These two days I've been working on some USB FlashDisks / FlashDrives / Flash Disk / Flash Drive / Pen Drive ... , by request of a friend.
These Flashdrives where came from CHINA and last I've know they are FAKE, FAKED SIZE, FAKE SIZED , I mean they were 16MB but shown 1GB or 64MB and shown 32GB.
So Here I'm with some information for you to detect these fake flash drive and never buy them, I've seen them every where: ebay, amazon, some chinese web sites, ... just beware of HUGE size flashdrive with low price specially from CHINA.
First how indicate:
As mentioned here http://forums.hardwarezone.com/showthread.php?t=1642158 you have to copy alot of files (just like musics or picture) and copy them back to you hard disk check them all (you can use thumbnail view) and beware of the caching feature in Windows or you can also "Safe Remove" the disk and attach it again and check file names and you'll see some "00000 thing name" (you may see some aother things but not the original). The amount of files needed to do so depend on what really that one is, I mean is it really 16MB? so you need 17MB of files. but as I see they will use 16-128MB so you can simply use 130MB files and you'll see if it is allright or FAKE.
So the most import part is WHAT THE **** IS THAT THING, REALLY.
So I searched the web and found some usefull utils, and I'll tell the names and if you couldn't find them just leave me a message and I'll see what can I do for you.
First you need to identify the actual CHIP, YES THEY CAN RENAME IT (after you can too!), for this you can use a utility called USBVIEW.EXE this application will give you the Vendor and Product ID (idVendor, idProduct) and you can search for them in the Web, mine was 0x1043 0x8006, 0x8012 mean iCreate, you can refere http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids for Vendor and Product IDs.
So Here I'm with some information for you to detect these fake flash drive and never buy them, I've seen them every where: ebay, amazon, some chinese web sites, ... just beware of HUGE size flashdrive with low price specially from CHINA.
First how indicate:
As mentioned here http://forums.hardwarezone.com/showthread.php?t=1642158 you have to copy alot of files (just like musics or picture) and copy them back to you hard disk check them all (you can use thumbnail view) and beware of the caching feature in Windows or you can also "Safe Remove" the disk and attach it again and check file names and you'll see some "00000 thing name" (you may see some aother things but not the original). The amount of files needed to do so depend on what really that one is, I mean is it really 16MB? so you need 17MB of files. but as I see they will use 16-128MB so you can simply use 130MB files and you'll see if it is allright or FAKE.
So the most import part is WHAT THE **** IS THAT THING, REALLY.
So I searched the web and found some usefull utils, and I'll tell the names and if you couldn't find them just leave me a message and I'll see what can I do for you.
First you need to identify the actual CHIP, YES THEY CAN RENAME IT (after you can too!), for this you can use a utility called USBVIEW.EXE this application will give you the Vendor and Product ID (idVendor, idProduct) and you can search for them in the Web, mine was 0x1043 0x8006, 0x8012 mean iCreate, you can refere http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids for Vendor and Product IDs.
If yours is iCreate too, so this is bad news, because as you can see in http://www.icreate.com.tw/e/icreate_e.htm andhttp://www.icreate.com.tw/e/soc_i512x.htm this company make "Configurable VID, PID, Vendor name, Product name, Product revision, and USB serial number" chips which is BAD, i mean **** YOU iCreate, by making this chips iCreate let other hackers do their work and make SONY MICRO VAULT 32GB, 64GB, 128GB.
The good news is if have iCreate there are some utilities that let you make the FlashDrive useable, I meant 16MB flashdrive useable, there is no workaround to let you have 128MB useable flashdrive, I mean fully useable.
These utilties are also made by iCreate and there are the things that those hacker company use to **** you by selling you 128GB flashdrives.
You can checkout
http://www.22b324.com/
http://www.22b324.com/down.php?nowmenuid=30189, just let the google translate it for you (The english site is under construction) and download I5xxx utils:
iFormat: some versions works on some chip numbers, so try i5122 or 5128, i5022, ... if it closed automatically (just the GUI will be hidden but the iFormat2.exe is in task manager) means you hit the wrong utility. This utility use for formatting the drive and password protecting it, but for me this (format) worked after PDx8, PDx16 which I'll introduce later.You can checkout
http://www.22b324.com/
http://www.22b324.com/down.php?nowmenuid=30189, just let the google translate it for you (The english site is under construction) and download I5xxx utils:
PortFree Production Program , PDx8 and PDx16: for i5022 I used the PortFree Production Program 3.27 and for i51xx I used PDx16 goto options and just select the "LOW LEVEL FORMAT / LLF" this application will be used to Format the FlashDisk and this will make the Size REAL, for me: 1GB -> 16MB , 32GB -> 64MB. The PDx16 will take a minute or two to open and work, this is very slow, but this will work.
** Note that there are all work under Windows Server 2003 or maybe Windows XP, these will not work under Windows Vista. So If you want to test these FlashDrive NEVER use WINDOWS VISTA. **
** I also found an application name "System Information Veiwer - SIV" which you use to see the Vendor name of USB FLASH DRIVEs, but I mentioned that this is very large, I always want a software to see the MEMORY/ CPU BUS SPEED and this will work like a charm.So these are what I've found, Tell me if you know more.
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Update #1: I've uploaded some useful (mentioned above) utilities in Windows Live SkyDrive, hope these will help you identify if someone sold you FAKE USB DRIVE:
* USB View (USBView.exe): http://cid-21f12bb61b822dfa.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Utilities/usbview.zip
* iCreate PortFree Production Program (PDx8, PDx16): http://cid-21f12bb61b822dfa.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Utilities/PortFree_Production.zip
* iCreate iFormat2 (v1.32, v1.19):
Update #2: I've just found out that the SIV has its own web site so I'll remove my link (and also the file) and here the original link http://rh-software.com/ sorry that delete this from my SkyDrive but I always said that you have to download from the origin (if there is some).
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To fix an Emprex 8gb flash drive by using USBView to identify the vendor (which turned out to be Transcend) and that led me to their repair utility which did the trick.
transcendusa.com/Support/DLCenter/...Recovery%20Tool%20v1.0.12.zip
To fix an Emprex 8gb flash drive by using USBView to identify the vendor (which turned out to be Transcend) and that led me to their repair utility which did the trick.
transcendusa.com/Support/DLCenter/...Recovery%20Tool%20v1.0.12.zip
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