I have just replaced a broken connector on the above flash drive. The board looks good and the new connector seems to be soldered on okay. Windows does not recognize the usb device (but sees it) and the Controller chip gets very hot, very quickly. Might these be other issues than the broken connector? What normally causes the controller chip to overheat?

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

Do you mean that Windows can detect a PID and VID of some kind?

Photos might help.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Not in the office at the moment so cannot send photos (but will do tomorrow). There were no PID or VID's, just Windows 7 saying the USB device cannot be recognized or may be malfunctioning.

USB devices are commonly 4 layers or more. Soldering a broken connector is not as easy as you might think. getting hot can mean a short circuit, as simple as soldering two point, or as silly and inconspicuous as a tiny ball of errant solder rolling in between pins. can also be a shorted SMD component, which would be difficult to track.

As I see it, you have some options:

1) inspect under a microscope. A magnifying glass at a bare minimum, but I use a stereo microscope. look for shorts.
2) check SMD components. Not easy.
3) tansplant both Controller and all NAND chips to identical board. again, not the easiest, but certainly doable.

Also whatever broke the connector could have stretched internal bonding wires or traces of the PCB, though that's a bit rare.

Definitely agree with sending high quality pics. Bith sides of the board, all background cropped and image size no more than double a screen. A flatbed scanner takes a good image.

Good luck

And danger to data. If your data is important don't do that.

When controller is hot I'm almost sure that it could be some short on PCB or controller is just broken.

The most save method to recovery data is read dumps from memory chips and assembly the image.

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

Not sure if you can see anything on these pictures, they are not the best quality. I took the connector off that I had soldered on in case it was masking any issues with the board itself. It does look okay to my untrained eye, so could have been some bad soldering on my part. To recover the data would you suggest a new connector (as the pads seem good), or attaching wires to the connector then to the board.

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

The 2R2 resistor (R25) appears to be in series with the +5V supply. If you measure the voltage across R25, this will tell you the current draw of the PCB.

Capacitor C5 appears to be the filter capacitor for the 3.3V supply for the NAND flash. Measure the resistance across it. This will tell you if anything is dragging down the controller's on-chip 3.3V regulator. Also measure the voltage across C5.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

When testing voltage, I presume I need to power up the board?

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

yes.
and yes, the soldering looks like it shouldn't have been an issue. Leaves other problems as the culprit.

a DR Guy should be able to read NAND and do normal DR.. IF the NAND isn't the one that is faulty.

Voltage across R25 is 3.3V. Resistance is 153.1 (with meter set on 200).
Voltage across C5 is .68v

The red light flashes on briefly when plugged in then goes out. It did stay on once for about 5 seconds before going out. Point you in any direction?

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

I think the flash drive is now failing. I noticed the controller chip no longer gets hot as I was testing it.
Voltage at R25 is now 4.3V
Voltage at C5 is 0.02V

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

You should send it to a DR Company that does Flash drive recovery (not a local PC Shop the "recovers data" by using recuva or getdataback)

Regardless of the issues of the drive, your data should be sitting mostly intact on the NAND chip, and a DR Lab should be able to recover.

The SM controllers are often a pain in the rear, usually because the NANDs they are coupled with are crappy in quality but you have a good chance of recovery this way, and probably nil DIY chances.

Your readings don't make any sense. AFAICS, R25 is a 2.2 ohm resistor, so if there were 3.3V across it, it would be dissipating approximately 5 watts. OTOH, if its resistance really were 153 ohms, then it would limit the current into the flash drive to 30mA.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Stop testing it and send it to a DR specialist if data are important.

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Lemmy

Thanks for all you help guys. Specialist flash drive recovery shop it is.

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

If the measurements are reversed, ie if the measurements for R25 are in fact the measurements for C5, then that would make some sense.

A voltage of 0.68v across R25 would amount to a current draw of around 300mA. My SanDisk 4GB/32GB Cruzer Blade/Edge flash drives are rated for a maximum current draw of 100mA, if you can believe what they report via UVCView or USBDeview.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

So with my flash drive drawing 300mA, I guess that would explain why the controller chip got so hot. Is there a fix for this such as replacing R25 or C5?

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

The controller is dead.

You need to desolder the NAND chip and read it in a chip reader. Then submit the image to an appropriate tool that understands the LBA translation algorithm. This tool will then reconstruct the logical drive. Such tools are not free.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks @fzabkar.

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

if you want to post it to me I can do it.