How to recover data from broken USB

USB Sticks have Flash memory, which is very similar to the one found inside modern smartphones. If the USB stick is a memory that we could consider safe because it is almost immune to bumps and falls, it is, on the other hand, extremely sensitive to short circuits (caused by voltage surge or current overload) which causes it to overheat and cell corruption. The memory of a stick, like that of our smartphones, tends to degrade over time (due to prolonged use).

Flash Memory is a a non-volatile memory chip that can electrically be erased and reprogrammed. There are two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, both with the same cell design, but differ at a circuit level. The NAND type is found mainly in memory cards, USB flash drives, smartphones, and similar products, for general storage and data transfer.

The flash memory life results from a wear out mechanism caused by the basic the structure and technology of the device. Basically flash memories have a cell block that fixes errors within the device.

Every time you use it, a cell block gets erased and re-used in order to make the device function (kinda like when you write something on a single piece of paper, if you want to re-use it, you need to erase old information to make room for the new ones you want to write down).

This process is repetead over and over, never stopping, and eventually the cells start to degrade little by little, until you can no longer use the device.

Wear leveling is a process often used to gain he maximum usage from a Flash memory.

The aim of the Flash memory wear leveling functionality is to track which blocks have already been used, to distribute the programme, where erase cycles are distributed evenly across the available memory. By using the wear leveling techniques, no block should be used considerably more than any other and therefore no single block prematurely fails due to a higher number of programme-erase cycles.

We cannot categorically state that storing data on a USB flash drive is not recommended at all, but this mustn't be the only memory drive on which we are going to store our data. What any technician (who knows thoroughly the difference in memory that exists between a hard disk and a USB stick) would recommend, is not to entrust the storage and therefore the saving of your data exclusively to a USB stick since it's not to be considered a device which excels in safety.

The backup, regardless of the memory we choose to run it on (and that it is regularly, remember it!), should never be on a single drive, but you can have at least two copies of the files that most interest you, to minimize the possibility of losing them.The safest medium on which to back up you precious data, whether they are work documents or photos from your holidays, is always the hard disk. The USB stick certainly offers the advantage of having super small dimensions and being able to offer the same storage capacity as a hard disk

So why not choose a USB hard drive that certainly offers better performance in terms of data security (and why not, if it is also sold at the same price?). What is certain is that perhaps the most interesting feature when choosing a USB stick over a hard disk is the physical size, and we can certainly object to that.

The pen is broken, let's see the main causes:

1. He may have experienced a power surge. It usually happens when you don't safely remove the device and it suddenly disconnects from your computer. This causes a sudden interruption in the operational state, often in reading or writing which damages the internal memory.
2. It may have worn out. Flash memory suffers as time goes by, just like that; it issensible to cell corruption. Even more so when we repeatedly delete files and then rewrite new ones. Flash technology continually rewrites on the same cells which are therefore continuously erased and rewritten, always on the same points. This is extremely harmful to internal memory.
3. You can find physical damage, often affecting the USB connection of the stick. A clumsy removal movement or a bump while the key is connected to the PC and the USB port can no longer recognize it.

These are the main causes that lead to the need to recover data from the broken stick.

Generally, the symptoms are:

1. The lack of recognition by the operating system (when we connect the device via USB port).
2. The inability to access one or more files.
3. Corruption of individual files.

Prerequisites for data recovery from USB pen drive with Challenger Rocket

1. The device must be electrically operated and must be recognized by the USB bus
2. The device must be recognized with its identifier and its physical LBA capacity correctly
3. The device must allow even partial access to the logical sectors

Basic principles

The uniqueness that Challenger Rocket system consists of not automatically accessing the peripherals connected to the system, and of allowing an atomic reading of the logical sectors.

If a flash drive has bad sectors or critical areas, you can exclude them from the reading process using the blending system with the information stored on the target and the zMap.

How to properly connect a damaged pen drive to ChallengerOS

1. Disable System Monitor from the Rocket menu
2. Open the Syslog Display dashboard

3. Connect the Pen Drive to the computer using the USB port
4. Wait for the connection signal and recognition of the USB device
5. Press the Refresh button to update the list of available devices

How to recover a damaged pen drive with Challenger Rocket

1. Select the device from the list of available devices, and select Data Recovery Tools.

2. Select Disk Imaging from the Function Menu
3. Select the name of the task and the location where to save the disk image from Wizard
4. Once created the task from the Options, select the SCSI SAT protocol
5. Press the Play button to start the imaging process

Error handling and resolution of pen drive lock
If the device starts to use errors and is no longer operational (many consecutive bad blocks) it is necessary to detach the device and restart it.

1. Press the stop button
2. Disconnect the USB device
3. Reconnect the peripheral
4. Select attach "Set new source device" from the device menu
5. Select the newly detected USB device
6. Press Play.