There are two main ways your USB stick can get damaged: physical and logical.

Physical damage occurs when the USB connector is twisted or snapped off, like if it gets knocked by someone walking past the computer while it is plugged into your PC. It can also happen within the hardware, if the PCB gets broken in 2 or is cracked.

Logical damage occurs to the actual data area. It is noticeable when you start to see errors in your files or the files fail to open at all The programs and firmware that operate the memory stick have become corrupted and are not able to access the files in the same way. There may also be damage occurring across the memory cells themselves, (especially if the device is old or has been used very heavily).

The most common causes of data corruption are: sudden power loss, USB driver issues, NAND memory wear, operating system failure, program crashes during file transfer and incorrect removal of the device before the system has finished transferring data.

Call us now for advice

We use hardware tools and methods to get at the data, (not software), so we can find the right solution for your case.