Broken NAND

[Zero Alpha]

I got a usb flash drive that was driven over and had one of the two NAND modules physically broken. I can take a bin from the surviving NAND only. This is impossible to recover without both NAND modules right?

[Creator]

Yes, this is 100% impossible.

[Zero Alpha]

Thanks creator.

[dobrevjetser]

Depends on several things:

- were these nands used in a jbod style or mixed like a raid 0
- was there much data written to the stick or not

I've been able to recover data from USB sticks where part of the memory was damaged, but the neccessary files were located in an undamaged part.

Dobre

[Zero Alpha]

usb flash drive was 4gb with 2 x 2gb nand. When I said the nand was damaged I meant physical damage caused by a car tyre. I think you may be thinking of something else jbod or raid on a usb flash drive... you have got me confused.

[pcimage]

It depends on what sort of mix (if any) is present. But in a lot of cases the chips are srtriped a bit like a raid 0, eirther by byte, page or block.

Can you find the FAT table?

[dobrevjetser]

No, I understood you correctly.
Even if one of the chips is damaged it may be possible to extract data from the remaining good chip. Normally there is a mix, but in some cases this mix is limited to the chip and not spread among both chips. So recovering some data of the one good chip could be possible.

Dobre

[Zero Alpha]

Can you find the FAT table?

I don't even have the AU9686 controller

[dobrevjetser]

the controller is not neccessary for that.
You have to get a reader and read in the raw data from the nand. Then look for the FAT tabel in the raw data.
That can give a clue if the mix is spread to the other ic or not.

Best regards,

Dobre

[Creator]

AU exactly has mix between dumps.
Plus mix by byte There is 100% impossibility to get the data. Also because AU use translator. This makes 110% impossibility of data recovery. If there would block number and just interleave inside the 1 nand you can try to do something. Just correct mbr and boot records RAID0 is work for dummies Sometimes flash memory cases are much more laborious than RAID.

[Zero Alpha]

Thanks creator,

I did run the complex analysis and r-studio over the dump but it found nothing. I couldn't even identify a fat table under hex.

Owell Case closed.

[pcimage]

Yes, now I've seen you have a AUxxxx controller, the chances of recovery are less than zero. These are, as creator says, joned by byte.