Thank you for being part of the FixData community! In this edition, you will find the 5 most common mistakes that cause data loss, and in our premium content, you will find PCB recovery.

• Trivia

• 5 Most common mistakes that lead to data loss

• Is it possible to recover data from a USB flash drive?

• NAND chip adapters

• Join our community

• Premium Content: PCB Recovery

Trivia

Do you know what the first computer with a hard disk was?

(answer at the end of the newsletter)

5 Most common mistakes that cause information loss

The main cause of information loss is human carelessness; however, there are also alternative causes that are not within our reach, such as software or hardware failures.

Below, we will mention the 5 errors that we consider the most common ones by which you can lose information.

1 - Unstable voltage connections: 

High and low current can be one of your biggest enemies. This instability in current can cause your mechanical hard disk drive (HDD) to end up with scratches on the magnetic planes due to the heads not being able to stop and park properly. If this happens, the data stored on the drive will be at risk.

2 - Accidental disposal:

This cause is more common than it seems, even in companies dedicated to technology. It can be due to carelessness or simply by mistake when pressing a key; it is one of the most common causes, and normally, if the unit does not present any failure, the information recovery process can have a higher level of success in the recovery of information.

The loss of information can be avoided by making a backup copy from time to time, either in the cloud or some other storage device.

3 - Viruses and Malware:

This is one of the most dangerous causes, since both can cause information leakage. They can use your information for some purpose (unauthorized), or they can even charge you an amount to return your information.

For that reason, it is advisable to use software that offers you protection in different aspects, such as:

• Analysis of the devices connected to your computer.

• Security of the network where you browse.

• Analysis of applications.

• Detection of threats in local files.

Antivirus, anti-malware, and tools that block intrusion can help us prevent this type of attack on our information.

4 - Software failures:

Software failures can be more common and cause stored files to become unreadable due to wear and tear on the drive, preventing proper use of your information. 

5 - Hardware failure:

It is caused by natural failures of the device itself, the use given to it or simply by the average life time (MTBF-Mean Time Between Failures). One of the devices that usually presents more failures is the mechanical hard disk (HDD); this type of unit is more fragile. It can be prevented by backing up from one storage unit to another or by backing up to the cloud.

Is it possible to recover data from a USB flash drive?

NAND chip adapters

Chip adapters are used to connect different types of NAND chips, and we can find different types of adapters, each one for recovering USB, SD, and microSD devices.

Chip types and their adapters.

USB:

In a USB memory, the NAND memory chips can be found as the largest component. In image 1.0, we can identify the components that form a USB memory architecture.

TSOP:

Thin Small Outline Package: These chips usually have their pins on the sides; in the image above, the chip has 48 pins and can be differentiated in its termination; for example, TSOP 66 has 66 pins on the sides. It is possible to find TSOP chips with pins on the sides, and they are usually longer.

The following adapter can be used for these chips:

LGA:

Land Grid Array

These chips have a limited number of side pins. Most of their pins are centrally located at the rear. Typically, they are used in processors; however, they can also store information.

BGA: 

Ball Grid Array:These chips always come with the pins soldered on the back in the shape of an X with a square in the center.

BGA devices are typically used in high-reliability applications where performance is not an issue and the device can be easily replaced in the event of a failure. They can be installed on space-constrained devices, such as cell phones.

Adapters such as the following can be used to read information.

Monolithic or Monolithic:

Adapter and device that can be read

Both USB and SD devices can be soldered to a PCB, shown below, which is useful for various chip formats. These PCBs have all the features of the USB and SD adapters, in addition to having outputs for logic analysis.

Soldering Kit:

SD:

In monolith SDs, there are 4 different types of formats:

• SanDisk monoSD

• SanDisk MonoUFD 

• monoSD 4x 10 

• monoSD 3x13

In case the NAND memory of the SD is of any format mentioned above, such as TSOP, it can be read with the TSOP adapter and will depend on the type of chip and the location of its pins.

Sandisk monoSD:

They are designed for SanDisk SSDs, which are common in 90 percent of SanDisk SDs. The adapter supports an 8-bit data bus.

Sandisk MonoUFD:

This adapter is designed for SanDisk Flash SD using USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 interfaces. The adapter supports 4 different pinouts and is designed with an 8-bit bus.

monoSD 4x 10

Designed for SD cards with side columns, it features 3 different PCBs to support multiple different devices:

• PCB1 and PCB2 has 8-bit data bus.

• PCB3 and PCB2 has an additional power supply (VccQ) which is necessary to improve the NAND read quality.

monoSD 3x13:

Features:

Supports 3 different sizes, as well as being designed for flash chips with an 8-bit data bus.

Micro SD:

Micro SD 3x7 pads-NAND:

Features:

• Supports 80 percent of SanDisk microSD.

• It has an 8-bit data bus.

• The chip is required to have 3x7 pads to be read.

Micro SD 6x4 pads:

Features:

• It is compatible with brands such as Kingston, Kingmax, Toshiba, Apacer, Goodram, among others.

• It supports multiple PCB designs as long as it has 6x4 pads.

• The size of the data bus is 8 bits.

USB:

TSOP: USB and SD

These adapters support the same chips and even some SD chips.

This PCB adapter that allows soldering chips, with 3 boards for different chip formats, pads, and sizes.

USB and SDs.

It can read LGA-52/TSOP-48, BGA-152/VBGA-100 and monolith chips using the respective modules shown in the picture. The main socket is required to connect the modules; these modules are compatible with some SD NAND chips.

MicroSD:

Features:

• Based on ZIF format

• PC-Flash 3.0 compatible

• Supports 14x18 mm and 12x 17 mm memory

Learn more about specialized data recovery tools.

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Trivia

Do you know what the first computer with a hard disk was?

The first computer with a hard disk was the IBM 350 RAMAC (1956).

It weighed over 1 ton and could only store about 4.4 MB.

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