Just came across this interesting article:

SSD Recovery: How Pros Bring Flash Memory Back To Life

http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestor ... overy.html

I think any peice of info about Flash recovery is interesting.. the interesting part being that the info is there in the first place, as it is so darned uncommon to see any.

The article to me said basically look at my toys, there are no secret weapons, everyone is in the same boat regarding what you need and how you go about it. It is Bum-in-seat job. I agree same article could have been written about a number of companies, large and small. seems this lab is quite well setup, and looks pretty competent in recoveries, not taking the easy stuff for a large fee and rejecting anything that takes a bit of elbow grease... though no success rate was shown, and it takes someone that wont give up easily to work on flash.. you need to be like a Bull terrier after a Kangaroo.

BTW, it is a slightly wrong terminology to say "How Pros Bring Flash Memory Back To Life" Typically the flash Device is butchered, data extracted, then filed away if the customer lets you keep it for research/whatever.. or you tell them to throw it away. The current title of the article leads you to think we would fix the drive for re-use.

thanks for posting the link.

It makes me cringe whenever I see the blowtorch come out. Surely there must be a way to read each chip in situ rather than physically transferring it to a chip reader, even if it involves cutting an etch or two (eg chip selects).

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

It isn't a blow torch, it is hot air, and no I don't think there is another easy way. The pitch is just painfully fine and there is usually components in the way, or different shapes and sizes of PCB's to attach anything like a test clip.

I can de-solder, clean and start reading in about 4 mins easily, being careful.

resoldering if needed is another story

Yes, I'm aware that it is a hot air station. I was just being facetious.

I first evaluated an smt rework station (Pace MBT 201) about 20 years ago. It used a set of expensive tips for each IC package type. These tips straddled the chip and warmed all the pins by direct contact. They incorporated a temperature sensor to monitor the thermal load of the job and autoregulate the temperature. To me, these are a lot gentler than blasting the job with hot air.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.