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CompactFlash, SD, MMC, USB flash storage. Anything that does not have moving parts inside.
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32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 13th, 2015, 23:11

I'm all out of ideas here - the usb stick wants to be formatted, which I haven't done, and I've tried Recuva, GetDataBack and a number of other programs without results. The stick turns up empty/blank in all programs, and my computer tells me that all of the space is unallocated and that it does not have a file system. The sectors seem empty when running programs where I see the sectors being scanned. The owner said it just stopped working, no errors or anything before it suddenly stopped working.

Bear with me - I've been at it for hours and its 5 in the morning here, so I'm very tired and I'm not sure what info you need if someone feels like helping me out. Just ask and I'll try to answer as best I can.

Thanks!

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 13th, 2015, 23:15

have you tried to take an image of the whole device (NOT filesystem) with DMDE and then run GetDataBack on that image?

might need NAND-chip off recovery

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 2:16

Do the recovery programs pickup the full size (I.e. 32 gb) or just 30mb?

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 2:53

more than 32GB

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 8:05

Shows up as 29,8 GB in Getdataback, in Recuva it says "invalid drive size".

I have not tried the DMDE, I'll do that now.

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 9:24

Tried DMDE, not sure if I'm doing it right.

I'm supposed to copy the sectors, right? I get a .bin file doing that.

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 10:12

I'm working on a 32GB thumb drive recovery...detects as 32GB and can be imaged with no issue. Just a repeated pattern of garbage. Doing a chip off recovery now.

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 10:48

larsjorgen wrote:Tried DMDE, not sure if I'm doing it right.

I'm supposed to copy the sectors, right? I get a .bin file doing that.


No, you run DMDE and when the list of disks is there, select the USB drive and click ok. wait until the disk partitions window comes up and right click on the physical disk, choose "create image/clone". in the image window, choose destination "file" and this will be a bin file. after creation, run GetDataBack on the bin file (rename it to .img if you want GDB to see it when choosing to load an image file)

if you get I/o errors here, your drive needs chip-off recovery. If the bin file is blank, possibly your device went haywire and killed data.

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 12:07

If you compress the 32GB bin file, does its size become very small? If so, then perhaps it has been zeroed.

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 12:08

fzabkar wrote:If you compress the 32GB bin file, does its size become very small? If so, then perhaps it has been zeroed.

Or your controller isn't communicating with the NVRAM and is only reading a buffer in a loop...quite common.

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 13:26

Looks very zeroed. Compressed the bin file, turned out to be only 12 mb. Anything else I can try? I don't have the equipment to read data directly off of the chip.

If it's a buffer loop, should it still be able to read the correct size?

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 14:01

larsjorgen wrote:Looks very zeroed. Compressed the bin file, turned out to be only 12 mb. Anything else I can try? I don't have the equipment to read data directly off of the chip.

If it's a buffer loop, should it still be able to read the correct size?

Just said that it is common and I'm working on one now.

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 15:39

Yeah, but you've probably got a lot more equipment than I do.. So is there anything else I could try before sending it to a lab?

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 15:53

larsjorgen wrote:Yeah, but you've probably got a lot more equipment than I do.. So is there anything else I could try before sending it to a lab?

Nope

Re: 32GB Sandisk Cruzer - unallocated space, unformatted

April 14th, 2015, 18:55

Agree with Luke, Flash DIY is very limited.
If you want to post to AU, let me know. I do a lot of international cases, only downside is postage time, other than that no difference to being next door.
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