Spoiler Saver This one was painful as it didn't AND still doesn't make any sense to me. Hopefully once the comments come in, the mystery will be all cleared up and maybe I can do a revisit 👍👍

Generally NAND Flash like in this dictaphone will be formatted with a filesystem, much like on a desktop system. It's similar to how SD cards are supported, meaning that the folder structure and meta data is stored on the Flash device. This would mean that swapping the Flash chips between both devices would theoretically work, but NAND Flash has the annoying tendency to rapidly lose its stored charges (and thus data) when heated up. I'm not sure there's a safe way to do this, and it might be easier to dead-bug wire the target NAND Flash IC up to the working board without desoldering the former. Depending on the NAND Flash interface and file system used, it might even be possible to wire it up to just about any 3.3V MCU for reading out.

Vince, Most electronic components have a power management chip or current/voltage sensing circuitry. The reason why the transistor at 10:43 was switching off is because the aforementioned circuitry is detecting an overload somewhere and thereby switching off the device this is to protect the device from further damage.

Watching this video on my phone in bright sunlight I had to strain my eyes. Then a cloud came and that's when I realised: it wasn't the sun, it was the yellow mat all along.

Great effort Vince! I've done the 5am thing in the past too!😂😂😂 I'd think any user data would just be stored in the flash chip including the file indexes. I don't think the unit would store that in the microcontroller, so if the flash isn't corrupt or at fault, just swapping that might work...

Hi, Vince, Theo here! Firstly, thank you for your perseverance on this, I can see that it wasn't easy at all! Not sure if you saw the device schematics I found, maybe they'd help, so I asked Kate to send it over to you. Anyway, I found this video fascinating and I'm reading all of the comments to see what others suggest. Keep up the excellent work, you're a legend! 😊

Remove NAND and try to recover the data directly. It's likely a standard file system on the NAND so if you just get a raw dump then data recovery software might be able to find the sound files. I highly doubt there is any encryption of data for something this old. If you are going to swap, just the NAND should work, you shouldn't have to swap the CPU along with it (that might be the fault anyway). You can even dump the NAND without swapping at all if you wire up the chip itself. There's only like 4-5 points you need to power and read the chip.

I actually have one of these. They're pretty good recorders for the price

2$ usb nand reader, take chip out and put it on nand reader to take out data like a usb as encryption chip is also onboard 😊

Absolute fault finding endurance, well done !!

Something you might be interested in getting are some multimeter leads with needle tips. They are much smaller than the common size.

You did give it a great shot. Maybe test by taking off the chip on the working 1 and then putting it back on the working 1 to see if the heat destroys the file

Looking at 8:45, you can see some corrosion on the mini USB and some capacitors, possibly resistors, nearby. I would start from them. Ceramic capacitors have a tendency to short, maybe that's the reasons that voltage is missing.

I had one of these, slightly older in silver ICD-P620, loved it before I switched to using a smart device. Was glad I got all my recordings off it before something like this happened. As much as I love the focus that a dedicated device like this gives (no temptation to look at some other app), there is something to be said for recordings that transmit via wifi straight to a computer with version control.

Revisit...we've come this far... we're so close - I can feel it. The time's spent and I'm all in. Are you with me? I'm with you...come on...swap them...please?

Vince is amazing as always, kudos for your total dedication, wow ❤ I love your videos and I can see how hard you are working, no wonder people find your channel one of the best things to watch! Keep up the good work 👏👏👏

Another great video. I'm pleased the yellow mat came out because that blue one looks really skanky now. Mind you it shows its done years of good service.

I would definitely try changing the memory chip first. Most probably it works like a computer's SSD drive and stores the file system on itself. Another suggestion I second is to take out the memory chip and then insert it into an external reader. This way you have to desolder/solder the chip only once.

Yes I absolutely would swap the writeable memory first and test then the main "confuser" and test again. However that may be poor advice. Sometimes an IC is looking for a trigger to generate a voltage. Such as what is produced with the on off switch. In my head I think the triggered output could remain in a constant state until something external produces the exact trigger it's looking for on its input pin to change state. It is possible by swapping components you actually caused the trigger that changed the state of the I/O. For myself, I believe the problem is most likely with the main IC.

I used to have a couple of these same recorders back when i was part of an amateur paranormal investigation team they were pretty good for EVP

Can we have a limited edition T-shirt or Mug saying I stayed up for the masochist Sony voice recorder sessions! Fascinating video Vince keep up the good work.

The ARM chip is the processor. It stores no data regards the memory. Simply swapping the memory chip would work. However there's a risk to this of losing all data (part and parcel of working with with memory) 9 Times out of 10 it's successful. The filesystem on the memory will be compatible as when installed it would of been formatted as such they will work the same

Swap the chips mate... What have you got to lose... As is... It's no working... You might get lucky... Great effort.. ❤

I didn't watch every second of the video so you may have mentioned it, but it seems to me they are slightly differnt units. If you go to 23:11 the the two large chips are differnt sizes.

Hey Vince ! I really enjoy watching your videos and would absolutely love to see you revisit this with swapping over the chips.

Mine, despite malfunction, was able to transfer recordings to the computer, and I think I remember installing the Sony application that came with it in order to do that. On the computer, It had it's own little file menu for copying to hard drive along with play buttons and stuff. The malfunction was fixed with a simple "Yes" to the format screen accessed by the unit's menu, of course that wiped all the recordings off the unit. I simply put them back in from the computer back up.

Great endurance test Vince. 😊😊

inject 2.8v on the joint where you measure lower voltage on the dead board. Something on the board causing it to drop on the board. Unfortunately what I believe there is a partial short inside ARM microcontroller. If I were you I would replace that chip and give it a try.

It would maybe help to know how important that recording is. Is it like "Moms last words" or "Aunt Helen's cake recipe" ? So you can know how experimental you can be, or if you need to be really careful.

If you ever buy one of these, always get one with an SD card so at the very least, if it breaks down, you can still access your recordings.

You can only take NAND chip from the faulty board and put it in the NAND reader and it becomes like a USB flash drive and successfully transfer data 🙃

Glad to see your fingers better Vince.

I think you should switch out the flash chip. That's one of the first things I would have tried since that's the only part that's important. The file info is probably stored on the flash, and it's probably just using regular files on a FAT16 or FAT32 file system. No sense in reinventing the wheel after all. Switching out the microcontroller shouldn't be necessary.

Here's a crazy idea. If you really want to recover the data. Transfer the nan flash to the working one. Make sure any flash controllers are transferred as well that way the data can be recovered

Vince you surely epitomise 'Mad dogs and Englishmen'.

It's a shame you couldnt fit this one! I think power management issue somewhere! The flash chip probably holds all info about the files stored on it. There probably isn't a relationship regards data structure and data contained on the ARM chip, but there may be encryption that is specific to the ARM chip fitted?!? Worth a shot to swap the NAND flash over!

Revisit for SURE. I wanna see you swap those chips.

I was certainly going to ask you (before your coda comments) whether it might be worth trying to swap the memory (or both) large chips. I think that WOULD be interesting (in terms of how difficult, and also whether it is actually feasible that data can be recovered). And I suppose if one researched enough about the storage chip, it might be possible to jury rig circuitry to force it to "disgorge" its data content. I have to say, I find your "failure" videos just as interesting to watch as the success ones, and I think you might still be able to crack this one.

Vince, I have no doubt on your skills, however my first thought was no way he fixes it. Was a nice try, looking forward to see if you swap the chip. Those variations of Voltage, maybe is due to a capacitor . You took something off the capacitor drains, off etc.

As a fellow electronics tinkerer/repair/rework person I can only say that they're fn weird, haha. They are just weird. Transistors deal with doped metals and sometimes billions of gates where anything from heat to a small electric charge to bumping them can make them go from behaving one way to another. Some components want EXACTLY 3.3v and not a bit more and others have tolerances of over a volt. Some are fragile like glass, others can be hit with a hammer and still work. Gremlins, Vince. Fn gremlins.

The flash memory is likely formatted as exfat or fat32 and their are usb thumb drives that use flash memory in that package. Might be an idea.

I think you should try just the memory chip 1st. The ARM chip is probably the processor and just reads whats on the memory chip. I think kinda they way a computer reads a usb stick. Just a thought. Keep the videos coming. They are my therapy. 😊

It's very likely that the whole filesystem is on the memory chip, so worth trying swapping

nice video I would try to swop the QFP first and see what happens

lol.. vince using some of his old BT wire stock to connect the device. Njoying your Vids Vince :)

If it's a shit or bust situation, you may as well try swapping the memory chip over 1st, then the processor if it doesn't work. Maybe stick a heatsink on them if you are worried that heat will damage the contents.

I had a similar one (ICD-PX720) and a couple of things worth noting: First, it saved in a proprietary format. Second, the software that decoded that proprietary format ceased to be supported by Sony (trying to install it, it called home and the mothership said NOPE).It must have a built-in self destruct and will refuse to work after a certain date. The device suffered the same fate. It said ACCESS and refused to ever work right again. It's replacement saves in .mp3 format like the other one should have from the start. I think trying to power it by the mini usb port (it was an option) may have led to its demise.

I'd simply swap the flash chip over to the other one and see what it does, and if that won't work make an image of it by example putting it on a donor USB stick.

It's a very interesting. For me it is a reliable recorder for Panasonic microcassettes. I still used this.

My guess is, that the control information about the recordings is also written to the non-arm chip. So only the storage chip has to be moved to the new device. Bit this is a guess only.

on the last chip you check the 4th pin i think is a feedback line, that tell the chip the line is ok or not. feedback line have resistors to their path. if you follow the via maybe you find something. and yes you can change the 2 chip (nand and controller) if they are good you can recover the data

I'd love to see a follow-up on this one if you could. I still have hope

After all the testing, I wonder if a reflow oven would have helped. You did mentioned the possibility of a dislodged solder ball. Lead free solder can crack, decay.

Go for it, there’s nothing to lose in trying 😊

I can only put your voltage changing scenario down to heat either affecting a thermal fault on the circuit or a component or components have failed due to heat from soldering... other than that defo Gremlins. As mentioned by others putting the NAND flash onto the other working board (they are fairly resilient to heat in the short term) just to get the data off it. I can't believe you stayed up until 5.00am what's wrong with you?(Actually I can believe it - I've done it more times than I would care to mention 😀). Makes for an interesting video, even though things don't work out. Enjoyed watching. Edit: Also as mentioned below: - I would think that providing the NAND flash doesn't get destroyed, the contents will be read from it by the other device. The flash should be thought of as a non-volatile memory store with similar properties to an SSD, the data is stored and registered on the device and will tell the CPU what is on it when the firmware instructs the CPU to read it. It will have a directory pointing to the start address of each string of data to be read. A Table of Contents (if you will). That is - a file system.

Wow I jus woke up and this video still going 😊😂😂

Yes it will definitely work

Definitely do a follow up.

i would only swap over the memory chip. I think the device will see the files on them if the chip itself is good. The ARM ist the main CPU, so you don't need to swap it.

My guess is that the flash chip also stores the firmware for the device, and that at some point the flash chip got corrupted. Swapping over the chip might not help in that case. I think it also stores the firmware because I dont see another flash chip for that purpose.

it could be worth a try to warm the entire board to drive off any moisture. I encounter that issue with pid controllers for furnaces regular, amazing what a warmup can do.

I enjoyed watching your video very much. Keep up the great work!

Go for it!

you should only need the NAND chip as works just like an SSD on a pc and as long as you do not go crazy hot with the hot air the data will be fine as long as it was not already damage

I have one of these recorders the ICD-PX333 and have a 16GB card in it for my recordings in case this happens. Then I'll just buy another one. I don't even bother trying to fix this surface mount crap. There is one of these with a built-in FM radio that i'm trying to find.

As others have suggested, remove the flash chip. You can get a cheap nand reader from China so you don't have to reinstall it into the new board

Do you want to send it to me Vince to see if I can have any luck with it…it’s not likely but you never know.

Good attempt, 5am is above and one-step beyond. Pure guesswork on my part, but looks to be power related (rather than flash etc). The component at 33:44 is a MM3404 regulator and chip enable seems to be missing, though of course this can be due to multiple other components. I'm sure you don't want to hear that a service manual is available (though you may need to brush up on your rocket science).

I think it's the main processor chip the arm chip you could try swapping them first so you don't have to heat the memory chip up at least not as much but then you run the risk of shorting out the good processor if it is something bad on the board either way though swapping the memory will work it's just like swapping a hard drive out on a computer

Give it a go Vince why not 🎉🎉🎉🎉

Maybe stick that memory chip on a usb stick with the same style bga chip? Just shootin in the dark here, but nothing to lose.

Clearly the problem is that you swapped the blue mat for the yellow one...

Why don't you remove the Toshiba flash chip and pop it into a chip reader to retrieve the data that way?

The memory chips look different sizes so you wouldn't have been able to swap them regardless. Maybe the manufacturer changed design because of this or similar faults

35:31 it looks to me that those two traces are shorted

id say the smaller chip above the arm chip is the controller for the storage.

You can look up the datasheet of the ARM processor to check if this controller has internal flash. If not it's probably sufficient to swap the flash. But is the processor actually running? Does it have a clock? Is something happening on the address bus? You have a scope, but I don't know if it's good enough to check these things.

I would give it a shot on swapping the 2 chips.

It is highly unlikely that any internal storage on the CPU/SoC is used for regular read/write access. At most it would just contain the device firmware. The file system and data should all be on the flash memory chip.

In my experience memory chips can be quite volatile. Also you'd need to check if their is any encryption or security linked to the main chip and the memory. I mean I guess you could do it, but as said memory chips can be quite volatile so the data may get wiped or chip damaged when you try anyway. Seems like a nightmare.

I have the 440 version and my problem is that the power switch doesn't turn on the unit when it's held down. It has an inbuilt slide out USB connection that enables you to slide it into a PC USB port and the unit then boots up allowing me access to its storage folders etc etc. My guess is there's something wrong with the on-board power switch on my device.

Good job mate 👍

I’ve used several of Sony’s voice recorders over the years, but never had any problems of this sort with them. Sorry I can’t be more of a help.

The memory chip has a file system that tells what files are where. The main cpu doesn't know what files are where.

If all you need is the data, swap the memory to the working unit. Try just the memory first since the arm chip has no non volatile memory to effect what you were referencing at the end of your video..

Order some of the leads that TheCod3r has - very sharp

If you try to jump or just inject the expected voltage ~3v where is missing the problem will be revealed or it will just work...😉

It's very unlikely that the SoC has any sort of persistent storage in it other than maybe some EEPROM. Swapping the NAND chip will probably be just fine. The problem is that they are quite large BGAs and getting them off one board and onto another without destroying them is not easy.

If those chips are gonna get damaged because of heat, then how did they solder them in the first place (specially the BGA one)?

HI Vince I think it will work swapping the memory chips

as long as the memory chip is non volatile you can swap it to the working one to get the data

I think the two chips are the only parts that are "smart", the rest I think is just "dumb" electronics that shouldn't notice when the chips are swapped, I think it will work.

I think you might of missed something at time index 35:16it looks like there was a trace damaged - I mean those traces are so darn small, but to your left of your pliers I can see a trace with a dark spot that looks suspicious and might be open, maybe take a good long look to see if that might be the problem and check the rest of the board more thoroughly under the microscope.

The memory chips didn't look to be the same size. Maybe there is a difference in the board for different kind of memory chips? The ARM chip is a kind of processor/cpu, maybe this chip hangs in a fault state and a reset could help (find the reset pin).

Just use lead solder on legs and remove components with hot air (small nozzle), it will take a second and board will never get hot enough to damage data on NAND. It's not like these chips never get warm under use and lost data as soon hot summer winds start to blow. I know that you like to make your life complicated but but there is enough other things you already do to accomplish that, this one you can skip :))

That component may have recovered after being heated.

Vincent my.. Well not my mate cept yt.. You are a funking god with your aptitude🤯🤯👌👍👍 Your Quad amp vid👌, have a look at N.A.D & Mission all 10/10 amps

Cool video

I don't know why but nand chips on both devices didn't look the same, would it work by interchanging?

Send it to your mate, Mick and let him have a go at it.