FixFakeFlash Notice Board
Posted by inspectortech on August 1, 2010
The FrankenFlash Project’s IT team has been studying the reprogramming of memory chips for some time. Testing flash memory chips for the real size is very important, read the new article: Fake Memory Testing – InspectorTech’s Advice.
Before considering a repair, you should read this article first: Should You Repair A Fake USB Flash (Pen) Drive? It is based on what we have learned about the reprogramming and reviewing the experiences of those who have repaired or attempted to repair false capacity memory chips at our sites. Then come back to this site, review the FAQ! before you begin.
Things are really heating up in the FrankenFlash Project. Currently the teams are going through a reorganization. The Fight against fake memory is exhausting. Did you buy your fake on eBay? If so, don’t just use this site to repair your item – report your seller to SOSFakeFlash ! It is important to warn other people and to make sure the seller is added to their lists.
We are looking for new solutions to fixing fake flash memory items. Please send in your solutions to SOSFakeFlashDrive@gmail.com . We need your Vid and Pid information. There are a lot of desperate people out there that need help!.
Our team along with TechChips, are very concerned about repairing fake flash memory. The issue is, how much damage has occurred because the flash memory storage chip was reprogrammed to lie about real capacity. We need to study this more. Repair does not mean “good as new” – you better understand this! Too many of the flash memory chips used in fakes are substandard! Okay, so you lost money and are trying to make the best of the situation. Just don’t use the repaired stuff to store files and information you do not have somewhere else.
If you download software to repair, make sure to do an inspection of manual settings for the tool. Most keep the setting of the last user. Make sure ECC is not OPEN!
Flash memory cards, they are the hardest to repair. Success is mixed. The horrible true is, memory cards are the hardest of all to repair! If photo memories mean a lot to you, do not try to repair the card. Go after the seller instead.
The new site, FakeMemorySentinel has memory validation links. The best way to repair is to take the item apart carefully. Then using the usb flash chip controller information and flash storage chip, find the right tool to restore. The more you experiment with the wrong tools, the greater the possibility you will damage the flash storage chip. The best method is manual inspection, take the item apart, but be careful and gentle.
Never skip our FAQ if you are trying to repair. To succeed you need to understand what you need to do and what you are facing!
FixFakeFlash Inspectortech 
gary said
2 points…
1) I’ve noticed in this and other forums is that there is a lot of emphasis on the proggie ChipGenius. If you just want to discover the PID and VID of your USB or PCI device, then you don’t need to go to extremes of DLing a special proggie to accomplish this. Simply use your built-in WinXP Device Manager and it will probe and report the PID/VID device info.
2) The utils to fix/rewrite USB drives seem to be a hodgepodge of specialized proggies that only handle single versions of controller and flash combinations. From what I’ve seen, most high school kids could (and would) write better software. Anyone who has written professional utils quickly realize the commonality in this zoo and would consolidate them into a single high quality unified prog. Specifically, based on the shear volume of fraudulent drives, H2testw, ChipGenius, and the UDTool should be consolidated into one comprehensive USEFUL utility.
Now, having said that, I’m sure right away many others will jump in and tell ME to write such a util myself, rather than criticize others. Frankly, having written many tools like this (I’m a retired engineer) I would love to, except that at this particular moment I simply don’t have the spare time – sorry.
ITGuy said
Yes, you could write such a utility if you had a team of good software programmers who had access to the proprietary engineering documents that the controller manufactures do not want to share and in some cases are only written in chinese!
Some of the h2testw & chipgenius testing functionality could be combined to test and report VID pid etc. However, the other functions of chipgenuis requires knowledge of the location of the manufactures tools and requires constant update from people who understand chinese.
paramonk said
Please excuse me. I’m going to be a bit long winded below!
I learnt from the website that led me here, these fakes are no more than 256-mbs and from here that they are probably “sub-standard’s”. maybe something just worth a buck or two.
Question (1) Do they worth repairing?
I bought one in sealed blister yesterday, with “Sony” imprinted on its red body, on the hand stripe and on the card wherever appropriate. it “is” a 240G, tiny thing like this, was exchanged in a coffee shop likely within walking distance from the seller’s home. The seller, a youngman may have lied to me in response to my saying that one of my friends running wholesales maybe interested if his source is stable and better in price. He said these sticks were bought from the US and is handled by his father. In one of his previous emails, he replied me: quote: “This is brand new and sealed, I’m not a dealer, why I’m selling this, I buy and sell, you can test it with your own laptop because I don’t have one, let me know” unquote. He never used a name in his emails, not even a fabricated name and never called me even I missed the first appointment time. In exchanging, he told me he still has several. When I asked his name, “H x m x d”, he answered. Again, maybe false.
Question (2) Should I report this, being a comercial crime to our police?
Today I copied movie files to this damn stick, none of the files work, and when I tried to delete folders, the corrupted files stopped me from doing it until I learnt a bit from internet using the scan and fix (or repair) functions to get rid of them. But this stick is not formattable.
From having other manufacturers to print the cards, or in-house to silk-screen the bodies and the hand stripes and to make the blisters with moulds, this activity was at least at the level of “cottage factory” or higher.
Being long-winded here, I want to supply similar and associated info for readers:
When I worked and stationed in a {C}ountry in the orient for many years, I knew quite some people of different walks, shops and incidents. I learnt that some used computers on sale had BIOS hacked and re-written to report false and more desirable information and obviously for more money. But these were done by some clear individual nationals of that country. To the contrary, there were groups of business people in Hong Kong who erased and re-wrote oem cpu’s with false spec for an obvious purpose. This happened decade ago and was cracked down by the Hong Kong police. Naming it here, being established case(s).
Said country is well known for making cottage cell phones. I knew people can have lots of supplies on plastic casings, pcb’s and the format modules…., and the last but not the least, name plates at their choice. They usually don’t put the brand names on until the moment of sale or export. They even can “buy” the full spec and drawings of many name-brand new designs for as little as 3 grans USD at today’s exchange rate. That was 3 years ago and the one who told me this started as a mould maker, casing injection, then formed a tiny electronic section to “assemble” these cell phones. 2-3 months before I returned home, he had me shown to the owner of my residence and lived one floor above me, waiting there for his new villa to be constructed from the chunk of quick cash made. Naturally he bought a big new Toyota Crown 3.0i XL Sedan. Serious, this is a genuine one.
On my way home, passing thru the border offices, I bought a portable DVD player from a store operating within the border and custom building. Back then it was very common to see stores operating within custom buildings and I think there are still running today. The demo unit was no brand, afterall I did not care for any brand names as they may mean nothing to me and it has issues now. When I got home, I found what in the box was unexpectedly, a “Sony”. Some people may like it but not me. although the manual and warranty card were bearing the name Sonya and an address was shown on the warranty card, but I doubt how true.
Lastly, may I ask folks not to judge us by our race. We may look very alike, probably except the ways of walking and talking, but we may be born and raised in different countries/areas, having different cultures and nationalitis. What matters are the culture and mentality down under. When there are people with distorted minds, put money before principles and even lives, what more can we say???