both.
When Kingston's workhorse freezes into a controller state that answers no queries, we bypass the argument and communicate with the NAND itself.
Inside is whatever silicon was cheapest when the stick was made. The controller we find sets the route; the printed logo is decoration.
A stick that flexed and sprang back can often hide fine cracks in its tracks. These are mended under magnification and then read from one end to the other.
SanDisk's nail-head stick lives permanently in a hot laptop port until its controller finally gives up. Monolith probing then takes over.
The metal jacket comes off the SDCZ73, taking some of the original tracks with it as mementos. The board is reworked on the flash rigs, then a full image is taken.
Most abuse has little effect on Samsung's MUF-64BE4, however, levering it on a keyring eventually shears the plug root. The pads are repaired first, then an image is taken.
The long-bodied DTX levers itself in tight front ports until its joints crack. Under the scope a reflow is done to restore order.
Being all-metal, the DTKN will bend rather than snap, and by bending it puts additional strain on its bond wires. When a reflow falls short, chip-direct reads can be made.
Years of thumbs in conjunction with pocket humidity have oxidised the plug until the stick randomly flickers in and out. The contacts are cleaned, followed by a single image of the entire device.
A lightning storm or a dying PSU sends a spike through the tower's sockets, and the USB stick plugged in captures most of it. The controller is dead, but the NAND flash usually survives.
Stored flash leaks charge, so older archives read back faintly. Patient imaging with heavy ECC keeps what a quick read would have discarded.
Windows offered to repair everything and delivered a folder of fragmented files. We simply ignore the fragments and rebuild the original file system from a raw disk image.
With too many incorrect PIN entries, they wipe themselves by design, and no amount of "sweet talking" from any lab can undo that. However, with the correct PIN in hand, it becomes a routine task.
Regardless of what you call it, "flash drive", "memory stick" or anything else, the weak link always remains in exactly the same place: the solder joint where the connector attaches to the circuit board, and all it takes is one knee pressed against a laptop. Torn pads and broken tracks are rebuilt under magnification; if the board is beyond repair, the memory is removed and read on a programmer, so the stick's own electronics never have to work again. Students at Heslington break them, offices at Monks Cross bend them, and a pen drive recovery service ends up repairing the same six or seven injuries time after time.
Deleted the wrong folder, or returned from the print shop to find every file has turned into a shortcut? Viruses hide much more than they destroy, and deleting a file simply marks the area where it was located as available for use again; it scrubs nothing. Follow this simple routine: put the stick in a drawer, unplugged, and leave it alone. Here the stick is imaged end to end and your documents and photographs are recovered from that image, never from the original. Sticks that have failed without any drama follow the same path, straight through the chips.
Recovering a stick is chip work throughout, so it stays on our flash rigs from booking-in to hand-back:
Rebuilding the dead controller’s arithmetic in software after reading the NAND itself. This is how conversation resumes with a stick or card that answers nothing.
Hot-air and IR profiles are tuned so a memory package leaves its ruined board without the stored charge leaving along with it. Temperature discipline is the entire trick.
Where there is no chip to lift, we identify test points on our archived pinouts and wire them out by hand under a high-powered magnifier. This process can take time, however it is very accurate and very effective.
The XOR, ECC and wear-levelling puzzle is worked until a raw dump reads as named folders again. Dull maths, but a nice ending.
In many cases "dead" sticks are simply lifted pads, torn tracks and/or sheared plug connectors that can be repaired by rebuilding them under the scope.
All cards and sticks are read through a write-blocked interface. Therefore the original flash travels back to you unchanged, because that is the whole idea.
A healthy share of the county's payroll reports, parish meeting minutes and schoolwork, including Heslington dissertations every August without fail, sits on sticks made by SanDisk (whose slim metal bodies run hot and shed their shells), Kingston (the long budget sticks with the joint cracks) and Samsung (the BAR Plus, whose weak point is its keyring lug). Solutions exist for each of these problems. The office Integrals and Verbatims will last until their controllers no longer function, and the conference giveaways are a raffle we wish we could spare you.
Get a quote first, by calling us on 0800 689 0668 or using our free online diagnostic tool. After receiving your quote, tracked and insured post is how nearly every job reaches us: it is the fastest and safest way to get your drive to our lab in Leeds. There's no collection service, so the parcel is yours to send, or you can hand it in at the Leeds lab's reception.
Is the hard drive or SSD still inside a machine, such as a laptop, MacBook, iMac, CCTV/DVR system or server? Please remove the hard drive or SSD from the machine first and then post just the bare drive by itself; we do not provide a service for removing drives from devices. For a server or RAID, send every disk, each clearly marked with its bay. For a NAS, send its disks labelled by bay if you can remove them, otherwise send the NAS itself. We cannot work on storage soldered to the motherboard (e.g. Apple Silicon Macs, T2 Macs and certain slim laptops): if it doesn't come out, it can't come in. If you are unsure whether your storage is removable, call us before sending.
↓ Print the booking-in & shipping form (PDF)
Once you have your quote, send your package addressed to Leeds Data Recovery (about a 40 minute drive from York on the A64 & A1(M) or next working day if you want to send it using trackable post). We will contact you as soon as we have taken delivery of your package and put it in line to be worked upon.
Can't figure out what to pack? Ring 0800 689 0668 first, or try our free online diagnostic tool.
Free diagnosis, fixed written quote, and on most work you only pay if we recover your data. Start online or call our freephone.