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reflash one of those scam usb drives - Printable Version

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reflash one of those scam usb drives by Jarrod on 05-22-2009 at 09:47 AM

So I have a flash drive, it says 16GB and it's 3.7gb.
I know why but that's not the point.
I want to know how to re-flash or fix the drive so it reads 3.7gb and therefore becomes useable
cheers :)

why that won't solve my problem
as I said, the drive has been flashed to hold 16gb the chip holds 3.7gb, the drive needs to be reflashed to match the chip size, its not corrupted
RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by prashker on 05-22-2009 at 11:54 AM

http://mympxplayer.org/how-to-removing-memory-hack-vt2400.html

It's for an MP3 player (specifically those shitty ones on ebay), however, it should achieve the same results for a USB stick.

RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by Jarrod on 05-22-2009 at 12:11 PM

quote:
Originally posted by SonicSam
http://mympxplayer.org/how-to-removing-memory-hack-vt2400.html

It's for an MP3 player (specifically those shitty ones on ebay), however, it should achieve the same results for a USB stick.
it's just telling me to low level format, I need to fix the fact that the disk reads 16gb FIRST otherwise it will still say it's 16 gb
an example of this is http://www.z-cyber.net/News10.htm
RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by Menthix on 05-22-2009 at 12:29 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Jarrod
it's just telling me to low level format
Low level format != normal format, it may work.

I doubt you'll find a good firmware for a USB drive to flash it with, especially lesser known ones.

You can pickup 4GB USB drives for under 10 euro these days
RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by Jarrod on 05-22-2009 at 12:32 PM

well can't I just use the same technique they use to make it bigger to make it smaller?

RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by Menthix on 05-22-2009 at 12:38 PM

You probably can. But you'll need the original firmware (and a tool to flash it with).  Finding the original firmware is the hard part as most manufacturers of USB drives don't provide any firmware.

RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by Jarrod on 05-22-2009 at 01:01 PM

Esp. when it's an unbranded one,
is there anything generic I could use?

RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by prashker on 05-22-2009 at 08:55 PM

It's 4GB, just accept a loss, and spend the 4$ is costs for a new one :p

RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by lizard.boy on 05-22-2009 at 08:59 PM

quote:
Originally posted by SonicSam
It's 4GB, just accept a loss, and spend the 4$ is costs for a new one

You're missing the point. He knows it's 4GB, and he wants IT to know it's 4GB. Loss acceptance stage is complete, salvage a possibly good USB drive stage has commenced.
RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by prashker on 05-22-2009 at 09:01 PM

quote:
Originally posted by lizard.boy
quote:
Originally posted by SonicSam
It's 4GB, just accept a loss, and spend the 4$ is costs for a new one

You're missing the point. He knows it's 4GB, and he wants IT to know it's 4GB. Loss acceptance stage is complete, salvage a possibly good USB drive stage has commenced.
Well so far he hasn't found a way to do that...
RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by Jarrod on 05-22-2009 at 09:03 PM

quote:
Originally posted by lizard.boy
quote:
Originally posted by SonicSam
It's 4GB, just accept a loss, and spend the 4$ is costs for a new one

You're missing the point. He knows it's 4GB, and he wants IT to know it's 4GB. Loss acceptance stage is complete, salvage a possibly good USB drive stage has commenced.
(y)exactly
quote:
Originally posted by SonicSam
4$ is costs for a new one
not in this country
RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by Patchou on 05-22-2009 at 09:21 PM

Can't you just create a partition of 4GB on it?

RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by djdannyp on 05-22-2009 at 10:04 PM

or just know that even tho it says 16GB it's only 4?  I mean...ur hardly likely to forget are you?  surely there's no problem other than the fact it only fills to 4GB?

RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by Jarrod on 05-23-2009 at 08:39 AM

quote:
Originally posted by djdannyp
or just know that even tho it says 16GB it's only 4?  I mean...ur hardly likely to forget are you?  surely there's no problem other than the fact it only fills to 4GB?
it doesn't fill to 4 gigs,:P it fills to 16gigs then all the data after the 4th gb is lost, the reason I want to change it is due to fragmentation and the way windows writes files.
if I put 4 gigs on it, then delete 4 gigs, I still have 8gb (of non existent space) in which can write to without overwriting the first 4 gb, therefore not very functional as a drive.
( *it's not quite as straight foward as that but if I can re-flash it the reliability of the drive will go up)
RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by Menthix on 05-23-2009 at 08:46 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Jarrod
if I put 4 gigs on it, then delete 4 gigs, I still have 8gb
But not if you create a 4GB partition on the correct sectors like Patchou suggested, or am I missing something?
RE: RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by Jarrod on 05-23-2009 at 10:47 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Menthix
quote:
Originally posted by Jarrod
if I put 4 gigs on it, then delete 4 gigs, I still have 8gb
But not if you create a 4GB partition on the correct sectors like Patchou suggested, or am I missing something?
yes but
quote:
Originally posted by Menthix
on the correct sectors
or am I missing something?
RE: reflash one of those scam usb drives by Menthix on 05-23-2009 at 11:52 AM

Most likely just make sure you start at sector 0 and don't make the partition any bigger than the actual real size of the drive. If you remove all partitions first any new partition created after that will start at sector 0 AFAIK.