Please help me guys...

[Jumping cangaroo]

Hi all,

I have an issue with a "LEXAR premium series 4 Gb SDHC 100x" SD card .

I am going to explain you the whole story...

From the 8th of December 2017 to the 8th of January 2018 I went in honeymoon to Australia and I' ve done a whole tour of that beautiful continent.
Of course as I was travelling through such a special place I took a lot of pictures that were splitted in two SD cards. As soon as I was back from that journey I insert the first memory card (including around 400 pics) in my laptop in order to tranfer the picture in my honeymoon folder and to start selecting the picture for our honeymoon album that we would like to print.
As soon as I insert my card in the SD card reader my nightmare has began: the computer is not seeing the SD card at all. I tried to put the card in another PC as well but same story... nothing happened. I started then to search on line for info about what it could be the problem and soon I ended up to some website for data recovery service. I sent my SD card to a company called recoverfab (http://recoverfab.com/), and the guy return to me saying that the controller of my SD card is broken but he could not recover my data as the memory chip cannot be unsoldered from the termoset material. So I asked him to return to me the SD card and I investigate further. So far as I understand this SD card is a monolith so the data recovery is still possible after mapping the pinset and by soldering the pins to an adapter and then making the codification of the data. I contact then another data recovery company but they told me that as it is a monolith and the pin mapping of this SD card is not available in their library the intervention would be very expensive, above 1200 € (for that money I can buy the Ticket for Australia and make again the picture). I decided then to try to make a recovery by myself...
I bought another couple of SD card sold as the same model, hoping that the chip and the pinset is the same (and it is!)
Then I took 5 pics with the new SD card, I open the case and I uncoated the chip with a fiberglass pen in order to see the pinset
I would like to use this SD as test card, so then when I know a safe way to recover the data a can go on the damaged and important one.

Now the questions I have are three:

1 - How can I map the pinset in order to know how and what I have to connect to the adapter?
2 - How can I get any data recovery set (even second hand) for a reasonable price as I am not going to do that as my profession?
3 - Could it be used one of the new SD card as bridge to access the data of the one that has the broken controller?

Many thanks for those who could/would help me.

Alessandro

 

[Jared]

Unless you've got any flash recovery system like PC-3000 Flash there's no way you'd be able to reconstruct the data even if you could find a way to dump the chip's NAND. And for that, you'd be looking at over $3000 worth of equipment plus a three or four-year learning curve. Recovering flash memory, especially monolithic cards, is not for the faint of heart. It's not any sort of connect two wires and read out data like you are expecting. It's days possibly weeks of signal analysis to determine the 15 or so microscopic connections you need to make to directly connect a reader to the flash. You'd most likely need to find one with the exact same configuration as yours (just buying the same brand chip has about a 0.1% chance it's the same) that is in working condition so you can actually run a proper anaysis. Plus you'd need the signal analysis equipment which can be quite expensive.

Then, even if you get a clean dump (unlikely) on the first pass, you'd need to reconstruct the XOR patterns, ECC configuration, service area zones, block allocation patterns, LBA mapping, encryption (very likely), and a dozen other factors to even attempt to make it into useful data instead of just scrambled eggs.

My sincere advice to you if you want it done affordably is to send it to this company in Poland: http://www.odzyskiwanie-danych.com.pl/kontakt.html

Don't worry, he does speak English. Michal is a master of flash recovery and monoliths. He can often figure out these cases when no one else can because he just does so many of them.

 

[Jumping cangaroo]

Hi all,

I get in touch with Michail and I sent him my SD Card and he Tried to recover the data, but apparently there is a Short betreten VCC and GND and he could not make the recovery.

Does someone of you know anybody that can try to fix it and recover my data??

Thank you!!

 

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Sure ,
Now You Have To Take a High Resolution XRAY of This Device .Then Figure Out The Path Of Voltages To The NAND And Cut/Isolate Them .Once Done You Have To Check If VCC And GND Are Still Short In NAND .If Yes NAND Is Fried " Go To Your Honeymoon Again But Choose A Different Destination " .If It Is OK Read It And Recover Data .

 

[lcoughey]

If Arvika is unable to recover it, the odds are, it is unrecoverable.

 

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

If Arvika is unable to recover it, the odds are, it is unrecoverable.

Well,
I Disagree ,He Might Be Playing With These Since Ages Does Not Mean It Cannot Be Done ,

 

[arvika]

":27711f0x][post]12264[/post]

If Arvika is unable to recover it, the odds are, it is unrecoverable.

Well,
I Disagree ,He Might Be Playing With These Since Ages Does Not Mean It Cannot Be Done ,

Friend, to explain the problems of this type of cases, I will describe it in points.

1. Inside the monolith there is few elements: controller and nand module every time and usually some few resistors and capacitors
2. If resistor or capacitor is damaged and we can separate it from other connections we have chance to recover data
3. Same with controller, if we can cut it off, there is a chance
4. If nand module is shorted, no chance for recovery
5. BUT! the most problem is isolating short
6. You need high resolution XRAY (probably it cost about 500 000$ - good one, dentist XRAY is not enough) and MAYBE you can see where the problem is
7. But there could be also no any visual effect
8. So than you need decapsulate the nand (some acid, laser etc), measure resistors, capacitors, controller and whole PCB scheme to find the problem
9. If you damage something (like connection to nand), you need use bonding machine to fix this connection.
10. Bonding machine is another thousands of dollars (rather more than 100 000$)
11. And Finally you can recover data for client which usually do not want spend more than 500$ , Better 200$, maybe 300$.

So THEORETICALLY it is possible, in practice client will not pay. Recovery chance is really low.

So Amarbir you have right. It is theoretically possible, but in practice no possible. But if you have some expirience with cases like this, please let me know. I like learning and like hard cases. But there is a border where it does not make sense.

 

[abedalkareem]

":1hpi18aw][post]12260[/post] Go To Your Honeymoon Again But Choose A Different Destination "

:lol: :lol: :lol:
man, you are like a doctor. You must relieve his suffering, not to add another calamity to what he already has

 

[abedalkareem]

[post]12276[/post] there is a border where it does not make sense.

totally right ..

 

[Jared]

[post]12276[/post] So Amarbir you have right. It is theoretically possible, but in practice no possible....But there is a border where it does not make sense.

Exactly this a thousand times. That's what people can't get when it comes to data recovery. They all want it cheap, but then expect you to invest in NASA expensive type equipment just for their one case. If it had the location of Osama Bin Laden on there (and he was still alive) then, yes, maybe it'll be worthwhile to make that multi-million dollar investment. But, not for normal recovery stuff.