20-09-2013, 11:18 AM
Yesterday evening one of these cards fell to bits while I was putting it into a reader.
I managed to put it back together enough to recover the data.
The write protect switch had fallen off along with the chip itself so the write protect was jammed on.
My next attempt resulted in the write protect switch pinging out of the tweezers and disappearing.
I examined the reader and established that the write protect is in fact no more than a small mechanical switch.
So it is fixable if that is all it needs.
The kind of plastic is one that responds to PCB lacquer so once I had cut a bit of card from a packet of AA batteries the lacquer was out in a tin lid with a cocktail stick. The write protect function goes the same way as the switch and is gone for ever.
The card otherwise works just fine.
I managed to put it back together enough to recover the data.
The write protect switch had fallen off along with the chip itself so the write protect was jammed on.
My next attempt resulted in the write protect switch pinging out of the tweezers and disappearing.
I examined the reader and established that the write protect is in fact no more than a small mechanical switch.
So it is fixable if that is all it needs.
The kind of plastic is one that responds to PCB lacquer so once I had cut a bit of card from a packet of AA batteries the lacquer was out in a tin lid with a cocktail stick. The write protect function goes the same way as the switch and is gone for ever.
The card otherwise works just fine.