A USB memory stick arrived with us at R3 Data Recovery for assessment and was diagnosed as having a failed microcontroller so the only option was to remove the two flash memory chips. The client had already tried soldering themselves and the printed circuit board was covered in thick flux.
The two chips were un-soldered and bathed in solvent designed to remove flux and then carefully cleaned and dumps made of the hexadecimal data. These dumps were manipulated in software to re-create the algorithm the failed microcontroller used.
Thankfully this was successfully performed in only a few hours after we received the go-ahead from the client. A happy day for both parties.
