How To: Removing Memory Hack

[ians1]

Footnote to the above, where on Amazon did you see fake flash items? I had not realised there were any.

[frozensoda]

The only reason I suggest not leaving bad feedback is I've read stories of malicious sellers who actually hack your account or find other no doubt illegal ways of making you pay for your bad feedback. Furthermore if you wanted to scam the scammers you can order mp4 players fix them and demand a refund then upon completion hold out on your feedback until you get the inevitable "I pay you money you leave me good feedback" message and you can usually negotiate it to about $30 via PayPal for leaving a good feedback. If you want to let people know and still stay somewhat safe leave a good feedback that says something to the effect of "HACKED PLAYER DO NOT BUY HORRIBLE PRODUCT -refund received-" That's what I do anyway.

P.S. http://www.amazon.com/Exclusive-Pro-...901841&sr=8-26

[ians1]

But not leaving negative feedback does not warn other buyers in the future. One only has to look at the number reversed negs on sellers accounts sometimes running into 100s to realise they regularly coerce buyers to change their feedback. Negative feedback is also the only thing that affects a sellers power seller status, once they lose that they are on the slippery slope. Your ebay account is safe so long as its got a secure long password thats not been used anywhere else, eg your email account.

I would not have any worries about leaving negative feedback, what's the worse they can do? call you names?

Ian

[frozensoda]

As I said, people have had their PayPal accounts hacked and forced to pay for merchandise they didn't buy, and worse than that they enter you into a bidding war with another account that they own. Also eBay has been known to protect these sorts of people. I understand why you take the position you do, but i respectfully disagree.

[ians1]

The way to safeguard your Paypal (and other) accounts is not by letting fraudsters in Hong Kong off the hook! As I stated above the best way to safeguard your accounts is a proper password that nobody is likely to guess and that is unique to each account. Nobody will be able to hack your account if this simple precaution is taken. The other major source of security breaches is not updating Windows and having no Antivirus and Firewall software on your PC. Other than your concerns about security (which can easily be met) there really is no good reason to let these criminals get away with it.

[wkmccoy]

Caution: Try this at your own risk (I am not an expert, A Senior Member should Evaluate).
I have Windows Vista. I had 3 fake memory MP3 Camera, Video, etc. players. Sizes advertised were 4GB, 16GB, 32GB. All were fake.
The partition fixes would not work for me because of the methods could not find the USB memories and partition them. Linux can. I had tried all else many, many times.

Get free Puppy Linux (lupu-501.iso) a small sized Linux System file at
http://puppylinux.org/main/index.php?file=Download%20Latest%20Release.htm
With ImgBurn (free), make a bootable CD (Less than 300MB). Set your boot sequence for CD first. Puppy runs from your memory and does not require an install. I used Gparted (from Puppy Menu) to delete the main partition. Reformat with Vista or XP to the true memory size.

wkmccoy

[ians1]

Not tried it but have heard others say Linux sees the correct size for partitions rather than the hacked size. You would still need to repartition the drive to the correct true size rather than the hacked size for DOS/Windows to be able to format it correctly. Simply deleting the partition then plugging it into a Vista machine may not work as Vista may not recognise the USB drive.

[wkmccoy]

ians1,
Thanks for your input. My Vista does see the drives and does format them. It just will not partition them. I understand that is a Vista 'on purpose' feature. This worked for me when nothing else would do the job. After the main partition is deleted, sometimes the MP3 player formats itself to true size when you replug it in to your computer.

[ians1]

I tried just deleting all the partitions on the player, when you restart windows sees two drive letters, both 0 bytes, neither can be formatted.

I did however find that even on Vista chkflsh CAN be used without crashing. What you need to do is ignore the bit were it says "replug without dismounting" ie leave it plugged in and just click OK instead, else when you replug it you will get a BSOD. Shut chkflsh down and unplug the player then replug it. Two drives then exist, one the size you set and the other some arbitrary size.

After restarting the player and replugging as above, got to Format and choose quick format, one drive will fail with an error "wondows cannot complete the format" but the other should complete OK and be usable.

This DID require a partition of the correct size (as identified by the hstw memory test) being set with chkflsh utility first.

[ians1]

ps

You can only use chkflsh on Vista by right click and "Run as Administrator" otherwise Vista cannot see the drives.