Can You Repair a Physically Broken USB Drive?

Once in a while mishaps happen to a USB drive, and you end up in an awful position when your just duplicate of a vital record is on there. At the point when something like this happens, would it say it is conceivable to settle a physically broken USB drive? Today's SuperUser Q&A post acts the hero for a worried peruser. 

Today's Question & Answer session comes to us politeness of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a group driven gathering of Q&A site

Photo courtesy of Joel Poxton (Flickr).

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The Question

SuperUser peruser Rasmus Mathiesen needs to know whether it is conceivable to repair a companion's physically broken USB drive: 

My companion simply kept in touch with me, all panicked, that he had broken his USB drive with his math homework for tomorrow on it. Yes, no different reinforcements, simply that. It would seem that this now:

Is there any that way that I can alter this? My reasoning is to bind it together, however I need to hear if anyone here has involvement with this sort of thing or any tips that will offer assistance? 

An alternate alternative would be checking whether Microsoft Word had spared a duplicate of the record as an impermanent document, however in the spots my companion has checked as such, there was not something to be found. 
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It is safe to say that it is conceivable to repair this broken USB drive?

The Answer

SuperUser supporters Chris H, tehwalris, and Annonomus Penguin have the response for us. To start with up, Chris H: 

That looks fixable with a fine point iron and multi-center patch. You may think that it most straightforward to overcome any and all hardships with wire as opposed to endeavoring to return it to its unique shape. 

On the other hand, on the off chance that you don't have a welding iron, you may have the capacity to strap it up with tape to reach. I have done this on more seasoned equipment, yet never on USB drives. 

Whatever you do however, don't attempt to keep in touch with the USB drive. With Microsoft Word that implies don't open the document from the drive. Duplicate the record to a PC and open that duplicate. The purpose behind this is that if your repair fizzles amid a keep in touch with, you will lose the record totally, never to be decipherable again. Amid a read this ought not be valid. Word and its auto-spare gimmicks are not to be trusted to not keep in touch with a record when you wouldn't dare hoping anymore. 

Past the point of no return now, obviously, however as I used to tell students when showing them: Losing your information is a garbage pardon that won't go anyplace. You can simply (for their situation) store it on the system, email it to yourself, and put it on a USB drive. 
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Emulated by the answer from tehwalris: 

All the answers so far that have said it was fixable have centered around re-fastening the USB connector. While this could work, the connector is likely broken, discovering a substitution is hard, and fastening a connector like that is not all that simple for learners. 

A potentially less demanding route is to take a USB link, (for example, an expansion link or telephone charger link) that has a USB A connector on one side (the typical enormous PC kind like the one on the USB drive), cut off the flip side, strip the wires, and patch them to the board. 

For the best results, attempt to keep all the wires a comparable length (because of the moderately quick information rate of USB drives). Watch a basic binding guide in the first place, contort your wire finishes, and precoat them with patch. 

With our last reply from Annonomus Penguin: 

As a matter of first importance, don't let your companion close to a USB drive until the end of time! Aside from that, binding it is about your just choice. 

On the off chance that you have a Raspberry Pi or an old PC that you would not see any problems with fricasseeing the port on, you could attempt painstakingly connecting it to. As has been specified by others, a USB augmentation link will provide for you access to all the more precisely connect it to the PC. On the off chance that you are that frantic to hazard an impeccably decent PC, feel free to utilize your principle one. 

In the event that you can see a break in the association, don't do it. More terrible things could happen than losing your math homework. 
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With respect to patching, it appears as though it is just the connector that is harmed. In the event that the PCB is fine, you could do this:

1. Take an old USB cable, cut the B end off, and strip the newly exposed wires.
2. Take a soldering iron and carefully solder the wires on. If you have an old sock or something similar, I suggest putting that over the main chip in case the iron slips so the chip is not damaged. It is not foolproof, but it is better than nothing.
3. Make sure all the connections are not dry joints and that they do not bridge.
4. After all the wires are soldered, add a ton of hot glue over it. I would suggest wrapping it around the main board a few times in case you accidentally tug on the wire so it does not come undone. This is just a best practice thing, so is not required.
5. Plug it into your friend’s computer and cross your fingers.

On the off chance that it has a perused just switch, I would encourage you to utilize it to verify that you don't degenerate the document.

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