Just got a dongle in with a broken connector. Board is also damaged so cannot be repaired. I presume there is little point completing a chip off (if possible as I have not opened it completely yet) due to either encryption some other security features on a dongle?

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

Photo will always tell more than explanations
Usually dongles use ROM chip on board (either sop8 or proprietary blob type), which is normally crypto ROM no point to chip-off.
If board is 2-layer, there's no problem to "re-wire" it (unless many passives lost/broken), if 4-layer then it's tricky.

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VISUAL NAND RECONSTRUCTOR. Since 2014.

Usually software companies account for replacements - this is by far the easiest way. What software does the dongle protect? is it a HASP or other? but in any case, photos are needed as Sasha said.

have you looked under a microscope at the damaged board? often it isn't as bad as you think.

If software company refuses to support it, another option is a dongle emulator, which a reverse engineer could create using the data from your original.

As Spildit says, you'll need to get the original working even if it's just with wires holding it temporarily together so it works a few times to figure it out. Maybe can't permanently "fix" it, but just get it working long enough.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

I would be checking with the company. eg:

http://www.geocomp.com.au/support/dongle.html


some companies use web upgradeable dongles, and you can buy a replacement blank, and liase with the company to reflash it to your license

It would be very poor form for a company to not help you out with a broken dongle after paying so much for their software..

I would try this route first as any kind of interfering with the dongle could actually give a company cause to not help, plus if the dongle gets damaged beyond any hope, the customer could be out of pocket a significant amount.

still love to see pics, as usually the circuits aren't that complex and a fix could be simple

I know what you guys are saying about sniffing them, yes, they aren't as easy to defeat as they used to be.. I remember spending at least a month in softice and HIEW without success only to have some very smart guy from up north show me the patch offsets in 3 days....

Thanks for all the advice. I have not taken a picture yet as I have not opened the case. Still waiting for the clients approval. This Dongle is from a software manufacturer that is no longer in business so this Dongle is all we have to work with. Once approved I will get to work and give you more info. Thanks.

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

fyi: i work on these

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