Is my USB drive fake or genuine?

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Matthew Wai

Matthew Wai

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Jan 9, 2015
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I have bought an HP 128GB flash drive and read the following article:
http://www.ebay.com/cln/tnimitz0/counterfeit-hp-fake-capacity-usb-flash-drives/167558126015
The package of my drive is different from the one shown on the PNY site, but the free space is actually 124.99 as shown below.
40868535400_a3446893be_o.jpg

Have I bought a genuine or fake product?

 
Solution
canadianvice
https://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/-fake-usb-flash-memory-drives

Something like this can give you proof if it is or not. If you bought a USB from China for an exceedingly good price it is a virtual certainty it is not legitimate. That's just how they operate - it's very easy for them to write a fake firmware that tells your computer the drive has more data than it actually does.

An added advantage is that most of them have just enough memory to escape detection (I had a 64GB reported with only 16GB real) so the test does not typically take long to figure out a fake. The test works by testing what it can write to the drive without overwriting data vs. what the drive officially reports. Obviously a discrepancy means it's fake.

It may...
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The formatted capacity seems legitimate. I'd agree with Barty and check and see if it can actually hold 125GB of data and then that will tell. I recently got duped with a fake 256GB memory card I bought off Amazon (that actually only held 32GB) so I know the feeling very well.
 
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I have not tried to do so. However, the free space of a fake one (brand new) was shown as 17.5 GB only. See below.
42685200141_4313bf5fa7_b.jpg
And the free space of mine is shown as 124 GB. See the screenshot below, which is consistent with the one in my first post above.
28812341008_0de0fe1cdc_o.jpg

 
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Minitool Partition Wizard shows the same capacity. See below.
28812790298_159def90aa_o.jpg
It would take a long time to check it out, so I want to check it with software like the one above.


 
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I just used another freeware, DiskGenius, to check it.
The total number of sectors and the sector size are 262144000 and 512 Bytes respectively.
262144000 x 512 = 134217728000 = 125 GB

Are the results conclusive?
 
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https://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/-fake-usb-flash-memory-drives

Something like this can give you proof if it is or not. If you bought a USB from China for an exceedingly good price it is a virtual certainty it is not legitimate. That's just how they operate - it's very easy for them to write a fake firmware that tells your computer the drive has more data than it actually does.

An added advantage is that most of them have just enough memory to escape detection (I had a 64GB reported with only 16GB real) so the test does not typically take long to figure out a fake. The test works by testing what it can write to the drive without overwriting data vs. what the drive officially reports. Obviously a discrepancy means it's fake.

It may be legit. I just have a major distrust of such sources as they are known to be very morally flexible, to put it kindly.

Edit: sorry, better link. Same tool.
 
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Solution
"The firmware checking one toward the bottom" = "RMPrepUSB - Quick Size Test".
"The one I've used myself which is the... second? option" = "Photo Fill Test".
Have I understood correctly?
 
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I'm sorry. Since classes got out my sleep has been all over the place and my brain is veritably fried.

The quickest option here is apparently ChipGenius, which reads the firmware and may well give you a quick answer as to INVALID drives (I would still test if it says the drive is good). The second one should be FakeFlashTest.

It seems to me like your drive may be legit, as long as you paid something at least $30ish cad for it. That's about the cheapest I could possibly see a 128 going for.

Another thing you could do, particularly if you have any video about, is copy just over 16GB of it. Shouldn't take terribly long, and then look through some of the starting footage - if it's corrupted you should certainly be concerned. I say 16GB as it seems to be the size they've settled on as "big enough someone won't notice in time" but still cheap enough they can turn profit.

Really, I'd probably evaluate this on the price for the quickest idea about it. The sellers on these sites typically work based on conning someone with irresistibly cheap stuff which is fake, rather than faking more expensive stuff, as the liability is less if they're caught.

As an example, the 64GB I bought (that ended up being a fake 16GB) was $5 cad. I knew full well it was fake beforehand, but I knew I'd get my money back and if it somehow was an odd gem, I'd have a nice place to supply from. I personally don't like the idea of buying on Taobao - as I understand they're designed only for internal sales and I doubt they have much security for foreign purchasers.
 
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FAKEFLASHTEST v1.1.1 [SSi]
DRIVE 4 - 124.9GiB General UDisk
FFT - Quick Size Test (destructive)
G: HP flash DRIVE 4 - 124.9GiB General UDisk

Writing marker blocks to drive 4
5% complete - 0 min 1 sec remaining
10% complete - 0 min 9 sec remaining
15% complete - 0 min 6 sec remaining
20% complete - 0 min 4 sec remaining
25% complete - 0 min 3 sec remaining
30% complete - 0 min 3 sec remaining
35% complete - 0 min 2 sec remaining
40% complete - 0 min 2 sec remaining
45% complete - 0 min 2 sec remaining
50% complete - 0 min 1 sec remaining
55% complete - 0 min 1 sec remaining
60% complete - 0 min 1 sec remaining
65% complete - 0 min 2 sec remaining
70% complete - 0 min 1 sec remaining
75% complete - 0 min 1 sec remaining
80% complete - 0 min 1 sec remaining
85% complete - 0 min 1 sec remaining
90% complete - 0 min 1 sec remaining
95% complete - 0 min 2 sec remaining
100% complete - 0 min 1 sec remaining
Reading back marker blocks...
5% complete - 0 min 38 sec remaining
10% complete - 0 min 36 sec remaining
15% complete - 0 min 34 sec remaining
20% complete - 0 min 32 sec remaining
25% complete - 0 min 30 sec remaining
30% complete - 0 min 31 sec remaining
35% complete - 0 min 28 sec remaining
40% complete - 0 min 26 sec remaining
45% complete - 0 min 24 sec remaining
50% complete - 0 min 21 sec remaining
55% complete - 0 min 19 sec remaining
60% complete - 0 min 17 sec remaining
65% complete - 0 min 15 sec remaining
70% complete - 0 min 13 sec remaining
75% complete - 0 min 11 sec remaining
80% complete - 0 min 9 sec remaining
85% complete - 0 min 7 sec remaining
90% complete - 0 min 5 sec remaining
95% complete - 0 min 3 sec remaining
Memory tested in blocks of 25600 sectors.

BAD MEMORY from sector 15451004 (7,544.4355MiB) to sector 262107004 (127,981.9355Mib)

WARNING: no memory detected at one or more locations.
Test took 190 seconds.

*** FAILED ***

DEVICE HAS DUPLICATE OR BAD BLOCKS!

Recommended maximum usable partition size: 7,531.9355Mib (approx. Last good Sector=15451004)

Unplug and re-connect the drive, then reformat it using Windows or RMPrepUSB.
 
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I am feeling well because I have learnt a lesson at a low price.

 
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I would just do the quick size test.

Also, a note regarding the HP, since sadly it seems to be fake: Don't use it for data storage, irregardless of its real capacity. Unfortunately these USBs often use a cyclic method of memory management to give the illusion you're not running out of space, and so it overwriting or losing data from earlier in the drive is highly likely.

Sadly because of the way they work, you can't even really use them for what they are.
 
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It is a pity that many Chinese people have bought it at Taobao, but none has discovered the truth—no unfavorable comments (only favorable ones) have been left, and I should not have believed those comments.
 
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I emailed PNY and received the following message:
"The USB is fake product of you provide.
[...]
If possible could let us know shop information,
We will pass the message to our legal team for other action. Many thanks!"

And I have just replied to her as follows:
"The shop where I bought the fake product has already closed down. However, the same products are still available below.
http://s.taobao.com/search?q=HP+U%E7%9B%98128GB
The rock-bottom prices speak volumes."
 
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I know it doesn't do you much good at the moment, but two things to consider:

1. Card Chargeback (you can always try, and it's a pretty clear cut case). If Taobao won't refund you, anyway.
2. In future, only buy on sites with legitimate escrow services intended for outside-of-china sales; if you're dealing with the Chinese. I've been buying from China for years now, and sadly it is simply not possible to count on honesty - they have a culture of hard and fast "caveat emptor" capitalism, and it's basically considered your fault for falling for it, not their fault for being dishonest. Aliexpress or eBay. Many of these deals are still available, but the protections if they are fraud are far better, and since payments are processed from western countries (UK and US respectively), it is far easier to get money back in a chargeback if worse comes to worst.

And of course, test your USBs from these sites, always. Bluetooth and USB are two categories I have found to just not be very good when buying from China.

For the record, in case you wanted help on the test readout: It's basically saying that your USB failed to retain the markers past 8GB. So they only installed an 8GB flash chip in it and wrote the firmware to lie about it being 128GB.

On the bright side, you learned a lesson and you weren't burned too badly. I would suggest if you ever have doubts about a listing to ask here - or you can PM me (I've gotten quite good at smelling out BS)... but understand I won't be of much use on Taobao as I am in no way fluent in mandarin.
 
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That's crazy - that is literally the exact e-mail I got from SanDisk when it turned out that my memory card wasn't legit. And I definitely agree with that bit about the low prices being a factor in deciding whether or not a product is legitimate or not. One of those things where if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
 
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