How I fixed a fake 64GB USB Drive

A friend of mine was gifted a Sony 64GB USB Drive by his Uncle.He wanted to back up his collection of Songs and Movies on his new 64 GB USB Drive as he was planning a full format of his hard disk.After the backup,the files on the USB Drive were corrupted.All the folders contained a single file with some random filename.Checking the properties of the USB drive in My Computer revealed that the capacity is 63.7 GB.

Generally the actual capacity will never be as close as this one.Manufacturers consider 1GB=1000MB and not 1024MB.So the actual capacity of a 64 GB USB Drive will never be greater then 64000/1024=62.5 GB.But this USB drive was showing 63.7Gb.There was something definitely wrong with this USB Drive.

I observed the USB Drive carefully.On side was ‘SONY’ and ’64GB’ and on the other side was ‘VAIO’ . ‘VAIO’ on a USb Drive???.I was surprised as VAIO is SONY ‘s Laptop and they had no reason to print that a on a USB Drive.

I went to http://www.sony.net/Products/Media/Microvault/products/index.html and compared the pictures of the USB Drives Manufactured by Sony and none of them matched the ’64GB’ USB Drive .As of now there were no 64 GB USB drives on the product page. I realized that this was fake USB drive and that its actual capacity is less than 64GB.

I had previously written about RMPrepUSB a formatting tool for USB Drives.This tool had an option to Test the capacity of a USB Drive.After a few dialog boxes RMPrepUSB reported that the USB Drive had only 243 MB of usable space.It also recommended me to check the capacity with H2TestW.H2TestW took almost an hour to test the USB Drive and finally reported that “The Media is likely to be defective” and that only 245MB  was OK .

Now I was wondering how a USB Drive with only 245MB of usable space was showing up as 63.4GB in ‘My Computer’.It looks like the USB Drive was reflashed with a special tool which made it appear as 64GB.In order to fix it ,I had to find the right Mass Production Tool Corresponding to this USB Drive.

I used ChipGenius to find the details of the USB Drive.VID=1221 and PID=3234.Manufacturer = Ameco(Micov) .There was a link in the ChipGenius windows to the Mass Production tool corresponding to this USB Drive.However this link took  me to a Chinese Discussion Board where I could not download the Mass Production tool as Registration was required and I was unable to register on that Discussion board.

I went flashboot.ru and navigated to the Ameco Mass Production Tools.Here I downloaded Ameco MW6208E 8208 UdTools.

This program installed a special driver and detected the USB Drive.In the Manuf Setting Tab I chose Level 1 Highest Speed and left the remaining options as it was.In the Manuf Progress windows I clicked on the Drive Letter corresponding to the USB Drive.The program scanned the USB drive and reflashed it to report the actual capacity i.e, 249MB.

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