Hacked Flash Drive?

[ChromWolf]

Dad got me what is labeled as an IBM 256 MB flash drive for Christmas. My father, bless his heart, always manages to bid on two of any auction for a specific item he's looking for; two PDA's, two GPS's, two copies of his preferred GPS app.... in case "one doesn't work out". :P ...Well, the one time he can't exactly buy two---a Christmas present for one of his sons---is the time I wish he had. :P

It seemed legit at first; IBM-labeled box, cardboard meant to display the drive with the little form-fitting indentation to show it off, manual, CD, carrying cord thinger. ....But then things started to seem a bit fishy.... the "CD" was just a Sony 250 MB micro CD-R, and the manual, although it says "IBM ThinkPad Partner" on it (I happened to look, and although my search was just cursory, I could find no such mention of an IBM ThinkPad Partner on the IBM website; as they're no longer producing laptops, of course, this makes things a bit harder), it displays clear indications of "Engrish"... That is to say, the technical writers (and editors) of the manual. A prime example, from the warnings section:

"Please do not make it contact with water or other liquids. If it contact water or other liquid please take it off the computer immediately, if under this condition you keep on using circuit may be cut off or on fire."

That's a direct quote, punctuation included as-is. The whole manual is pretty much like that... Which is very humorous, because on the micro CD-R is an English version of this manual clearly writen/edited by person(s) who speak English as a primary language. :P

....At first, this just led me to believe I'd gotten a flashdrive that was sold with an IBM ThinkPad in an Asian country; I've heard that they tend to be a little lax in how they package certain types of media, and that's normal for them, apparently. No worries, so long as the thing works.

I checked out the micro CD-R, and it's label shows up as four boxes, presumably because it was labeled using non-Latin characters, which windows didn't have installed on Dad's computer, the particular one I had access to. On the disc are several folders, all presumably model numbers of some kind; now might be a good time to note that other than the old-school colored "IBM" letters, and "256M" (as opposed to 256 MB), this flash drive has NO other markings of any kind... no model number, no indication of USB 2.0 vs 1.1; not even the little USB logo pic they like to plaster on these things. ...Just a blocky black plastic casing I might describe as "transformer-ish", if that makes any sense (you guys have seen those "transformer"-looking PC cases out there, right?). The folder names on the Micro CD-R are as follows: ARK3143, Au6384 WIN98 Driver V1.0, Au9382 AP Ver 1.010, i5062&5068, OTI6828&2168 ((This folder contains the manual that appears to match the hardcopy manual that came with the flash drive, as well as the iFormat utility; read on...)), PointchipsDriver(neuter） ((The character after the "r" in "neuter" shows as another square in Windows Explorer)), PS2151, and SM320T.

So I plug it into my Dad's computer, and check it out. It displayed 256 MB as free space, just as promised. In checking out the other hardware details, however, it said it had some 131070 MB for total space!!! I checked it out under Disk Management from right-clicking My Computer, and it confirmed; although I could format to only 256 MB, it said it had 131070 MB of total space, sans the 256 MB's worth, of unallocated space. When the drive was formatted (it came formatted as FAT 16, I reformatted it to FAT32), I could not allocate any of the extra space (I presume because it wasn't actually there, of course). I really didn't care too much, again, as long as it worked, which at the time, it did.

Another disconcerting thing is that I could NOT stop the device before removing; when I would try to do so, it would say it couldn't be stopped at the present time, and to try again later. I was not copying or reading any files, and the LED indicator light was neither lit nor blinking, and since the caching setting was set to be optimized to be hot-removed and not loose data, I reluctantly just pulled the drive. No apparent problems.

I came home after the holidays, and tinkered with it on my own computer; same strange 131070 MB max size, but otherwise, functioned okay. Don't think I could stop it on my own computer either.

Last night, I was loading the drive up to bring it to a lab day at class I decided I wanted to take; I loaded it so it had about 34 MB of free space (approximately 222 MB, doing the math); had some Word and Excel files, and a few very large PDF e-books. Once again, I was unable to stop the device, so I just made sure nothing was open nor any data flowing to or from, and just hot-pulled it. I stuck it back in after a moment to make sure everything was okay, and now it just registers as "Removable Media", and when I check it out in Disk Management, it asks that I insert the media!

I'm okay with loosing the data, I've still got in on my HD, but have I killed the lash drive? If not, what was wrong with it?

....I've looked around on the web, and couldn't find anything. I checked out what I presume to be the model numbers listed on the micro CD-R, and after just entering in the first model number, ARK3143, came across the following link:

http://www.users.on.net/~cit/flashscam.html

This particular listing was the first fully English link I found, and interestingly enough, listed ALL the model numbers found on my micro CD-R. Note the text the google listing displays as the example; "The chipset numbers printed on the mini-cd: PS2152, SM320T, ARK3143, i5062, i5068,
OTI6828, OTI2168, AU9382AP, POINTCHIPS, AU6384. Some links: ..."

I had quite a lot of trouble even checking this link out. Within IE (the only browser I've got; let's not get into the browser arguement), I immediately get redirected to another link, which keeps perpetually refreshing (i.e., reloading) itself. I could only read the text itself after opening the thing up as a read-only version in Dreamweaver.

However, basically, the guy describes pretty much the EXACT same problem as myself---he had a hacked drive. He managed to fix his through loading this iFormat, apparently because the manufacturer is some company called iCreate (http://www.icreate.com.tw/); they happen to list this same iFormat utility on their website as is included within the aforementioned folder on the CD-R... Unfortunately, when I try to run it, it opens the window up for a fraction of a second, and then "minimizes" it (though neither to the taskbar nor the system tray). My only recourse is to open up Task Manager and kill it out of the processes running (it's not even listed in the Applications tab).

What can I do? Is this a hacked flash drive? Can I fix it? Is it already dead by having pulled it without stopping it? Why would it not permit me to stop it in the first place, when it was otherwise inactive? What's my next step? .....Has anyone ever dealt with anything like this before, and if so, how did you fix it?

....I'm not sure Dad could take it back; I don't know how long ago he bought it, and it might have been from an auction anyway, I really couldn't say. I'll e-mail him to find out, though.

Can anyone help?

[glc]

It's not worth your trouble, you have a bad drive. Name brand 256mb flash drives with real warranties can be had for 20 bucks. Chalk this one up to the hazards of buying stuff from auctions.

[ChromWolf]

Well, the idea was "....or, fix the one I've got for free if I can", but yeah, it's hosed. Hope Dad won't be too upset. :P I found nothing else that could possibly touch this---at least, nothing I knew what I was doing with.

I'll shop around for a new drive. :P Thanks!

[glc]

You can't fix bad flash memory. You throw it away.

[ChromWolf]

Uhh... right. I believe the "shopping around" comment implies that is what I was doing.... ;>

...And it's not necessarily that it's bad (as in, that it came that way); as I'd mentioned I and others had found, it was "fixed" by someone, to apply a bit of a misnomer, and I was intending to "un-fix" it. I just don't have the right tools, or know what I'm doing if I do happen to have them (and don't know it; I did find one utility that you could do quite a lot with, but I never managed to get anything to come of it). Clearly, you can do quite a lot to flash memory, if you have the right tools, and that's just what those people selling the fakes have done/had done for them.

In any case, thanks!

[glc]

I have to wonder - what is the point in trying to hack a flash drive when they are so cheap to begin with? I also have to wonder exactly what this "hack" is supposed to do? Turn a 256mb flash drive into a 132gb storage device? I don't THINK so.........

This comment is not directed at you - it's directed at the whole situation.

[ChromWolf]

No, you're right---that is the one thing about this I don't get.

The other articles I found were about 8 GB drives, and were being sold for well about $500.... Only thing I can think of is that perhaps mine was hacked to get up that high, then maybe "re-hacked" to put it back to where it was supposed to be, or at the very least, back to somewhere reasonable.

Ordered myself a Viking 512 MB drive for $30, and happened to have a $20 gift certificate to NewEgg I got for Christmas, so even better.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820181503

...I'd picked myself up a new detachable keychain thinger even, and then it went and died on me like that.... I was sooooo disappointed! Oh well, all shall be remedied thanks to NewEgg.