I have a MicroSD card which does not read. It gets very hot when connected. It has a crack on one side, but its hard to tell if its just in the outer cover or through the chip. Is the card getting hot indicative of a cracked chip? What are the chances of recovery?

_________________
HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

A crack is a leading cause of card getting hot, due to shorts in the nand. There is a slight chance it could be the PCB, but then you almost require an xray to know where to cut the PCB to eliminate the short. The NAND takes up almost the entire size of the MicroSD, so I think this case would be a failure.

here is some good pics of the inside of MicroSD's : http://bunniestudios.com/blog/images/microsd_lineup.jpg

Thought so. Many thanks. I will let you know how we get on.

_________________
HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

You waste your time. Case is unrecoverable.

_________________
Flash Killer - everyday new resources (pinout, XOR, ECC,config) for flash devices

Hi Arvika: Kinda know that, but this will be classed as an investment in gaining knowledge . I want to look at exactly what and where the damage is so I can recognize it again in the future. The client knows this is a lost cause.

_________________
HDD, SSD, Flash and RAID Data Recovery
Founder of The Data Recovery Professionals Group

In that case, pay to get the chip decapped properly. This is relatively inexpensive, and you shouldn't have any further damage to mask the original. or x-rayed, but it needs to be a good x-ray, for example, not dental surgery type.

a starting point is bunniestudios.com for example

Good advice

_________________
Recover My Flash Drive