Chip-off Recovery for SD Card, MicroSD, eMMC, CF, Cfast, other Monolith NAND chips, Microsoft Surface, and some phones (like Galaxy S3, S4, S5, and some other Android models).

This video details our chip-off data recovery process and rates:

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If your SD card, MicroSD, CF/CFast card, or phone/tablet with eMMC chip has failed, often the only remaining option is a “chip-off” recovery.

Sometimes, we can access the bad device using special reading modes or interfaces to recover your data without removing the chip(s). This is much easier and often produces much better results, so we always try this first.

But, if special reading methods and interfaces fail, the only remaining option is a “chip-off” recovery. 

Chip-off Data Recovery Rates

• We charge $300 per flash chip if we recover 99% or more of the data.
• If we recover less than 99% of your data, you may decline the recovery for a $100 labor fee per flash chip.
• If we can’t recover any data, there is no charge. In rare cases, if you have several chips, a $100 labor fee per flash chip may be required (we’ll always get your approval first if this applies). 
• We charge a $75 “chip removal fee” for some devices, like Microsoft Surface (up-front/non-refundable).
• If your device is encrypted (i.e., Bitlocker), we charge an additional $100 “encryption fee” if the recovery is successful. 
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• SD cards contain 1-2 flash memory/data chips.
• CF/CFast cards contain 1-4 flash memory/data chips.
• MicroSD cards contain 1 flash memory/data chip.
• eMMC/UFS chips (Microsoft Surface and various phones) chips contain 1 flash memory/data chip.

Monolith Data Recovery Rates

A “monolith” device is a single chip that contains the NAND (data) and controller (operating system). We charge $300 for all Monolith devices (the same as for all MicroSDs) if we recover 99% or more data. If less than 99% was recovered, and you don’t want the data we recovered, there is a $100 labor fee. If the recovery is not successful, there is no charge. 

On the left, you can see an eMMC chip recovery from a Lenovo Ideapad 130S. In this case, the computer was damaged due to a drop. We had to use a BGA rework station to remove the tiny eMMC chip which stored all the customer’s data. Then we used a tool called “Z3X EasyJtag” to read the chip and additional software to extract the customer’s data.

Microsoft Surface EMMC Chip-Off Recovery

Newer Microsoft Surface devices save their data on an EMMC chip soldered to the motherboard. When the device fails, the only option is a “chip-off” recovery. We offer the most affordable pricing for “chip-off” recoveries: $300 per chip (+$100 if the device is encrypted) + $75 up-front/non-refundable to remove the EMMC chip.

Whether you have a Microsoft Surface with an EMMC chip (Surface 5 Pro, Surface 6 Pro, Surface 7 Pro, or Surface Laptop 2) or a Microsoft Surface with an SSD (Surface Laptop 1 or Surface Pro 4), we can help recover your data for an affordable price!

See the steps we take to recover from Microsoft Surface devices with EMMC chips…

We charge $75 up-front/non-refundable to open the Surface and remove the chip.

Cleaning thermal paste from the EMMC chip.

Cleaning thermal paste from the EMMC chip.

The motherboard/EMMC chip needs to be heated using an IR station to safely remove the EMMC chip.

Microsoft Surface eMMC chip-off recovery

Cleaning solder from the bottom of the EMMC chip to ensure error-free reading.

Cleaning flux from the bottom of the EMMC chip to ensure error-free reading.

This is a Surface EMMC adapter + PCIe->USB adapter + Deepspar Disk Imager.

EMMC chip identified and being read using UFS Explorer + Deepspar USB Stabilizer.

We use the best-in-class tools for Monolith and Chip-off data recovery

This includes Ace Laboratory’s PC3000-Flash, Rusolut’s VNR, Z3X EasyJtag, and Flash Extractor. We also have many Multi-com adapters for MicroSD cards which enable us to recover data quicker than other companies who manually solder in leads to interface with MicroSD cards. 

We can perform chip-off recovery for devices with the following problems (and more):

• Bricked drive
• Dead drive
• Liquid Damage
• Firmware corruption
• Partition corruption
• Logical failure
• Failed or corrupt controller
• Drive has wrong model number or capacity in BIOS
• Broken phone screen
• Broken phone keyboard
• Phone stuck in boot loop
• Broken USB interface/port

Not sure if we can recover your drive? Submit our Chances Form to find out or email us directly.