Broken USB stick

[binge]

My sister has got all her uni work on a USB stick, and it's stopped working in her laptop.
She's tried it in another laptop too, and it still doesnt register.

I spoke to her yesterday, My Dad's had a look at it, and he's broken all the plastic casing away aparently to see if he can get it to work.

So now the current situation is that the memory card/chip part (The green bit), and the USB plug arent connected.


Is there any way I can use another USB stick, or a USB cable to wire up to the memory chip to retrieve the files?



Any help MUCH appreciated.



Ben

[blurredman]

I don't know, Maybe the connections have been bent and split.

But it is a good lesson for her not to rely soley on something which is completely destructable.
____________________
CBT: 12/06/10, Theory: 22/09/10, Module 1: 09/11/10, Module 2: 19/01/11
Past: 1991 Honda CG125BR-J, 1992 (1980) Honda XL125S, 1996 Kawasaki GPZ500S, 1979 MZ TS150.
Current: 1973 MZ ES250/2 - 18k, 1979 Suzuki TS185ER - 10k, 1981 Honda CX500B - 91k, 1987 MZ ETZ250 - 40k, 1989 MZ ETZ251 - 52k.

[woodyfjr]

Doesn't sound good, I had one go faulty on me but in my case it was just a dry joint and got it working but never trusted it again.
____________________
If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

If you have to rev it! Don't Buy it!

[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

USB sticks are hugely dodgey for corruption and file loss I'm afraid. With uni work you need to have multiple copies.

May be worth speaking to the IT dept at her uni. We had some top data recovery guys at mine.

When I was at uni I had 1 copy of all my work on my home computer, another copy in an email account, and another copy on megaupload. Then on my USB stick as well. That way if one broke I had multiple back ups.
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My Flickr

[woodyfjr]

I had the same problem when I was at college I had too back up on too Welsh Slate which could break and couldn't read it.

Seriously she could back up to Skydrive as its free or many others out there.
____________________
If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

If you have to rev it! Don't Buy it!

[t121anf]

our uni is full of idiots who think 1 copy is enough, unfortunately there are even some who work all day without saving so autosave doesn't work and then cry when the PC crashes and its bye bye dissertation.

binge, plenty of companies on google suggest they can get your data back, but it will cost, depends on what its worth to her

[CaNsA]

Binge,

Pic please dude

[binge]

Will get some pictures of it tonight. Me sister is dropping it off at mine so I can have a look at it.

[stinkwheel]

[lllN30lll]

What brand was it? and was it a genuine one?

[binge]

Cant recall a make now, I have nothing other than the green circuit board from inside it.

https://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac227/pitbikeben/2011-02-10215116.jpg

https://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac227/pitbikeben/2011-02-10215109.jpg

https://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac227/pitbikeben/2011-02-10215055.jpg

https://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac227/pitbikeben/2011-02-10215046.jpg

https://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac227/pitbikeben/2011-02-10214815.jpg

[CaNsA]

Solder on a new usb plug mate.

Simples, get ur ass to maplins with it and ask them for one.

should work, has worked for me in the past

[binge]

Could I get 4 lengths of very thin wire, and do it that way.
It's just the thing is TINY. Like, very small. And im clumsy.

[The Artist]

If you do solder it, be quick otherwise you will detroy the memory chip with heat. Best thing would be to solder some wire on then onto a normal usb plug.

[CaNsA]

You can do, just make sure you do it the right way mate. u can tell which way it should go by seeing where the lugs have snapped off from the plug and matching them upto the lugs stuck in the PCB.

[The Shaggy D.A.]

[ncrn]

Even if you don't get it working again tell your sister to install Dropbox on any computer she uses. If you save your work in the Dropbox folder it automatically backs it up online (up to 2GB) and you are able to download/upload files and folders via a web browser if you are using a university PC.

Even if she does still use a USB drive to carry stuff around it will still make backups for next time something goes wrong. It also keeps a record of the last 30 or so versions of the file so if she gets something seriously wrong and saves the file its not a total loss.
____________________
Past: 55 Sym Jet, 91 ZZR250, 03 NSR125R. Present: 97 ER-5.
https://www.nsr125.co.uk - NSR Owners forum.

[Snodvan]

for DROPBOX

Been using it for a year or so as a way to send very large files to colleagues around the world. Easy to register. Free if you put up with a few advewrts. Your dropbox gets bigger every time there is take-up of one of your recommendations to another person

Snod
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04 (UK Reg) BMW F650cs, but really 02 first Reg in Holland

[kawashima]

I always save on HDD many times while working on files, and when I finish it, I copy it on my USB. (I always have back up on HDD and I delete it when I don't need it anymore)
I always copy the file and change file name adding "-02" before editing it in case the file broken.
Working on USB : saving many times on USB leads to waring flash memory life unnecessarily.
Compact USB which has micro SD inside usually use D3 chips. D3 chips are not so reliable compared to D2 chip. which is not good at saving the data for a long time.
I don't suggest saving important data into D3 chips USB or micro SD. If you choose USB with ready boost function, it's usually at least D2 chip USB. D1 chip (SLC) are usually not used for USB but for good SSD or really high speed SDHC cards.
____________________
own:2020 Serow 250
owned: 2012 YB125SP, 2008 TDM900, 2005 W650, 2002 LS125R, 2002 CB400SF, NS50F, C50 / Trip to UK(2009), Hokkaido touring(2013)

[kawakid]

I work in IT.

I see soo many people who have lost data.

I went to a customers the other day, who luckily I visited 3 years ago. They were using an old PC as a server (to save money, no raid etc), what I did was to stick another hard drive in to it and wrote a simply robocopy script (ie robocopy c:\data d:\data /SEC /R:0 /E) that runs every hour.

What had happend the main hard drive had died, but all the data was on the other hard drive, so no major loss.

These days, there are soo many ways to backup your data, If your a virgin customer they provide it for free and it just runs in the background, alternatively Hotmail, gives you 25Gb and you can simply upload the files to it.

Just last night I was called by a mate who is a translator (who worked speaking french in IT for 8 years), whose laptop hard drive has gone and I don't think he has a backup!. Hopefully I can mount the hard drive, but i'll have to see.

It's amazing how many people do not do backups. For me my family photos are the most important thing I own, I have 2 hard drives on my PC which are mirrored by robocopy, I have all the pictures, copied to an External Hard Drive, 2 laptops & Western digital HD. I also have the virgin V stuff backup service which has everything uploaded, Once a year I also copy all of my photos/documents on to a new 2.5" sata HD and leave it at a relatives.

You can not be too careful.
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I've a twin and a 4.

[CaNsA]

Binge,

You get it sorted?

[binge]

Couldnt get the connector back onto it. So I chopped up a perfectly good USB lead. Looked on the internet to find out which wires did what. Then spent fucking hours with a soldering iron to get this...

https://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/180048_10150100129360606_506045605_6204402_260628_n.jpg


And the poxy thing still doesnt work. I think what's happened is, it originally stopped registering in the PC because of corruption or whatever.
Then between my sister and my Dad, they managed to pull it apart and completely fuck it.
I've "fixed" it, but only got it back to square 1, where it wasn't registering in a PC.

I cant see why what I've done wouldn't work.




Meh.



Ben

[CaNsA]

Gutted,

Post a hi-res pic focusing on the soldered wires please dude.

Cheers

[binge]

Thats the best my camera has got im afraid.

[CaNsA]

You deffo sure you have put the wires in the correct order?