Laptop eMMC Data Recovery on a Budget - Andy's Boring Job

How to recover data from the eMMC chip on a Laptop/Tablet/Smartphone without desoldering it or spending hundreds of pounds on professional data recovery services. In fact the whole thing cost me less than a fiver.

[tangerinq]

Thanks for the tip. I had a similar case and i tried a few different card readers but none could detect the eMMC on board of the dead laptop motherboard. Eventually I figured it out - what's interfering is existing connection between the eMMC data / command / clock lines and the original host CPU. Once I removed the 0Ohm resistors providing this connection, the chip was recognized.

[RaveTracks]

Excellent informative video that gets straight to the point. Didn't know this was possible so really helpful. and extra bonus points for the disco Duke outro!

[andytipping]

absolutely fantastic - balls of steel attempt - i'm seriously impressed!

[itizme]

My HP stream burned out over 2 years ago and I put it in storage.
Was throwing stuff out, saw it and figured hey Im home with plenty of time on my hands. Saw this video. Same exact PC.
Im Gonna give it a shot.

[Maeddn]

Exactly what I need right now. Having an emmc from a Samsung s4 mini for data recovery. Let's see how to figure out the needed pins on the sd reader ( I already have the pins from the emmc).

[Jokamutta]

Glad to see that it's possible to recover data from eMMC storage without spending a fortune! But I don't think I would have the skills to do this :D

[riccardoz]

Lovely video full of info, thanks a lot. and a plus, the extra bonus video. amazing !!

[aftbit]

Very interesting. The hard/lucky part seems to be finding board schematics for the laptop and/or eMMC. I've recently run into those BGA sockets costing $1000+. Insanity. I'm tempted to try 3d printing my own.

[ChrisFredriksson]

That's the best video I've seen on the topic after a few months of looking at various pages and such. I've just not been able to confirm completely what you've shown in this video until now. This should also make it possible to program an eMMC, maybe. There might of course be other factors that prevent this, but generally it should be possible. Great video!

[RikuKawai]

This is actually the same method used to hardmod a Nintendo 3DS, but Nintendo handily has test points for all the eMMC lines so it's a lot easier.

[LukeLegendLee]

You definitely deserve a thumbs up for this, glad to help you hit the 1k mark.

[tiporari]

Brilliant. People would tell you this approach won't work, is stupid, risky.
And there it is. The world's sketchiest jump drive. Only needs to work once.

[joaquindayrit]

I never thought this was possible as I just saw an EMMC pinout having 8 pins instead of 4 for DAT and thought it just wouldn't work. To be fair I didn't look too much into it HAHA
Great work and very informative !

[smoky]

I am not nearly as smart as I think I am, but knew enough to know I could get by with out purchasing an all socket chip reader for 150 bucks, and the accompanying software to access it. Well I will investigate a little further and see if I can find a PC Card schematic. Thanks!

[kbhasi]

Neat! I'm imagining that you would end up backing up the original flash storage, and restore the backup, when she gets another laptop as a replacement.

[Just_Lew]

This video may be getting dusty but it is still primo content. Solid no frill solution. Great video!

[themodshiah]

This is incredible, thank you for the info!

[rpsproject]

Brilliant video, manufacturers really should not use the eMMC SSD memory it's just too small in size and a pain to work with.

[KickAssets]

This video is amazing. I wonder how many people are able to pull it off.

[Myst_Exodus]

Super interesting and informative video as usual! I learnt a lot and love intelligent hacks like this. Thanks!