[SOLVED] Fake MP4 4GB player - Files corrupted

[Gazpacho]

I purchased a 4GB player from ebay, and when i eventually got it working, i decided to fill it with my favourite tracks.

I copied over about 3.5GB of music, but about half of it has corrupted and cannot be deleted or played.

I then got an email from another Ebayer, who had arranged returned his MP4 to the seller as it was "faulty" for refund. The guy did not return his money.

It turns out that although sold as a 4GB and appears to be 4GB when attached to PC, it is only 2GB in reality.

Is this a common scam?

is there any way of making the player good again?

Thanks

Gazpacho

PS there is alot of noise when the track is played onthe player, but the quality of the file is Ok when played on PC...have i just bought a pile of crap?

[admin]

Gazpacho

Most likely you have a issue with a 'hacked' player whereby they've 'hacked' it to show 4Gigs of storage but has put a much smaller size memory chip (physcially) inside the player.

How much did you buy it for if you don't mind me asking? This will give you a first indication that you've been ripped off.

The best thing to do is to FORMAT your player. Either using Windows Explorer or through the "MP3 Player Disk Tool". This should get rid of any 'hacks' done to it to show a higher storage capacity than what is physically installed on the player.

After the format, check the size that is displayed in Windows. Then copy as much as you can onto the player and play it on your player.

Let us know how you get on.

Good luck.

[Gazpacho]

i paid about £50 (GBP) delivered from hong kong

I'll give the format a go

thanks!

[admin]

Gazpacho

Ok, good luck with the format.
50 pounds seems abit cheap for me for anything that has 4 Gigs of flash memory.

Have a look at this ebay auction for example: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2GB-USB-2-0-MI...QQcmdZViewItem

Their price for just a 2 GIG memory stick is 50 pounds.

You will also see if it very hard to find a 4 Gig memory stick, yet a long a 4 Gig player for that price. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news to you...

Good luck with the format and let us know how you get on.

[Gazpacho]

ok, so maybe my £50 bargain was not such a bargain!

but its not all doom and gloom, ...

i reformatted using windows explorer in FAT32 , as this was the only option and it told me that the current memory was in that form.

it wiped all data files from player, including the corrupt ones that i could not delete manually.

so then i had the job of re copying my music files to the player.

i decided to do this one album at a time and all was going Ok until i reached approx 1GB of data transfered. Then it kept corrupting Jimi Hendrix (everyones a critic!) files and a few others.
The size of the corrupt files according to explorer was over 100GB so that was obviously wrong.

I have now manged to squeeze 1.85GB of good data on the player. anything that i add from this point just corrupts straight away, so i guess this reflects the true size of the memory on the player.

Also something to note was that if i tried to rename files using explorer when the file was on the player, it corrupted. Renaming on PC and then transfering works fine.

So although i dont have the 4GB player i thought i had bought, i do still have a player which works, which is a better situation than i had a couple of days ago.

So Mr Admin, if you are ever in the Northamptonshire, UK, i'll get the pints in.

Thanks

Gazpacho

[tadad1]

Gazpacho,
Well sounds like you have a 2GB chip which as you say is not all doom and gloom, others have ended up with 128 or 256 MB.
If you are still getting file corruption and no FAT option for formating though I suggest you try the HP Format Utility which others have reported fixes the problem.
You can download it HERE

[admin]

Gazpacho

Glad the format helps.
Like tadad mentions, glad it's 2 Gigs instead of 128MB or 256MB some others have been tricked into.

Hope you enjoy your player and remember that you can also 'reskin' your player too and change the bootup and shutdown sequences if you wanted to later on .

Thanks for the offer of a pint - beer is good . Unfort, England is abit far from NZ . You're welcome to ask more questions if you have any other problems as well.