How to change a hardrives capacity details

[belarminogil]

Hi guys. I would like to ask how do I change an external hardrives capacity details?
Like for example- make a 500gb think that it’s a 1tb or so.

 

[ThatVietGuy]

And what is the utility of this other than trying to scam someone?

 

[DSzymborski]

For what purpose?

 

[belarminogil]

And what is the utility of this other than trying to scam someone?

Not trying to scam anyone.
Doing a series of Trial and Errors. I’d like to see what happens when the amount being copied goes over it’s limit.
I work at an I.t store and I’ve had 3guys coming in with externals stating that they are 1tb but they can’t copy over 120gb. So it’s left me puzzled because the drives capacity says 950gb but when I removed the drive from the casing , it’s usually a 120 or 160gb . Can’t find the person that’s been scamming these people so I’m trying to understand this as a technician. I believe learning is the ideal way of moving forward.
That’s all bro. And plus I’m in Africa , so it happens alot. Especially with externals and flash drives.

 

[boju]

Very difficult to know if genuine and even if so, wouldn't want to see such information posted here.

 

[DSzymborski]

These are common, people buying cheap hard drives with large capacities from Chinese marketplaces. Depending on the drive type and age, there are lots of ways to do it, hex edit table, microcontroller, etc. There's nothing you can do to help them, except advising them were scammed and to seek to have any credit charges reversed. That's all you can do, there's nothing broken to be fixed.

Any more than a general idea and we'll go beyond what Tom's rules permit.

Nobody's actually called you a scammer. Only that the techniques are used for scamming. Naturally people are going to be a little suspicious; it's a bit like going on a gardening forum and asking people the best way to hide dead bodies in their garden.

 

[belarminogil]

These are common, people buying cheap hard drives with large capacities from Chinese marketplaces. Depending on the drive type and age, there are lots of ways to do it, hex edit table, microcontroller, etc. There's nothing you can do to help them, except advising them were scammed and to seek to have any credit charges reversed. That's all you can do, there's nothing broken to be fixed.

Any more than a general idea and we'll go beyond what Tom's rules permit.

Nobody's actually called you a scammer. Only that the techniques are used for scamming. Naturally people are going to be a little suspicious; it's a bit like going on a gardening forum and asking people the best way to hide dead bodies in their garden.

Thanks bro this is very helpful. And yes I understand the suspicion issue

 

[boju]

Gpuz recently included the ability to detect fake cards if it helps at all / easier to run software rather than dismantling the card to read serial numbers.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/gpu-z-update-detect-fake-nvidia-graphics-cards,37934.html

 

[USAFRet]

And what is the utility of this other than trying to scam someone?

Not trying to scam anyone.
Doing a series of Trial and Errors. I’d like to see what happens when the amount being copied goes over it’s limit.

This is very common with USB drives.
An 8GB, flashed to report as a 256GB, sold for $5.

It copies and then simply continues to overwrite. Looking like you've copied 256GB (or larger) on to it. In reality, only the last 8GB has actually copied. All else is thrown out.

You can buy one yourself, just to see what happens. They're all over fleabay.
Like this "2TB" for $14.58.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2TB-Metal-USB-2-0-Flash-Drive-Memory-Stick-Pen-U-Disk-Swivel-Key-Thumb-PC/223164440024

 

[belarminogil]

And what is the utility of this other than trying to scam someone?

Not trying to scam anyone.
Doing a series of Trial and Errors. I’d like to see what happens when the amount being copied goes over it’s limit.

This is very common with USB drives.
An 8GB, flashed to report as a 256GB, sold for $5.

It copies and then simply continues to overwrite. Looking like you've copied 256GB (or larger) on to it. In reality, only the last 8GB has actually copied. All else is thrown out.

You can buy one yourself, just to see what happens. They're all over fleabay.
Like this "2TB" for $14.58.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2TB-Metal-USB-2-0-Flash-Drive-Memory-Stick-Pen-U-Disk-Swivel-Key-Thumb-PC/223164440024

This is basically the same crap that I was dealing with. Some guy came here with an external drive reading as a 1tb . And he’s telling me that it can’t copy beyond 100gb.
So i tried explaining what’s going on to him, about it being fake and I mean it came in a no name casing

 

[fzabkar]

@belarminogil, you can obtain the drive's Identify Device report with a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo. This will tell you the capacity that is being reported by the HDD rather than that which is reported by the USB-SATA bridge firmware.

You can also examine the partition table in sector 0 with a disc editor such as DMDE.

https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/
https://dmde.com/

Some bridge firmware is configured for a sector size of 4096 bytes rather than 512 bytes. If you create a 120GB partition on a HDD inside your computer, and then place this HDD in such an enclosure, Windows Disk Management will see a 960GB partition. You can also use a tool such as HDDHackr to enable a WD drive to identify itself as any HDD that you like.

In any case, 950GB is a strange capacity that doesn't match any storage device that I have encountered.