How To: Removing Memory Hack

[fueldragster]

Dear Funt
I hope I have got hold of the correct utility (v2.42)
Is "test bad blocks" the operation to use?
I can see that this might reduce the useable capacity to the true capacity but will it not leave it still reporting the false high headline figure ?
I have not tried this yet (ebay correspondence might just get me a refund) but from old floppy disk days I'd suppose something similar to "32gb total capacity, 30gb in bad sectors, 2gb useable".
Thanks

[Funt]

Originally Posted by fueldragster

Dear Funt
I hope I have got hold of the correct utility (v2.42)
Is "test bad blocks" the operation to use?
I can see that this might reduce the useable capacity to the true capacity but will it not leave it still reporting the false high headline figure ?
I have not tried this yet (ebay correspondence might just get me a refund) but from old floppy disk days I'd suppose something similar to "32gb total capacity, 30gb in bad sectors, 2gb useable".
Thanks

I used "test bad blocks" operation and after this device was recognized in all the software with real capacity.

[craypig]

any link to this mydisctest, all i can find are pages in an asian language. Thanks

[Funt]

Originally Posted by craypig

any link to this mydisctest, all i can find are pages in an asian language. Thanks

MyDiscTest 2.93 - in Chinese, I used this version.
MyDiscTest 2.42 - in English, I don't know whether it can be used for restoring real size of player or not.

In Chinese version I clicked on big button first (Test the drive now). After testing is finished I clicked left button (I guess "Yes") in the window which appeared. I don't remember exactly but I think than I clicked right button and after countdown is finished and new window was shown I clicked left button ))
Maybe it's better to use 2.42 and try to repair player with it. If it doesn't help, than use Chinese version 2.9x.

[ians1]

After having tried various sequences including the ones described in this thread I am no nearer to getting the things working again!

I can get a 2 drive scenario with one saying 15.9Gb but NOT appearing on the Memory Info on the player but DOES appear in My Computer along with the 17Mb drive which appears on the player as well.

Setting the partition to various different sizes from 2Gb to 8Gb yields various other strange results including messages from windows saying the device needs formatting!

One thing I tried was the HP USB format util which is useful for flash drives etc but this gave even stranger results!

See here for screen shots (sorry dont know how to put them directly on here)
2shared - download mp3player fault.rtf

As you can see the system files are visible but only AFTER formatting that drive! Weird!

Seems to be using a version of DOS 5.0 (which was always crap as I remember ) and curiously there is an NTLDR file which would seem to indicate NT/XP etc.

The total of the files in that folder (which seem totally inaccessible to windows) is about 12Gb curiously.

So its a deep mystery what is actually going on here but it does not sound too healthy.

ian

[ians1]

I find that trying to follow the original format instructions the problem is here

Instead of the (suspected) size of 4Gb it is showing 16Gb whereas the instructions state that it will reflect the TRUE size of the drive

ian

[ians1]

This was subsequently fixed with the chkflsh method mentioned elsswhwere on here.

What they seem to have done is introduced another translation between the hard disc emulation (were you set the number of cylinders/sectors etc which determines the size of disc DOS expects to find) and the Flash read/write part of the controller firmware. As far as I can see the Flash memory controller firmware is on the same chip as its CPU and can't be modified.

See http://www.hyperstone.com/download.p...aper_flash.pdf
for some insight into how these things are arranged

ian

ps what I meant to say was this would tend to suggest an "inside job" because it requires the Flash Memory controller chip to be modded, someone somewhere in China probably is knocking out these modded chips by the million and selling them to unscrupulous manufacturers and then they outlet them via these peeps on ebay etc Organised major crime in other words!

[ians1]

Done a little more research and it sounds to me as the hack is in the USB Mass Storage Controller chip in the case of mp3 players and the SDHC interface chip which does much the same job in the SD flash cards that are hacked the same way. The reason why I think this is that to be able to fool DOS/Windows that the maximum available space (before even a partition is made) the fictitious figure MUST come from the Mass Storage Controller as the Flash Chip as manufactured is going to have to have a real figure for the amount of storage to be able to work at all.

The tools detailed on here enable a workaround, ie chkflsh and the mp3 Disk tool along with the H2tst memory test enable a) detection of the real size of Flash chip b) Reformat of the disc and b) Removal of the partition that was set during the hack.

Its interesting that by reformating and repartitioning the units can be set back to the 16GB or whatever they were originally setup as when hacked.

So, to sum up, I think the hack is in 2 parts. Part one is the USB Mass Storage Controller microcontroller program has a fictitious figure blown into it (this seems likely a programmable thing as the same USB controller would be used for many different sizes of flash memory so it would need to be set at manufacturing time but possibly there is a utility (probably originating by the manufacturer of the USB MSD) that can write the desired setting for the flash, eg 2GB 8GB 16GB whatever. Part 2 is the use of such as MP3 Disk Tool to set a partition size that agrees with the reported max size in the USB MSD. The fake is then complete. No matter how much you format it in DOS/Windows it will always be 16GB etc. It reminds me in the old days when Bios settings required you to look at the hard drive and copy the heads/cylinders/sectors etc to the Bios settings and it would then work out what size HD you had. If you set the settings wrong however sometimes it would accept the settings and say you had a much larger hard disc than actually fitted. The problem being when you actually came to read/write data to it!

One of the things I want to try is the old (MSDOS 5.0 onwards) FDISK utility with the /mbr switch to see if re-writing the Master Boot Record on these drives affects this hack or not.

The effects obtained using the HP USB format util are still not explained however. I suspect the operating system on the MP3 player chip is at fault there, it seems to copy its ROM into the flash area at boot time (maybe because it need read/write memory to work and not ROM) I wonder what the size of ROM in the mp3 player ship is? Maybe its 256MB as I suspect because thats approximately the amount of flash memory that seems to be missing.

Any comments/thoughts?

ian

[frozensoda]

Ians, i would like to point out that i have suspected the controller chip scam is an inside job for a while. I have tried to bring this to the attention of several large news media groups with no success. This is an indescribable abortion of justice on eBay's part and that of the US customs agency. I have done research into how many of these hacked devices are sold and the numbers are astonishing. There is a nonstop flow of hacked mp4 players rolling out of eBay, amazon, and wholesale companies like DHgate and MadeInChina. Sometimes the seller doesnt know about the hack and sometimes they do. I find that it is best to settle with a refund proportionate to the amount of memory you received based on what you paid for. Normally 75%. Then report the seller to SOSfakeflash and anyone else who will listen. I would not suggest leaving bad feedback after receiving a refund because this may anger the seller or eBay into giving you repercussions in various ways.

[ians1]

I would not suggest leaving bad feedback after receiving a refund because this may anger the seller or eBay into giving you repercussions in various ways.

Unfortunately thats the ONLY way ebay will listen, when sellers get the red negative feedback and it is left in place ultimately their sales will suffer and so will ebays receipts of their fees.

These sellers are nasty people. They try to appear nice in emails but as soon as that red neg goes up the game changes completely. But don't worry, even if they try to set you up with a non paying bidder claim (yes ebays wondrous system allows them to do that even AFTER you have been recorded as PAID) ebay will have no option but to cancel any false claim because it will not stand up to any scrutiny. Sellers cannot legally demand you send a fake item back through the post because its illegal, just keep sending messages through ebays message system then there is a record of what has been said that cannot be easily disputed by ebay. At the end of the day ebaypaypal end up refunding you even if the seller does not.