Need help with broken flashdrive!

[Bearmoon]

My flash drive broke in half. Is there any way to retrieve the files on it? Or can I transfer them onto another flash drive? They are very important to me.

Here is a picture of the flash drive itself. I think part of the circuit board snapped, but I'm not positive?



And here's a picture of the flash drive casing. ( You probably don't have to see this, but just incase )

 

[(*steve*)]

First step is to get us a sharper photograph of both sides of the stick.

If you are really lucky, the only things in that part of the board are the connections to the USB connector. If so, you may be able to carefully attach small jumper wires then carefully plug it in so you can extract the data.

If there is more there than just this, you may have to purchase another stick *exactly* the same, remove the chip from both, and place the chip from this one onto the good board, and hope you haven't cleared the chip somehow.

I've repaired USB sticks that have undergone less damage than this. Whilst removing that chip would not present too many challenges to me (I have the equipment and experience), I would have to take a lot of care not to accidentally remove other components (or at least remember where they went so I could put them back). When replacing the chip, alignment is critical, and it is really easy to accidentally short pins from misalignment or from solder bridges.

I assume you don't have the experience or the equipment should it come to replacing the chip. How much is this data worth to you? (Enough to get someone to do this for you?)

 

[Bearmoon]

Thank you for all the help, Steve! I will take a better picture tomorrow when there is light outside.

And in reply to your last question, it would all matter on price. Around how much do you think it would cost for someone to replace the chip for me?