Fixing a pendrive that suffered a dog bite

usb-flash-drive

A dog bit my pendrive and after that I can no longer mount the drive in Linux (Debian-based distro).

I can see the light on the drive blinking and the drive is registered via USB. Is this due to a corrupted file system or is it dead? Is there any way to fix this?

lsusb shows this:

Bus 005 Device 001: ID ld6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID ld6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID ld6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:c517 Logitech, Inc. LX710 Cordless Desktop Laser

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 058f:1234 Alcor Micro Corp. Flash Drive

The below image lists the disks and partitions on my machine. Unfortunately, Gparted didn't detect the dog bitten drive.

gparted showing disks, partitions

These are the results of mtab and fstab.

mtab

/dev/sdb1 / ext4 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0
tmpfs /lib/init/rw tmpfs rw,nosuid,mode=0755 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
udev /dev tmpfs rw,mode=0755 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
/dev/sdb6 /home ext4 rw 0 0
/dev/sda2 /media/Disk fuseblk rw,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions 0 0
/dev/sda3 /media/sda4 ext4 rw 0 0
/dev/sda5 /media/sda5 fuseblk rw,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions 0 0
fusectl /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw 0 0
gvfs-fuse-daemon /home/aswin/.gvfs fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon rw,nosuid,nodev,user=aswin 0 0
/dev/sr0 /media/ISO iso9660 ro,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=1000 0 0

fstab

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
#                

proc    /proc   proc    defaults    0   0
#Entry for /dev/sdb1 :
UUID=3beb0fe3-d9ff-4f2a-8431-8a7d458e93dd   /   ext4    errors=remount-ro   0   1
#Entry for /dev/sdb6 :
UUID=ae442d7d-895f-455e-b720-22d28f64656b   /home   ext4    defaults    0   2
#Entry for /dev/sda2 :
UUID=5CB00540B00521DE   /media/Disk ntfs    defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0222    0   0
#Entry for /dev/sda3 :
UUID=98cd90c4-f6a6-4a41-b782-92157d460de8   /media/sda4 ext4    defaults    0   0
#Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=3220C4EA20C4B5DF   /media/sda5 ntfs    defaults,nls=utf8,umask=0222    0   0
#Entry for /dev/sdb5 :
UUID=b5fa78c6-8dc5-4451-9c60-a3528cfdcfc7   none    swap    sw  0   0

This is the thumb drive that suffered dog bite, if it matters at all.

usb stick with dog bite

A closer look at the dog bitten pendrive:

dog bit pendrive up closer

Best Answer

The pictures show that soft(er) solder has been squished/moved under pressure, causing undesirable cross connections.

The one section would be able to be cleaned up with any half descent soldering gun, and some "solder wick". enter image description here Solder wick is a fluxed braid of flat copper. In this situation it would be a good method to remove the small ammounts of solder.

Heat the wick on top of the solder you wish to remove, slide wick to new area of the wick (as it fills), and slide across intended removal areas. That method could clean something that small of the solder fairly easily.
Done carefully the solder in the undesired connections would be removed. Then some hope that it was the only problem.

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