Tool: H2testw - To test hacked flash memory

[ians1]

I formatted the drive and it says 15.9Gb in Windows but now when I try to access "Music" on the player it just says "Disk Error!"

Any clues as to what is going on here?

I have been through the suggested format sequence as suggested elsewhere in this forum and each time it reports 15.9Gb

ian

[ians1]

Interestingly running this utility on one of the players I purchased off of ebay only achieves a write rate of about 1Mb/s whereas for the USB 1.1 interface on the XP machine the maximum throughput could be as high as 1.5Mb/s which would seem to indicate a a fair amount of processing going on before read/write on the drive itself. Clearly this will take several hours to check 8-16Gb of supposed memory.

I will let you know what these players are reported as having by way of actual memory.

ian

ps there is interesting background to the problem on Wiki
USB flash drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are Flash Tools mentioned there

http://www.sdean12.org/zipped2/USBFlashTools210.zip

[ians1]

I am currently trying the Sarah Dean Tools, looks like it runs ok on Vista so will be quicker as that laptop has USB 2 ports not 1.1

ian

[ians1]

Well, that was interesting!

The report (for the one that said it was 10Gb even after reformat):-

Verifying capacity of drive: I:
Determining disk geometry...
Drive reports:
  Cylinders          : 1377
  Media type         : 0x0B (Removable media other than floppy.)
  Tracks per cylinder: 255
  Sectors per track  : 63
  Bytes per sector   : 512
  Total bytes (cylinders * tracks * sectors * bps): 11326210560 (10801 MB)
Determining partition information...
Drive reports:
  Starting offset     : 32256
  Partition length    : 11331371520 (10806 MB)
  Hidden sectors      : 63
  Partition number    : 1
  Partition type      : 0x0C
  Boot indicator      : Active
  Recognized partition: TRUE
  Rewrite partition   : FALSE
Verifying reported capacity...
Stage 1: Writing data...
Max bytes writable: 11331371520 (10806 MB)
Time taken for stage 1: 00:36:41
Stage 2: Reading and verifying data...
Verified max bytes writable: 11331397206 (10806 MB)
Time taken for stage 2: 00:29:32
+++ POSSIBLE FAKE: Able to read more data than could be written?!

Note: The *actual* capacity of the drive shown above may well be less than was claimed when it was sold to you as (e.g. a 64MB drive may be reported here as only having 61MB of storage.
This is "normal", and can be caused by several things:
1) Manufacturers pretending that there are 1,000,000 bytes to the MB instead of 1,048,576. This is pretty "normal" in the industry and done to make products sound better than they actually are
2) Slight errors of a few KB in the testing process due to only checking the partition area of the drive selected. The MBR (incl partition table) would probably add another 16K or so
3) Opting to perform a quick check, as opposed to using this utility's more thorough option. This can introduce an error of up to 1MB


Summary
=======

THIS DRIVE IS MISREPORTING IT'S CAPACITY AND IS PROBABLY A FAKE CARD/USB DRIVE

This device SHOULD have been sold to you as a >4 GB device.

Total time taken: 01:06:14

So the Sarah Dean utility is a fairly fast and reasonably accurate (to 1Mb) to prove for claims purposes that you have been sold a fake.

But still very interesting. I shall research this further now.

ian

[ians1]

This would seem to indicate that formatting should be set to 4Gb? I am still confused as to how the Mp3 Drive Manager utility actually works and how we end up with 2 drive letters but the player obviously only can recognise 1.

The problem for me is that its still saying either "Disk Error!" because it finds no disk at all or it only "sees" the small 17Mb partition that that tool seems to create by default.

Any ideas?

[ians1]

Problem was solved by the very good chkflsh method as posted elsewhere on this forum

ian

[ians1]

The write/read test tests the usable portion of any memory available in the device. In my experience of these players there is not much of note already on them, no films etc so there is not much to copy off of them. Its an easy matter to make a copy of anything already on the player prior to testing, just drag the selected files as usual to an empty folder you create on your laptop/desktop machine. The memory test will not overwrite the firmware. After the test has run take note of the TRUE capacity and follow the instructions elsewhere to use the chkflsh utility to re-partition the drive and then re-format to the true capacity. You can then copy back any files or folders as you wish.

The problem if you leave it hacked is that at some point you may lose data and not be able to use the device.

[ians1]

Copying a folder by default copies the content. Drag and Drop is a Copy by default in Windows. I do not believe there is any constraint on what order those folders appear. If you copy them back after re-partitioning then the contents should still play OK.

[chloechen]

Originally Posted by ians1

I formatted the drive and it says 15.9Gb in Windows but now when I try to access "Music" on the player it just says "Disk Error!"

Any clues as to what is going on here?

I have been through the suggested format sequence as suggested elsewhere in this forum and each time it reports 15.9Gb

ian

STEP 1
Back Up All Your Data Before Proceeding! This Guide Will Clear Everything In Your Player's Memory Chip!

Install MP3 Utilities, any version will do. It usually comes on the CD with the player, or you can download version 3.68
here, or version 4.03 here, or version 4.05 here. Any one of these will do. The Disk Tool Utility is the same.


STEP 2
Start up MP3 Utilities Disk Tool.
You will be shown a screen like this:

Ensure that you select LOW Format Type.

Next, go to the Partition and Encrypt tab as shown below.

Now, slide the Partition Slider all the way to the Right.
You will notice the "Setting encrypted disk capacity" increases, it is normal.
In this screen, you will also notice the first signs of a hacked memory. After sliding the slider to the right, you should see the actual capacity of the memory chip in the Partition box.

*NOTE* Ensure That You Do Not Click The "Set Username And Password", Leave It UNTICKED.

Next, click on Start to begin the format and partition process. You will be presented with a dialog box like below, click on Yes to proceed.

It will take a few moments for the process to complete. You will notice that your player would disconnect from the computer, and then re-connect back again.

You will be presented with the "Complete setting disk partition!" dialog box like below.



STEP 3
Go to My Computer and check that now you will two memory drives for your player. You might need to click Refresh or press F5.


One of which would be small (about 17MB), and the other would be the remaining memory capacity.
*note* it seems that some members reported that they do not see this extra drive appearing. Do not worry if it does not appear, just continue to proceed with the guide.

Now, go back to the Partition and Encrypt tab.
Slide the Partition slider to the Left, and click on Start.


You will repeat the process and the "Complete setting disk partition!" dialog box would appear.


Check in My Computer that now you will only have One single memory drive for your player. Right click on it and select Properties, this is your actual real memory capacity.


Now check your player's Memory Info for the correct memory display.
To access this, go to your player's SYS TOOL >> MEMORY INFO.
Your player should display the actual memory size that you have just checked.
Check if the percentage is at 0%. If it is, you can skip Step 4 below, and continue to Step 5.


STEP 4
If your player's Memory Info does not show 0%, you will need to complete the below procedure.

Right click on your player's memory drive, and select Format.



Now a new windows format screen would appear.

Select FAT in the File System drop down menu.
If after completing Step 3, your player really does have 4GB of memory, then you need to select FAT32 instead. As FAT only supports up to 2GB.
Click on Start to begin on the format process.

A warning will appear for the format, click on OK to continue.

Wait for a few moments while Windows formats your player.
When completed, check your player's Memory Info again, it should display 0% now.


STEP 5
Once completed, sit back and start copying music/video files to your player and enjoy your stuff!

[spencaholic]

my mom gave me this mp4 player for my birthday, and i can't figure out how to get more than 3 gigs of songs on it. it's version is 1018_100303_rel_tp_iphone_bg_s I saw that someone else had a media player with similar numbers. anyone know what it is or if i need any software? i'm not very tech savvy so if possible, explain in simple terms. thanks