ChkFlsh method (revised)

[ians1]

Hallelujah! A BIG Thank you to the OP!

I got this to work on my (hacked) ipod lookalike bought on ebay recently:-

One or two amendments that may help

1) Yes check with the tool what actual readable area is (was 1.8Gb actual on this particular device for a claimed 16Gb)

2) Run the MP3 Disc Manager software first and get it back to a single drive (even if its still saying 16Gb or whatever)

3) Do the chkflsh as above, but I found that trying to create a small FAT16 partition was impossible, chkflsh reporting it to be hundreds of Gb although I set it to 7Mb (hold mouse over slider and use cursor keys for fine adj) so I left it at a single FAT32 partition of about 1.8Gb and it works!

4) Final note, I found some of these devices have an on/off switch which needed cycled (one did the other didn't) for the device to start up again after this mod.

I tested one after format and appears OK System Memory shows as 1886Mb after loading a few songs to test.

Will try and load up 1886Mb and see what happens now, or could re run the read/write tests to see what happens.

Thanks again to the OP

ian

[frozensoda]

Originally Posted by ians1

Hallelujah! A BIG Thank you to the OP!

I got this to work on my (hacked) ipod lookalike bought on ebay recently:-

One or two amendments that may help

1) Yes check with the tool what actual readable area is (was 1.8Gb actual on this particular device for a claimed 16Gb)

2) Run the MP3 Disc Manager software first and get it back to a single drive (even if its still saying 16Gb or whatever)

3) Do the chkflsh as above, but I found that trying to create a small FAT16 partition was impossible, chkflsh reporting it to be hundreds of Gb although I set it to 7Mb (hold mouse over slider and use cursor keys for fine adj) so I left it at a single FAT32 partition of about 1.8Gb and it works!

4) Final note, I found some of these devices have an on/off switch which needed cycled (one did the other didn't) for the device to start up again after this mod.

I tested one after format and appears OK System Memory shows as 1886Mb after loading a few songs to test.

Will try and load up 1886Mb and see what happens now, or could re run the read/write tests to see what happens.

Thanks again to the OP

ian

I believe the above highlighted text may be the solution the the problem the first poster in this thread had. If you ever read this, try doing what he mentioned.

[ians1]

Like I have said elsewhere, this is a workaround not a true fix. The size reported to DOS (and Windows) is still the fake total capacity as passed back by the USB MSD controller when given the SCSI command to find this. BUT, making the active FAT32 partition then allows DOS/Windows to make the correct read/write commands that will only ever use the (active) partitions set parameters.

Its like the old workaround for drives with larger capacity than the BIOS would support, in effect you "waste" the extra (fake in this case) capacity.

[ians1]

ps I have yet to try the normal DOS FDISK command on these drives, it may work just as well as the utility we have been using.

[ians1]

Just looking at what you end up with on the player with the Rockchip controller (thats the touch screen one)

This is it as is with 16GB partition as supplied (fake):-

Description    Disk drive
Manufacturer    (Standard disk drives)
Model    RockChip USBDISK  User USB Device
Bytes/Sector    512
Media Loaded    Yes
Media Type    Removable Media
Partitions    1
SCSI Bus    Not Available
SCSI Logical Unit    Not Available
SCSI Port    Not Available
SCSI Target ID    Not Available
Sectors/Track    63
Size    15.75 GB (16,911,175,680 bytes)
Total Cylinders    2,056
Total Sectors    33,029,640
Total Tracks    524,280
Tracks/Cylinder    255
Partition    Disk #2, Partition #0
Partition Size    15.75 GB (16,911,401,472 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset    32,256 bytes
    
Description    Disk drive
Manufacturer    (Standard disk drives)
Model    RockChip USBDISK    SD USB Device
Bytes/Sector    Not Available
Media Loaded    Yes
Media Type    Not Available
Partitions    0
SCSI Bus    Not Available
SCSI Logical Unit    Not Available
SCSI Port    Not Available
SCSI Target ID    Not Available
Sectors/Track    Not Available
Size    Not Available
Total Cylinders    Not Available
Total Sectors    Not Available
Total Tracks    Not Available
Tracks/Cylinder    Not Available

Obtained from Windows System Information

It may or may not be significant that the line

"Partition Disk #2, Partition #0" is not what you usually get for a drive, its usually of the form "Partition Disk #0, Partition #0"

The second USB device is of course the SD card slot on that player.

[moonbreaker]

Hello!

I made a big mistake!
I want to fix a 16gb mp3 player to 1,7 gb becase the memorychip is a fake. In the same time a 4gb Player was detectet on my USB-Ports so that i put the changes to the wrong system. Now i can't find a way to delet this.

The following steps i made

1. Start chkflsh
2. set to a physical drive (here the system swiched to the fist atached [wrong] usb device. this I havn't seen)
3. Low Level initialization
4. Start
5. Yes to the Big floppy question
6. create a new partition with 1,7gb (and forgot to put the rest in a second partition)
7. press ok

Now my medion-mp3-player with original 4gb is set to the 1,7gb and i can't find a way to get the 4gb back.

Can anyone help me.

I hope my enlish isn't to bad to understand.

regards from germany

René

[ians1]

Just do the process again and set the Active partition to 4,294,967,296 bytes or lower

ian

[moonbreaker]

Hello Ian

THX 4 reply

I tryed out this but it don't work. I can put maximal the 1,7 gb to the partition

[ians1]

Don't forget to delete the active partition first then reset the player

You then have to plug it in again and repeat the procedure

I have reset some back to their hacked partition size so it should be just the same.

ian

[moonbreaker]

Hello

When I start the low level initialization I always get a empty Partition Table. To save this dont changes anything on the Player. only the folders which will be createt automaticly are empty after the action.