The first question is if it's just the case that's cracking or if there are electrical contacts on the PCB inside the case that have broken loose. If the latter is the case you'll have to pry off the plastic case and inspect the PCB and chips/components on it. You can try to touch up the solder pads with a VERY fine tipped soldering iron - and I don't mean a Radio Shack fire starter :-) Once the connections on the PCB are in good shape you should be able to pull the data off - although the card won't be much practical use any more since it'll be bare. Once the case is busted off you may need to solder wire-wrap wire from the leads on the SD card to your reader's leads in order to maintain good contact. That will likely require the destruction of your reader too. Probably not the answer you're looking for, but if the vacation pics are really important it could easily be worth it.
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Edwards Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 1:34 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Physically damaged SD card Any tips or ideas for recovering data from a physically damaged SD flash card? One of the cards I'm working with has hairline cracks in it, that appear to be getting worse with handling. I was able to recover some data off it at first, but now, no go. I've tried several readers that I have available. Applying some physical pressure to close up the cracks seemed to help a bit at first. Typically, if I can get it to read, I can read some data, but then it un-mounts and either fails to read, or all data read contains zeros. Mind you, in this particular instance, it's just my vacation pictures that I'd be sad to lose (first trip to London), but I've done some recovery/forensic work with flash media before, and it seems like excellent practice. -- Michael Edwards
