When I plug in usb key to pc It's detected by Win7 but it asks to format it.
The status of device is online, both reserved space and unallocated space is 0, as well as capacity is 0; partition style is MBR.
I opened device and clean the contacts on the chip but nothing.
Can you suggest how to recover data please?

Hi, try getting DMDE and take an image of the device(not the partition, but the whole disk) after that try using data recovery on the image with RTT R-Studio or GetDataBack.

alternatively, try searching for, and mounting a partition with Partition Find and Mount.

Both software can be found with google... and are free.

Rstudio and GetDataBack are not free, but great tools and not expensive.

If you get I/O error or some such, you wil need to get a Data recovery shop to recover data.

let us know how you go.

By DMDE software I got 1117 error with I/O error, while by 'Partition Find and Mount' (fast intellectual scan) I got 'no visible and no new partitions found' with usb device as 0 size.
I read about firmware repairing... what do you think if I try to rewrite it?
It's hardware problem?

If flash shows 0MB capacity you can't use software like Rstudio etc. You must read data directly from memory module and than decrypt/assembly image. You need DR company to do it.

If you try firmware repair (use formatter for controller) you can say "good bye" to data If data is important never do this.

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So it's electrical problem ?! No chance to go on myself?!

might be electrical problem, but more likely controller problem.

also if the usb has been bent, twisted or has bad solder joints and the memory chip is BGA for example, there may be a broken solder joint.

I think no chance for DIY.

USB sticks are not a simple system at all.

If it has a xtal, maybe swap it.. but I think no DIY.

if you want to ship it here I can have a look, or ask an Italian DR company.

I agree 100% with Arvika - don't play with the firmware!

Does it exist software which check firmware integrity ? So I should know if problem is in firmware or directly on hardware (solder joints,...)

Basic on your description it is probably controller problem. No DIY.

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Either that or memory degradation. Again NOT DIY

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Very limited and not necessarily in the sense of the diagnostic type you are looking for here. For example, there is software to check if a device could be fake by checking against its capacity, which is a parameter as part of "firmware" if you will. So, basically the answer is no. However, there are software tools that could be used to investigate to some degree with a chip-off procedure, BUT most of the time, once getting to that point, nobody cares about the firmware as much, rather the data.


90% sure it is not hardware.

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Hard Disk Drive, SSD, USB Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts