My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!

[lifehacker]

thanks for the reply lattesurf

Wow, Is pretty amazing that they can hack it to read 4 GB

wrong, and amazing at the same time

[impeeza]

Originally Posted by chandnichowk";p=&quot

I bought a 2gb player. had problems with loading files above a certain limit and had to format the player as it played garbled numbers. After formatting , I learned that the player was actually 475 mb (reported by windows Xp)
I promptly complained to the seller who gave me a new player with guarantee that it will be actually 2 Gb when formatted on the computer.

I was being clever and carried my notebook along. Formatted in his presence on the notebook (windows XP). and Viola - it showed 2 gb. I thanked the seller, shook hands with him and came home.

Yesterday i happened to read Zaidons article and filled up my player to its 2 gb capacity. Sadly it turned out that it supports only 1 gb capacity.

My question , as Zaidons, is How does windows XP show the formatted capacity as more than the actual capacity.

Hello, happens the capacity of a disk is not in the formating but in the Partition Table, you need clear the partition table and then make a new one (using mp3 utilities).

regards

[Teamjoedawn]

Well, suckered like so many more. Bought a supposed 4gb, original nano-style.. and started filling it tonight to see how far it would go.. my wife had only used about 500mb so far, so I wanted to max it out.

Files started corrupting, so I started formatting.. and lo and behold, a 1gb machine. Sad, really.

I have no recourse, i bought it through craigslist from a college student right here near my house. Won't ever see that $80 again.

Are there any true 4gb machines out there? Or even one that would run off of a thumbdrive?

Thanks.
J

[tadad1]

Teamjoedawn, Sorry to hear you were scammed. I have seen no definative proof that 4GB clones exist despite the latest rumours that they are now available.

[babyloation]

Gee man, got the replica of Ipod too. I thought that it was a firmware problem so I flashed it, but to my bad luck I forgot to backup the first one. Now I have only the White screen, but can access my MP3from PC. weird. Would you be so kind to post your firmware here, or send by mail to babyloation@centrum.cz

Thanks a lot

[Nirmalya]

I have bought a Chinese Sony mp4/amv/rec/fm player (2GB). But when I am downloading into it, it accepts only 300 MB of data. I asked the seller and he told me that all these players are like it. It shows something and gives something. Is it not cheating? 300 Mb for 2GB.

[squirrellrancher]

i also just found out that my "4gb" mp4 player is a 1gb piece of junk.these guys rip you off so bad.....flash movies suck...no clickwheel....crappy lookin interface

i paid almost 170 dollars for this thing.its amazing that they can trick people into thinking they are good...

[nicksia]

Dear Zaidon, Firstly congratulations for your excellent work in this matter, I've followed your instruction and my mp4 player proved to be 2gb instead of 4Gb. However I've done the same thing for another one and the windows cannot format it. When you turn on the player it says 'disk error'. Is there something else I can do?

Any help will be welcomed

Thanks, Nick

[Rassdesign]

Hey all!

First of all, thanks for all the helpful stuff on this site.

I got bagged aswell as hundreds, maybe thousands on this site and the www in general, by buying a 4GB player off of Ebay.be that after removing the hack turned out to be a 2 gig player.

I'll post some detailed info here concerning the memory chip inside.

It's a samsung 722 chip, part number K9LAG08U0M-PCB0
This chip is a Two gigaBYTE chip, samsung sells it as a 16gigaBIT chip, so those two are equal.

The firmware version is 9.0.50 and the manufacturer is Wilson co Ltd.
bootflash type f285
brom version 3.0.80

fake number of sectors :8380449
Fake capacity : 4092.02Mb
Real capacity according to mp3 player disc tool : 1946mb

Capacity after reformat : 1945.09mb



I am currently negotiating a full refund, as this guy seemed really friendly when it came to some delivery trouble, so i'll see how he responds. If he's unwilling to refund in full, i wil demand the difference between the cost of the alleged 4GB player and the 2GB model + postage price.

There might be a chance that this seller doesn't even know he's selling hacked ones, but i tend to find that option unlikely to be true. If this is the case however, i will inform him to the fullest, with the help of this site.



Still, thanks for the help in the removal of the mem. hack and the disassembly of the player to trace the chip's part number.

Here's a pic of the item.[img=left:9029432133]http://i21.ebayimg.com/02/i/000/9f/f9/f334_1.JPG[/img:9029432133]

[Super Jamie]

hi all, new guy here. i have seen similar devices to this, in the form of a "32gb" thumb drive, the capacity of which was actually 128mb

anyway, my housemate bought a "4gb" mp3 player just like the one in the original post, running act firmware 9.1.51, from ebay seller "digitexpert". and yes, it seems to be one of these 512mb/1gb ripoffs

i'll pursue the seller (who knows, i might actually keep it myself and repair the volume size, it's an interesting curio) but i just wanted to say thankyou to everyone who has helped compile the info this forum contains, it's a very useful site

edit: fixed it with the low level format + partition tool. 2gb. not so bad