HDD GURU FORUMS

Hello experts,

I have a Sandisk 16GB SDHC Cards, out of a digital camera.
Customer wants to recover pictures from the card.
The card is monolethic, reference picture is attached.

The PCB does not show any signs of damage.
I have cleaned the PCB with IPA and tried to read it (using my own developed low-level SD-Card reader, that uses the serial mode of the SD-interface)
The card just reads as 4MB of zero-bytes. (nothing to do with file-system, I read raw data)

My best guess is that this means the controller is still working, but that the internal NAND has some issues in a critical area, or that some kind of service area is corrupted, so the controller does not recongnise the nand. (Or, ofcource, the nand itself has failed catastrophicaly)
I recognise some test-pads on the monolith, so I guess the nand could be interfaced directely on these pads.

Other insights are more than welcome. I would like to learn, as wel as participate a bit more on this forum.

I am not equipped to handle this case. Suggestions and offers from someone who has experience and can handle this are welcome.
But I would like to learn a bit too.

Kind regards

We have had reasonable success from similar cards.

Drop me a PM if you want me to take a look at it.

Sean

hansameel wrote:Hello experts,

I have a Sandisk 16GB SDHC Cards, out of a digital camera.
Customer wants to recover pictures from the card.
The card is monolethic, reference picture is attached.

The PCB does not show any signs of damage.
I have cleaned the PCB with IPA and tried to read it (using my own developed low-level SD-Card reader, that uses the serial mode of the SD-interface)
The card just reads as 4MB of zero-bytes. (nothing to do with file-system, I read raw data)

My best guess is that this means the controller is still working, but that the internal NAND has some issues in a critical area, or that some kind of service area is corrupted, so the controller does not recongnise the nand. (Or, ofcource, the nand itself has failed catastrophicaly)
I recognise some test-pads on the monolith, so I guess the nand could be interfaced directely on these pads.

Other insights are more than welcome. I would like to learn, as wel as participate a bit more on this forum.

I am not equipped to handle this case. Suggestions and offers from someone who has experience and can handle this are welcome.
But I would like to learn a bit too.

Kind regards

SD_lieve.JPG

We have experience with monolithic card too. If you need help just PM me.

Monolith's cases are relatively new, as you might know there's no info about them on the internet. You are right about these pins, you are able to access the NAND's banks through them.
There are hundreds of different types of monoliths, and even if it's the same model and shape, the layout of the tracks could change, and this means that the parameters within the same pin could have change also if the layout of the tracks are different.
To know the parameters for reading these pins you need a logic analyzer and knowledge, and sometimes you might not get a good result, it requires time and research.

Arvika and Pcimage are well experienced in this field with an excellent reputation, i definitely recommend them.

Just for curiosity can you take a high resolution picture from the pins side of the card? to see the tracks layout?

I actually do have a logic analyser... I'm even equipped to handle SMD rework
I guess I also have a lot of the required knowledge. But I lack the experience.
I got a nice offer from PCimage, and will send the card his way.
I'll update how it works out.

The traces are kind of dark. I'll take some snaps under the inspection microscope before I send it off.
However, I won't be able to get everything in one picture... (minimal microscope magnification...)
I'll post them here.

You can compare:

It looks a whole lot different then yours...

Here are the promessed snaps of my card.





I've sent it off to PCimage now. Lets hope for the best !

And then the results;

PCimage was able to recover about 15% of the pictures stored on the card.
The rest of the flash cells appeared to be unreadable. or contained garbage.

hansameel wrote:And then the results;

PCimage was able to recover about 15% of the pictures stored on the card.
The rest of the flash cells appeared to be unreadable. or contained garbage.

Are you able send me this card to test?

arvika wrote:

hansameel wrote:And then the results;

PCimage was able to recover about 15% of the pictures stored on the card.
The rest of the flash cells appeared to be unreadable. or contained garbage.

Are you able send me this card to test?

I still have the card here.

Happy to send it over to you if Hans agrees, see if you can improve the results. As long as you tell me what you did if you do!

It should be mentioned that only a token fee was charged.

Yes,

Sure I agree. If more can be recovered, It would be a nice victory

@Arvika... Please PM me your contact details