To repair a broken USB flash drive

[Ekavir]

Here is how to repair your broken drive!
Its quite simple if you know how to soldering and some chip design.
This is not the first time, I break a USB Drive. And I already heard some people complaining about the same stuff. But how is this possible? Even if I use it a lot, memory and micro-controller are robust you know, no special reason for a failure (except of course some anormal write, but this is not the case here)

I decided to open this little key, to look closely. After a quick look, I didn’t find anything. So this little PCB stuff was laying on me desk, and people play with it. After a couple of weeks, I discover the memory chip is simply de-solder. My friend at work play so much with it, the failure is now apparent. Nice no ?

Hum, this little TQFN chip will be hard to solder, that’s right. But this is do-able no ? I tried this with a small soldering iron and here the result:

nd yes, the key works fine right now That’s fine no ? I definitively won’t trust this drive enought to store important document, but fine for a couple of mp3, or other..

[rupak]

Hey thanks a lot Ekavir for this tip even i was having an issue with my USB some time back & was unaware of the internal structure.
Thanks for the guide.

[ericsunkel]

Where do you find a jack to use to make this repair?

The USB port has broken completely off of my flash drive. I have a Kingston Datatraveler 16GB.

Does anyone know a supplier for this USB jack so that I can buy it and fix it myself? I think it is a Type A Male USB jack.

I found a supplier on ebay that sells them but I want to try and buy from a reseller. Does anyone know the exact Specifications for this jack so that I can buy with confidence from a supplier?