hey hey! it looks like my sister should have made backups of her data. she bought a stainless steel Retail
Plus+ 16GB USB stick, I assume she thought the stainless steel casing would protect her data, but actually now it is more like a prison for her data.
she has like 10 years of financial records (for her work) on here without any backup and it's extremely important that we manage to recover it. apparently someone stepped on it while it was plugged in (which is a great way to break a usb stick!) and it looks like it's broken pretty good.
now, when I plug it into the computer, it shows up as a generic usb device under "My Computer" and it even shows up in Disk Management without any partition tables or anything. I used like 10 different data recovery programs, none of them are able to do anything with the USB. When you click on the device in "My Computer" it says "please insert a disk into _____". My guess right now is that the USB functionality of the device is still present it's just the actual memory module itself is detached from the rest of the stick. The PCB itself is slightly damaged, but not terribly so.
I could probably solder any broken connection, but I can't get the damned thing open!!
There was a little keyloop thing on the end, I cut it off, it sort of allows me to put a screwdriver in the back and push the PCB forward but I don't want to push too hard and damage it, it moves like a 1/4" and then won't go any further.
I've uploaded pictures of the device here -->
http://imgur.com/a/JUHTxANY advice on the subject is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!!