Nov
20
2010

Analysis of a Fake 80GB USB Drive

Recently my friend’s room mate got hold of a “Transcend 80GB USB Drive” .He is the same friend who found the fake 64GB USB Drive.He instantly knew it was fake because nobody manufactures 80GB USB Drives.The capacity of any USB Drive is only in powers of two.So you can have 2 or 4 or 16 or 32 or 64 GB USB Drives.

This fake USB Drive looks exactly like a Transcend USB Drive except for the 80GB Capacity.If the manufacturer of this pendrive had some brains,he would have sold this fake USB Drive as a 8 or 16GB USB Drive instead of 80GB.

Description of the Fake 80GB Pendrive

It is Pink/Black in colour and has the model number JF V30.

I checked the properties of the USB Drive in Windows Explorer.The capacity was 79.9GB.

The next step was to find out the actual capacity of the USB Drive.According to RMPrepUSB the capacity of this USB Drive is only 5mb!

Then I tried to find the VID and PID using ChipGenius.Amazingly ChipGenius drew a blank.It could not identify the micro-controller used by the USB Drive.

Most Fake USB Drives have atleast 256mb of usable memory.This usable memory is generally regained by reflashing the micro-controller.However, when I opened this USB Drive with a screw driver and I was shocked to find that the USB Drive did not even have a memory chip.So there was no question of reflashing the micro-controller.

Here is a screenshot comparison of the fake USB Drive with a Genuine Transcend 2GB VF 30 USB Drive.

FAKE vs GENUINE

  • Genuine

    Fake

  • Genuine Memory

    Genuine

    Fake - No Memory at all

    Fake

  • Genuine Micro-controller

    Genuine

    Fake Microcontroller

    Fake

This is one fake USB Drive which cannot be repaired.I am still trying to figure out how the manufacturer made this USB Drive without any Memory Chip.

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About the Author: Bharat Balegere

Bharat Balegere is a 27 year old blogger from Bengaluru. He is a technology enthusiast and loves tinkering with computers and usb drives.

6 Comments + Add Comment

  • Bharat it is great – I appreciate your interest in writing this article – good observation and a great job indeed – keep it up.

  • Even i have encountered d same problem, but i have green stripe 32 GB, but unable to load any of the files. dear frnds b careful henceforth

  • Hey Bharat,
    Even I was fooled into buying an 80GB USB Pen drive!!!.I have seen these peddlers selling them for 3 years now,and assumed that since nobody complained,and they are still selling them without public backlash,I thought the product to be workable.But was so damn mistaken.
    I used a software and tried testing it,which verified the storage capacity.it was verifiable uptil 40GB,I then lost my patience and tried playing an audio,video,word doc,one by one and they all were corrupt files.They copy themselves onto the drive but without the data!
    Bloody unbelievable.the available space was just 8MB. Eight MB.!!!Talk about being taken for a ride par none other.

  • ALL USB Same Motherboard Or May Be Fake Every USB????

  • Very useful for me dude, i have a Transcend 64GB pendrive violet color code, Actually there is no such product in Transcend website for 64GB in VF30 series, This one i got from my sister now its not working, so now i have to explain about this to her,,,

  • Hello.
    The fake flash drive actually contains a memory chip. However, instead of using a parralel interface like a regular flash drive, it uses a serial one which is much slower. And of course, it has a much smaller capacity.

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