On Thu, 22 Jun 2017, rickman wrote:

frank wrote on 6/22/2017 7:47 AM:
Hi,
I already know the answer but we never know if anyone out there can make
miracles
I've been given a dead USB drive, in my linux laptop is identified as usb
storage device but it fails to read (probably) the capacity and the usb
stack
keeps on resetting the device.
It's not possible to open it, looks like a small solid plastick stick with
metal tabs embedded on one side. It's just a bit longer than the typical
usb slot.
I tried heating and freezing it, just in case it was some temperature
sensitive fault, but behaviour never changed.
I don't think there's a way to expose the actual NAND-flash chip and read
it separately, but I'm asking the expert here
Did anyone ever found a way to open (or otherwise read) these little
data killer devices?

Just to be sure, you are talking about a USB Flash drive, right? I've yet to
find one I couldn't open. It would cost them extra money to make them hard
to open, solid plastic.

Yes, they may not go back together afterwards, but they are always easy to
open. And they may not be so pocketable once opened, but they don't
really need the case to use, just to protect the circuits when sitting
around. And if there is a failure, it's not like the thing will be
trusted again, the best that opening can do is show a bad connection that
can be resoldered, and then you rescue the data and abandon the device.

Michael