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Repair guides and support for USB flash drives, also known as jump drives, USB sticks or thumb drives.

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Can I Recover My Broken Patriot 16GB Drive?

I have a drive that was broken. The drive was in my computer when it was dropped and broke the outer casing off of the silicon chip inside. The silicon is intact as far as I can see and is still fully attached to the USB connector. My computers do not recognise anything when I plug it in. I can see where one resister is possibly missing on the end of the card. Is there a way to repair it and get it running long enough to recover the data?

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Probably not. If the computer won't recognize it there could be hidden damage to the circuit board or the underside of the chip - even the connections inside the chip would not be visible to the unaided eye. That's why backups of digital anything are important. I always told my students/clients if it would be a PITA to recreate/replace data (a Master's Thesis, or Financial Data) keep 3 copies with one in a different physical location. If there's a fire or flood and your backups are with your original they'll likely be destroyed too.

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machead3 is correct. btw, a backup copy to the cloud is a good idea too (I like SpiderOak / free).

There are service companies that can remove the actual flash memory chips from a damaged USB stick and recover data. Here is one I found during a search, I've never used them, but it doesn't help to check. Probably expensive.

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If you keep ANYTHING in the cloud encrypt it. I don't care if it is vacation pictures, recipes or financial information, encrypt it. If you don't "big brother" and/or his son the thief will also own your data.

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If the data on the drive is really critical there are a number of ways to recover it. The easiest way would be to buy another drive or the same manufacturer and model. Then replace the component on the bad drive's logic board you know is missing from the new one. The harder approach would be to move the memory chip from the bad drive to the new one.

This might be a repair you would consider getting professional help for. Depending on the data the drive contains it may not be financially feasible to retrieve the data on the drive.

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Nathan will be eternally grateful.
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