About VID PID Repairing Counterfeit Flash Drives – Steps To Succeed

FixFakeFlash from SOSFakeFlash, explains steps to rescue a fake flash (counterfeit) drive. How you can try to return it to its true size. Wrestling with FrankenFlash drives to make them useful is a mystery to most victims of fake flash drive purchases. The information FixFakeFlash has for you comes from the efforts of fake flash victims who succeeded in repairing their drives.

Before you begin, please read: Should You Repair A Fake USB Flash (Pen) Drive? from TechChips. Update September 23th, 2009.

Important Update on Chipgenius 20101207,  please read:

Chip Genius – The Good And The Bad About This Software In Identify Flash Memory Chips And Repairing Fake Hacked Memory. How Useful Is Chipgenius?

Important Update on repairing flash memory cards to original capacity from TechChips  20110713.

Fixing Fake SD SDHC Cards, Is It Possible? What Are The Problems And Challenges? What Software To Use To Test For Flash Memory Fake Chips. Is There A Free Download To Check Flash Drives And Memory Cards Size?

To repair counterfeit (fake) flash drives you need the VID and the PID for a flash drive. This will help you determine the software tool required to perform a low level reformatting (commonly known as reflashing). Reformatting in an operating system is “high level” and can not repair the drive. The controller on the flash drive has been reprogrammed to lie – this is why you normally need a special software tool. They exist and are available, but you need to know which one you must use for your drive.

The VID is the Vendor information, the PID is the flash chip controller information. The PID is supposed to identify the chip set family for a software reprogramming tool. How to find this information? The easiest way is to download a program called chipgenius – it will read the drive for you. Only if chipgenius does not find any useful information or the information does not match anything known on the internet should you consider taking your USB flash drive apart. Some drives do not come apart easily so avoid this unless you have no other choice. In most cases you will not have to consider doing this.

Update 20091023: Please consult the new FAQ at FixFakeFlash Inspectortech for important information on repairing fake flash memory items before you attempt to repair.

Follow these steps to begin the journey to fix and repair your fake USB flash drive to its real size:

MXT8208 VID = 1221 PID = 3234 Repair Fake Flash Drive Solution

FixFakeFlash – solution MXT8208 controller identified with VID = 1221 PID = 3234, fake flash drive. The drive tested and repaired was a fake 32GB “Transend”. Advertised as 32GB, it’s true capacity was 499MB. This fake flash drive can be repaired using the following information.

Read About VID PID Repairing Counterfeit Flash Drives – Steps To Succeed before proceeding to solution.