Problem with 128 Gb USB flash drives

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romeolima

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Aug 14, 2009
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I bought 10 128 Gb USB Flash Drives from a supplier in China by the name of Gogoea, paid $ 39.00 a piece, they are Kingston Data Traveler USB 2.0, they all failed to work after a couple of times using them, they loose information, some aren't even recognized, but in general they are not wokring. I heard that there is a way to fix this problem, even though you have to sacrifice capacity, reducing them to probably 64 or 32 Gb, but that is beter than loosing them. I had to reformat some of them, but I couldn't format them in FAT 32 of NTFS, I had to format them in ExFAT, the new format of Microsoft, but not only there is a problem to read them on Windows XP or Vista without Service Pack 1, you have to update Windows XP to be able to read this new format, and still they are not working. Any help will be highly appreciated.
 
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photonboy
It sounds like you got ripped off. A lot of flash products (especially camera cards) are created by using a different product and then putting an official looking logo on them.

http://reviews.ebay.com.au/Fake-USB-DRIVES-From-China-HK_W0QQugidZ10000000007355216

E-Bay is notorious for allowing this type of transaction as they don't get involved. I got a fake camera card and had to deal with Paypal which would only file my complaint and get my money reimbursed. These sellers don't have any criminal charges filed against them and continue to sell fake products.

I'd bet anything your drives are fake.
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It sounds like you got ripped off. A lot of flash products (especially camera cards) are created by using a different product and then putting an official looking logo on them.

http://reviews.ebay.com.au/Fake-USB-DRIVES-From-China-HK_W0QQugidZ10000000007355216

E-Bay is notorious for allowing this type of transaction as they don't get involved. I got a fake camera card and had to deal with Paypal which would only file my complaint and get my money reimbursed. These sellers don't have any criminal charges filed against them and continue to sell fake products.

I'd bet anything your drives are fake.
 
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Solution
I know that I have been ripped off, the strange thing is that when inserted for the first time, some showed 134 Gb free space, and some showed 126 Gb free space, and I was able to transfer files to the 10 units, and erased them without any problems, but after three or four times, they start dissapering the files, folders created are there, but you can't erase them, still it shows the high capacity. I understand that they are fake, but shouldn't they fail from the first time inserted?, and why do they show the high capacity, I have one piece with 12 full DVDs, and they worked fine for 5 or 6 times, now only three folders have information, the other 9, are empty.
 
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Dude there is a real issue with these USB drive at the moment, I did some research and discovered that there are four types of usb chips being produced in china at the moment

Type A - Top Quality 100% guaranteed

The following Type A and B are produced at the same time as Type A but due to their position on the silicone their produced on are sold off or scraped.

Type B -
second grade still good quality but most manufacturers wont take the risk of putting there name on them

Type C -
(the type I think You bought) are produced on the very edge of the silicone and have a tendency to fail 30- 40% of the time and are considered junk by the manufacturer

Type D -
Recycled chips from ether type B/C sources or from other sources.

Sorry but I thing you might have to swallow your losses

next time you should try a supplier that gives you a lifetime guarantee

like this http://www.blueloyal.com/products.htm
 
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counterfeit usb drives. if you paid via paypal or using a credit card you have recourse, if not they are worthless. do the rest of the community a service by posting the transaction details here so a search engine can pick it up, and file a fraud complaint with fbi cyber crimes and interpol.
 
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yes rkaye, you are right. the only way to protect one is to buy via credit card paypal where you can have recourse. I paid direct to Bank of China, they will not do anything, it looks like everything in China is fake.
but we are at fault, we look to buy cheap. also the original are at fault they overprice everything. there got to be some middle ground. in the future please people you can buy anything but make sure the way you pay will give you the option to claim back your money.
Daniel.
 
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I bought the same one from an eBay seller... 2 x 128GB. For $29/ea I pretty much figured it was a fake, but curiosity got the best of me. I figured even if it was unusable, for that kind of money it was worth figuring out how they did it.

I moved a single 4.194GB file back and forth between a PC with a fast (250MB/s) SSD drive for time tests.

Reading from 128GB card = 15.7 MB/s
Write to 128GB card = 3.7 MB/s

Compare that to my true 64GB TD from Supreme (Newegg):

Reading from 64GB card = 22MB/s
Writing to 64GB card = 9.1 MB/s

Further, I was not able to get TD to format NTFS - even after changing compatibility mode to performance (v. portability), or using the HB USB disk flash tool.

Right now I'm transferring 122GB of TV shows and movies to it to max out capacity and see if it will actually hold anything near the advertised limit.

It's not fast. It's not NTFS. I don't know about the reliability. But, if it can hold 50+ GB of non-essential data (like music/movies) then you can't beat the price.

I intend on using this as a means to carry my large inventory of multimedia content. It'll be a copy from my home drives, for use when I travel. If it goes bad, or data is corrupt, so what. If I lose it (I lose stuff a lot), no sweat.


If I remember, I'll post a follow up after some real-world use.


 
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I bought a kingston 128gb flash drive from amazon--hope to retrieve cast--has same problem -worked for a week and gave me write proteted?????????Wayne
 
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Hi ,
I also bought 128Gb kingston pen drive after connecting to PC it's showing only 4kb , i paid money through paypal on ebay , could anybody please let me know how could i complain to paypal on ebay to get my money back...
 
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I used the HP Format Utility for USB. And the 128 became 4..... how about that. I quess it was a 4 all along. So far it appears to be working ok.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?swItem=MTX-UNITY-I23839&lang=en&cc=us&mode=5&


HP Format Utility for USB
File name: cp006049.exe (45 MB) Free from HP
Version: 7.41.3790.0 (8 Nov 2005)
 
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you can dispute the claim on PayPal, and most likely you'll get your money back!
 
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Hi, It depends on how long ago you made the purchase, as you have a limited time to log a dispute with paypal. Firstly have you contacted the seller on ebay directly, explaining that the flash drive does not work.??? As that would be the first thing to do - you may be suprised to find the seller may offer you a refund.
But if you have attempted to contact the seller, but unable to come to a satisfactory resolution, then the easiest way to log a dispute and request refund from paypal is . . .
1.. Find the transaction in your 'My eBay' items and on the right hand side of each winning transaction you will see "more actions" with a drop-down arrow, - click the arrow and click the 'Resolve a Problem' option - it will take you to another ebay page in which you have a further list of options - you want to choose the option for 'Item received Not as Described or Item received Faulty. after that - just follow the instructions and you can log a dispute providing it is within the limited time period which i think is 45 days.
(as soon as you have setup the dispute you can then Escalate dispute to a Claim - in which you actually state that you can not resolve the problem with the seller and are making a claim for a refund - you can do that by following the instructions on paypal.

Hope this helps and you do get a full refund (paypal will generally rule with the buyer so you should be ok)

Good Luck
 
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you can dispute the claim on PayPal, and most likely you'll get your money back!
Click to expand...
I went thru paypal to get my money back. they said i have to return FD to seller and get a tracking #. In order to get a tracking # I would have to pay the post office $60. I only paid $30 for the FD.
 
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I bought two 128gig USB flash drives off ebay from China and they work great on windows 7, but they do not work on my XP device.

I can put anything i want on them and they work mint of my PS3 or other window 7 computers. THe size stays constant and the files are fine.

Maybe sometimes you do get what you pay for.....
 
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I also bought two 128gb usb flash kingstons from China from a sponsored link on ebay called honestyonline (apt name) . They cost 35 USD each. Firstly I tried copying 70 Gig to the USB. It took 6 hours and looked as if the files were all copied. It even played the movies I had copied. However after unplugging it and putting it back in I discovered all the movies had disappeared. The folders were all there but were empty. Could not delete the folders as the error message said they were not empty! I played around with the other key and discovered how they work. The keys are only 4gb and work in mysterious ways. Whatever you copy looks as if it has copied fine but only some of the files are copied, the rest just have the filename with no contents. Sometimes a later copy will corrupt an earlier copied file. I believe all the people in this forum have fake keys, even the people who say their keys are fine, it's just that they haven't tested them correctly. I managed to reformat the keys using the HP Boot Key utility and they are now working fine as 4gb keys. I sent an email to the vendor complaining and had no reply in 48 hours. I filed a Paypal dispute and received a reply from the vendor expressing surprise and an offer to refund 30% of the cost, or send the keys back to China for a full refund. I left it 2 days while I figured out how to reformat the keys, trying to work out whether to go for the full refund or not. I believe a tracking number is required from paypal to get a full refund and tracking to China costs $30 AUD. Was going to ask the vendor to refund 80% of the cost (that way it would cost me the equivalent of two 4GB keys). Logged on this morning and found that the vendor had refunded the transaction through Paypal so I now have two 4gb keys for free. These keys are clever in how they work. I can imagine a lot of people thinking they have the real deal but will discover somewhere down the line that the keys do not work correctly.
 
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I would like to mention something here. My friend bought flash drives once from China, back when 1GB flash was HUGE. He had bought 8GB Flash drives...and all started to fail miserably (same issues you had). He swallowed the the loss and bought proper name brand USB drives.

Sorry to hear of your problem!
 
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Open up a claim with Pay-Pal. Then the fun begins. They will cover the cost but there's a catch. You have to return the bogus drive back to the sender with a tracking number. The cost of sending it back is probably the same as or more than you paid for the drive. So why bother. Pay-Pal and e-bay are in bed together and their buyer protection is bogus when dealing with international purchases. So caveat emptor my friend. If it looks too good to be true it probably is a scam.
 
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Otto Comments

Yes I also got taken by buying a Fake Kingston Data Traveller 200 128GB flashdrive from China. Stupid? Probably. But with USB 3.0 here I thought maybe there was a sale on USB 2.0 flash media. I did not know about the history of these Fakes as beautifully outlined in this Thread.
You may never use one of these fakes for video files as I was hoping. But I have a suggestion for maximizing any of these fake drives that show some life.
Reformat the drive in new exfat. This requires Windows Vista or 7. If you instal a driver update available from Microsoft, exfat can be used with XP also. When I did this reformat most data files I loaded could be transfered with my fake FD accurately to a hard drive. I was able to obtain up to 126 GB capacity. Using this format I could load at least 7 GB MEPG 1 video files but when transfered back (it took the usual 20+ minutes) to a hard drive they were unplayable with Windows Media Player. The question here is whether the video files are garbage or does Windows Media Player not handle a file generated on exfat? I have no other Player loaded.
How long the drive will operate I have no idea, they certainly must be made from a lower grade substrate.

Good Luck!
 
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I bought a 128GB flashdrive from China on Ebay and paid only $30.00 for it. Very inexpensive, which made me a little suspicious at first.
Well, when I hooked it up to my computer, it showed only 4GB of memory.
I decided to search on the web for similiar cases. The flashdrive that I bought looks legit, with the Kingston logo engraved on it.
I have found out that the user has to format the drive using the FAT32 system. I was unable to do it with Windows XP, so I formatted the flashdrive using UBUNTU and it worked perfectly.

So all you guys need to do is formatting your Chinese flashdrives in the FAT32 system.

My 128GB flashdrive gives me no headaches at all and has its' full storage capacity occupied right now. I am very, very happy with it and I will buy 3 more from the same seller on Ebay!
 
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