Bought 16GB USB thumb drive in Shenzhen-what’s this mean, fake?

GOCAT9 on 30/07/2018 - 13:21

I bought the above-mentioned 16 GB USB thumb drive in Shenzhen China a few days ago. I am aware that many large capacity drives are fake and I always insist that I can format it on their computer before I purchase it. I always insist that it formats in NTFS format.

This is what happened- it originally came as exFAT format, I was able to do a full format (not quick) in FAT32 ok, but it would not work in NTFS. I was using win7. I have not seen this behaviour before.

Do any of you guys understand why this is so?

Computing

Comments

  • HighAndDry on 30/07/2018 - 13:27

    Is this on Windows 7? If so:

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-…

    By default, Windows provides the option to format a USB flash drive with FAT or FAT32 file systems only, but not with NTFS (New TechnologyFile System.)

    And then the rest of the comment are steps on how to force format in NTFS.

  • 87percent on 30/07/2018 - 13:28

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/cant-format-usb-drive-in-ntfs-format/b6d01d15-c66a-4f25-83f4-401bfceb0f12

    Beat me to it.. But seriously, Google the question

  • bobbified on 30/07/2018 - 13:29

    bought the above-mentioned 16 GB USB thumb drive in Shenzhen China

    Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?

    I am aware that many large capacity drives are fake

    Out of all places in the world, why would you risk buying a USB drive from Shenzhen when you already know there's a lot of fakes?

    • HighAndDry on 30/07/2018 - 13:47
      +2

      Shenzhen is basically the IT capital of China, so it's not that risky. Also 16GB is not so high-end that I'd personally be worried about it either.

      • bobbified on 30/07/2018 - 13:55

        OP said in this own words that he's aware that there's lots of fakes there. It just seems illogical to then still buy the drive from there without knowing how to tell the difference.

    • GOCAT9 on 30/07/2018 - 14:02
      +1

      Well, only because I was there for other shopping and it was cheap, only about $2.50.

      • bobbified on 30/07/2018 - 14:22

        if it's $2.50 for a brand name, then it's probably fake.

        Guess you can just toss the $2.50 if you can't get it to work properly. I wouldn't risk storing anything important in it.

      • DarthAntz on 01/08/2018 - 11:12

        this thread is about a $2.50 loss? i think youve racked up a lot more in lost work time combined for the people fascinated by fake USB/ regretted shenzen purchases. Should write a book.

        Theres a video on youtube of a guy who bought a 2TB usb stick. used the H2testW software mentioned below to find it was only 8gig, but would show up at 2TB in windows explorer.

        Your disappointment is shared with all of us ;(

  • scrimshaw on 30/07/2018 - 13:29
    +2

    There's a bunch of tools that you can use to test the real capacity of suspect flash drives.

    https://www.raymond.cc/blog/test-and-detect-fake-or-counterf…

    and as others said, inability to format as NTFS is a limitation of Win 7.

    You can actually format a fake USB drive in any file system you want.. so that is not a good test of whether a USB drive is fake or not.

    • GOCAT9 on 30/07/2018 - 14:04

      Yes, I knew that there are comprehensive test programs out there and I probably would have used them if I was buying a big drive (64GB or larger). But for a small 16GB I thought I’d just do a simple quick test.

      • HighAndDry on 30/07/2018 - 14:47

        Is it a USB 3.0 drive? You can test both capacity and speed by just asking them to transfer a 16GB file. At rated speeds of 100MB/s, it'd take around 5mins tops. Test the file to be double-sure.

        Honestly I'd ask for them to write a 16GB file to it and if they agree, I'd be okay after a minute because otherwise they wouldn't agree to begin with.

  • GOCAT9 on 30/07/2018 - 14:08
    +3

    Speaking of fakes, the whole 2nd floor of our hotel was devoted to an assembly factory where they were putting together fake iPhones. They didn’t mind us getting off at that floor and wondering around looking!!

    • Clear on 30/07/2018 - 15:38
      +1

      GooPhone! I have a collection of those from China/HK and have met their employees before. Very convincing Android skinned phones.

  • GOCAT9 on 30/07/2018 - 14:13

    In fact we were offered many times what I believe were fake iPhone X on the street. I can tell you that they were very very convincing. You really had to have a very sharp eye to tell the difference.

    One difference I also noted in “settings” was that it was called “Airplane Mode”, whereas on my real iPhoneX it is called “Aeroplane Mode”. To me that was a giveaway. It was however set up for English in Hong Kong country so I don’t know what they call it there!! Just sa’in.

    • Hybroid on 30/07/2018 - 14:25
      +3

      “Airplane Mode” is the normal spelling in many countries. Unless this iPhone X purchased from Apple Store Covent Garden is a fake all along.

    • jjjaar on 30/07/2018 - 21:55

      “Airplane” is UK and US English, “aeroplane” is Australian English.

      • [Deactivated] on 31/07/2018 - 08:33

        Surely not in the UK

        • jjjaar on 31/07/2018 - 11:02

          Change your phones region to UK, it changes the setting to "Airplane"

      • ThirdRonnie on 31/07/2018 - 10:02
        +1

        The original and correct term is "aeroplane". The word "airplane" is a typical American mis-hearing of an English word such as "sherf" and squirl" (sheriff and squirrel) that has taken root in American speech. They also can't hear the negative versions of words like "can't" and "could'nt" and say things like "I can get this thing to work" when they mean they can't get the thing to work, or the classic "I could care less" when they in fact mean they couldn't care less. In recent years under-educated Australians have been aping the American spellings and misuses.

    • Ughhh on 30/07/2018 - 22:03

      Unless it's a proper retail store (authorised Apple reseller), I think it's safe to assume that if a dodgy stranger or street market guy was selling you an iPhone, it's either

      1. Fake
      2. Stolen
      3. Genuine, but guy is desperate for cash- more likely is places where there's gambling.
  • Quantumcat on 31/07/2018 - 07:32
    +2

    If you want to know if it is fake, use H2testw.
    https://3ds.guide/h2testw-(windows)

    • HeWhoKnows on 31/07/2018 - 14:09

      Agree
      I have provided an explanation in my submission below

  • Plug on 31/07/2018 - 09:09

    If it was that cheap why worry if it's fake or real?

  • HeWhoKnows on 31/07/2018 - 14:07
    +1

    FROM A TRUE EXPERT IN THIS AREA….
    Formatting the drive with Windows will not give you a true test result!

    There are other more accurate ways to test for FAKE USB drives and FAKE SD cards.

    The BEST AND MOST RELIABLE TEST is "H2testw"

    H2Testw will do a write test to the full drive then read back and verify the write test and in doing so will verify both the usable readable and writable capacity of the drive as well as the read and write speed.
    So its not just about true capacity!

    You may have purchased what you thought was a Class 10 drive/card (10MB/s write speed) when in fact its only a Class 2 or 4 let alone not providing the full capacity

    See here for more information, full instructions and download liok:
    https://3ds.hacks.guide/h2testw-(windows).html

  • xiabonan on 01/08/2018 - 11:05

    As a Chinese myself I generally avoid these places to buy anything…

    As long as it's not super expensive, I generally pay the higher price to buy something in Oz, one to make sure it's authentic, two to get local warranty as I live here. If I want to buy something in China, I generally go to an authorised retailer (and a real one at that), usually those that are located in high-end shopping malls. Or go to online sites like Tmall.com (not taobao!) where brands have their official online stores or JD.com.

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