Nobody fixes a USB drive and hands it back working again: the parts themselves are cheaper than the labour to install them. The task is to pull your data off once, and how this is done is determined by something you cannot see from the outside (whether the flash chip and controller are separate parts on a board or moulded together into a single die). This single differentiation determines the method and cost, and we will determine this free of charge prior to any commitment from you.
Worth stating openly at the start of this discussion, as it fundamentally changes how you see what you are buying.
A USB drive costs less than 10 minutes of an engineer's time. No one will repair a USB drive and hand it back working; if someone offers to, they are selling something that is not worth spending money on. What you are buying is a single read: your data pulled off once, transferred to another device, and the original USB drive either returned or destroyed based upon your preference.
This redefinition matters because it changes what constitutes successful recovery of data. A failed USB drive is a throwaway item the instant it fails. The only question is whether the data that was on it can be reached.
You can't see what's inside, but this determines the method and pricing before anything else is considered.
A small circuit board that contains a controller chip and one or more separate NAND chips. If the controller chip fails, the memory chips can be removed and read directly using a programmer. This job is well-established in the industry.
Where the controller chip and flash are moulded as one piece together with no separate parts. Accessing data within this type of module will require locating specific areas (test points) on top of the die (the chip itself) and working through them. This takes longer than traditional methods and is considerably more delicate.
Even when products have the same name, different production batches are made up differently; therefore a model number alone does not reliably tell you how a device is built. Because the way we determine how much labour is required to complete your project is based upon identification of the internal components of the device, we provide a complimentary inspection/identification service for all devices prior to providing a quote. Your quote will depend upon the results of this inspection.
None of these have anything to do with what is shown on the side of the casing (the label).
Small media, disproportionate consequences.
The items that reach our bench on USB drives were never intended to be stored solely on USB drives. Some examples of these include a document written during travel, notes taken at conferences, datasets shared with others at the end of a placement period and presentations due the next morning. Cambridge produces more of this type of data than most places. This is due to the fact that more of the data produced in Cambridge is generated by individuals rather than by systems.
The good news is that most of the time, when there is a failure with a stick, it is electronic rather than physical and has nothing to do with the actual memory or NAND itself. This is complicated by the fact that monolithic sticks are common, and this changes how the recovery process works considerably. You will be told if you have one of these types of sticks prior to any money being exchanged.
Our USB stick recovery services start at £250 +VAT, with the price depending upon how your device was constructed (discretely constructed units cost less) and whether the unit requires test-point work (monolithically constructed units cost more). We offer a free diagnostic prior to service, and the exact figure is fixed after it rather than estimated before.
On almost every stick recovery, you only pay if we recover your data. Data recovered will be put onto new media: we do not return your original files directly back to their original device, as this original device has been compromised.
No. This prompt indicates that Windows cannot read your file system, which is exactly what a logical fault looks like. Your data is very likely intact, and formatting would overwrite the file system structures describing your files with a new one.
Usually not. A sheared connector is a board-level failure and the flash itself is usually unaffected. Send us both pieces if the sheared part is still in the port (remove it carefully).
They are more recoverable than most folks expect. Do not power it on to test: this is how you kill them. Allow it to air-dry naturally. Don't apply any heat. Just send it. Water damage alone rarely destroys flash memory. However, current flowing through a wet board will destroy it.
Either the controller is bad, or the stick was counterfeit (fake high-capacity sticks are common) and reported an incorrect capacity, simply discarding whatever data was written beyond its actual limit. Our diagnostic identifies which one you have.
2 to 5 working days for discrete builds. The monolithic build takes longer as we need to locate the test points and make all connections by hand, and this is very time-consuming and cannot be done in haste.
Please refrain from doing so. An item that has failed once should never be used again to protect your only copy of something. Recovered data will either come back via secure link or via new media.
£250 +VAT, agreed before opening. Snapped connectors normally break at the farthest point from the memory. This is why these recover so well, and why repeated attempts to push one back into a port are what cost you.