Yes. VNR is a tool that can recover data from physically broken flash storage devices as long as memory chip is not destructed. In about 95% of all cases with non-recognizable flash devices there’s no damage to NAND chip occur.

Visual Nand Reconstructor has automatic analysis modes, database of devices and very powerful manual modes of physical image analysis.

Yes, it’s true. This “breach” caused by limited lifespan of NAND memory when program/erase cycles causes memory cell degradation in couple with specific garbage collection algorithm. Modern controllers do never overwrite data in the same place (block/page) as long as NAND chip has free blocks. They move updated data to the new block/page and leave obsolete block with “garbage” for garbage collection algorithm. It doesn’t start to work (to erase) blocks immediately. It causes known issue, when you wipe data on flash device, it still keeps it for some time. VNR allows you to analyze all blocks of NAND chip and find these old blocks/pages, if they kept.

Visual Nand Reconstructor is a tool that allows to extract physical image of data from NAND chip and transform raw data to logical image. This can be used for data recovery and digital forensic procedures. Also it has a special modes for obsolete/erased block analysis.

The microSD cards have caseless memory chip which you cannot take off because it’s embedded with controller within tiny plastic enclosure. When controller or internal circuit gets damaged and memory card is not recognized in system, you have to remove plastic coating, find technological contact pads and solder it to adapter from VNR kit. Some new USB Flash drives and different memory cards also migrate to so-called “monolithiс” manufacturing technology. Here you can find a special adapter “Monolith” for all non-snandard chips.

Yes. There’s special adapter “Monolith” in Visual Nand Reconstructor kit that allows to connect any monolithiс chip to reader. In VNR you can find a dabatase of monolithic chip pinouts for USB Flash drives, MicroSD, SD, etc. This database is constantly updated.

Yes, we have a solution which helps to reduce bit error rate while memory chip reading.
Due to power consumption trend all new chips work in power range 1.8V…3.3V. When you read the chip with standard power 3.3V it produces lot of bit errors that lead to unrecoverable data corruption, even ECC can’t fix all errors. The Visual Nand Reconstructor allows you to change power of core/ports to 1.8V that helps to reduce errors significantly! You can see here proving experiment. The VNR reader can supply 1.8V…4.0V to NAND chip so there’s a big room for experiments with chip configuration and power adjustment.

Yes, VNR supports most of known NAND chips. Most of Tablets have standard NAND chips, however some smartphones use different chips which we’re analyzing as soon as they appear. Using Visual Nand Reconstructor you can extract the physical image (dump) of chip, separate data/spare area of image for further processing.

If data is not encrypted with crypto algorithms then data recovery is possible.
Scrambling is not encryption, so XOR key is not unique and can be extracted then applied through several ways:

1.  VNR built-in database of XOR keys
2. XOR key extraction from client’s physical image via Bitmap mode
3. XOR key extraction from donor drive filled with pattern

Yes. The digital voice recorders use NAND memory for storing data, and have same principles of data allocation as other flash media.

Some of their controllers use data encryption, some scrambling (XOR) which we support for particular models. Another peculiarity of these devices is that they mostly use 16-bit NAND chips. VNR reader supports 8-bit and 16-bit data bus of NAND chips.

All the adapters that you see in specification are included into VNR kit. We’re developing new adapters with ZIF sockets for chips you mentioned (and some others), but they will be sold separately as an option. The BGA60 chip can be read in TLGA52 adapter from Visual Nand Reconstructor kit.

We proudly say that we do not have “engineering version” of Visual Nand Reconstructor or any other special addons for reverse egineerging of new devices. Our developers and engineers use the SAME version of VNR as you buy, for R&D of new devices. When you buy VNR what you get is not just software for image reconstruction with set of scripts, but a powerful and extremely flexible platform for digital forensics, data recovery and reverse engineering of flash devices. You can extract scrambling patterns (aka “XOR keys”), discover FTL algorithms of old and new controllers, find obsolete data in special blocks, analyze LOG blocks (history of file system modification and some other “hot” data), analyze firmware blocks of contoller, and whatever you need or may not even expect 🙂 The Visual Nand Reconstruction is the MOST POWERFUL PLATFORM on the market for NAND recovery/forensics/researches and it is two steps ahead of all existing tools by functionality.

Visual Nand Reconstructor has a built-in platform for fast research of new devices, that allows to support most of chips which appear every month. So far we support:

Supported data storage devices
USB Flash disks, Solid State Drives, SD cards, Monolithic flash media, Micro SD cards, MS cards, XD cards, Digital voice recorders, MP3 players, Tablets, Smartphones and other NAND based data storage devices.

Supported controllers
Alcor Micro (AU), Innostor (IS), Jmicron (JMF), Indilinx (IDX), ITE (IT), Lexar (FC), Phison (PS), Samsung, Sandisk, Silicon Motion (SM), Skymedi (SK), Solid State Systems (SSS), Stec, Toshiba (TC), USBest (UT), others.

Supported NAND memory
Micron (2Ch), Intel (89h), Toshiba (98h), Sandisk (45h), Hynix (ADh), Samsung (ECh), others ONFI and non-standard.

Yes, you can load any dumps to “Physical image” elements and reconstruct the logical image in VNR.

Here some unique features of Visual Nand Reconstructor:
– Innovative approach to data recovery and visualization of data patterns
– Scrambler pattern (XOR key) extraction mode
– Unified block translator algorithm
– Universal gold plated socket of reader allows to connect any existing and future chips easily
– Power adjustment capability helps to reduce the noise and minimize bit errors when reading chips
– Reprogrammable reader’s logics allows to load new chip config fast and test unknown chips
– The largest set of adapters among data recovery tools
– Universal Monolith adapter

OS:
Windows 11 x64 (Windows 10 x64 is supported too).
Also the latest Framework and MS SQL Compact server must be downloaded and installed from official Microsoft website.

Hardware:
The VNR works on any modern PC/Laptop.

However we recommend to have:
CPU: Core i7 or similar
RAM: 16GB (in addition increase swap file size to 64GB or use 64GB of RAM)
HDD: NVMe SSD or fast RAID config
Monitor: 19inch and higher, 1920×1080
MB: Any desktop except server

This issue may be caused by outdated Windows components or bugs in very first version of software.

1. Please, make sure you install the latest version of software and resources available at Client Portal

2. Please, install/update some of windows components – Framework, MS SQL Compact server, MSVS Redistr 2010, MSVS Redistr 2012

3. If problem still persist, send email to support@rusolut.com

If the software suddenly crashed you can recover the case from autosaved  *.tmpcase file just by renaming it to *.case file. You can change autosave interval in settings.

Yes, VNR license locked to the hardware configuration of your computer, however you can move it to another machine with further reactivaton of software.

Yes, multiple installations are possible! Even parallel running of VNR on different machines possible!
The VNR must be started with connected reader, but as soon as chips are read, it can be disconnected. Plug it back when you want to save user’s data (you can run VNR on second machine and read chips while analyzing another task!)

You must reactivate Visual NAND Reconstructor when configuration of PC has changed. Delete “activation.key” from VNR installaton folder, run application and send new activation request.

– Make sure that all pins/pads of chip are perfectly clean and not ripped-off. Statistically in more than 90% of cases when ID is not read that’s the issue and chip is still functioning. In case of TSOP48 chips clean it with solder wick and later on with fibreglass pen. To remove all contaminations use 99% isopropyl alcohol.

– Make sure that you insert the chip correctly as shown in the quick setup guide (p.8-12)

– If none of suggestions helped, please send the following information to support@rusolut.com:

– high quality photos of chips and PCB (especially pins/pads)

– chip model/marking

1. Make sure you’ve installed MS SQL Compact server.

2. Make sure you’ve set all flags in Case/Database menu.

3. If chip with your ID is still not listed, try to delete 2 last symbols of ID in filter.

4. If non of above helped, please, send request to support team.

Let us know:

– NAND chip ID

– marking from the label

– chip capacity (total device capacity / number of NAND chips)

– type of NAND package

In VNR we have developed new analysis theory that works even on scrambled devices (where data has no patterns).
It’s based on visual pattern analysis through Bitmap mode. The data, ecc and spare area patterns look different. The main idea is to find the border of patterns inside the page. Here is a library of patterns. Almost all modern devices use 1024b data area size (some old 512b).

No, “Correct dump” feature is used only if you need to apply ECC corrections right into dump. In case of “Reread dump” option it will do that automatically at the very first pass.