Around June of 2012, I had gotten myself into a very bad habit. Instead of carrying my SD card in my camera, I left it sticking out of the side of my laptop, presumably intending to do something with the photos on it eventually. On my flight home from Boston, the predictable thing happened: as I got up out of my seat, the machine fell out of my lap, and as the machine hit the ground, the SD card hit first, and was destroyed.
I was otherwise ready to write off the data stored on that device, but something inside me just wasn't happy with that outcome. Before I pitched the SD card in the trash, I took a look at what remained – as far as I could tell, although the board was badly damaged, the storage IC itself was fully intact (although with a few bent pins).
The following is a description of how I went about reverse-engineering the on-flash format, and of the conclusions that I came to. My efforts over the course of about a month and a half of solid work – and a “long tail” of another five months or so – resulted in a full recovery of all pictures and videos that were stored on the SD card.
more here............oshuawise.com/projects/ndfslave#reverse_engineering_a_nand_flash_device_management_algorithm
I was otherwise ready to write off the data stored on that device, but something inside me just wasn't happy with that outcome. Before I pitched the SD card in the trash, I took a look at what remained – as far as I could tell, although the board was badly damaged, the storage IC itself was fully intact (although with a few bent pins).
The following is a description of how I went about reverse-engineering the on-flash format, and of the conclusions that I came to. My efforts over the course of about a month and a half of solid work – and a “long tail” of another five months or so – resulted in a full recovery of all pictures and videos that were stored on the SD card.
more here............oshuawise.com/projects/ndfslave#reverse_engineering_a_nand_flash_device_management_algorithm