An eMMC Gives Up Its Secrets

An increasing phenomenon over the years since mobile phones morphed from simply telephones into general purpose pocket computers has been that of the dead device taking with it some treasured digital resource. In most cases this means the device has died, but doesn’t necessarily mean that that the data has completely gone. Inside the device will be an eMMC flash chip, and if that can be read then the data is safe. This applies to some single board computers too, and thus [Jeffmakes]’ adventures in recovering an eMMC from a dead Raspberry Pi CM4 are particularly interesting.

The whole thing relies on the eMMC presenting the same interface as an SD card, so while it comes in a multi-pin BGA package it can be addressed with surprisingly few wires. Using the PCB from another dead CM4 he traced the relevant connections from eMMC to SoC pads, and was thus able with some very fine soldering to construct an interface for an SD card reader. The disk could then be imaged in its entirety.

This work will be of huge use to experimenters who’ve fried their Compute Modules, but of course the information it contains will also be of use to retrieve those photos from the phone that fell in the bath. It’s not the first time we’ve taken a look at someone’s efforts in this area.