500GB Sony MicroVault Counterfeit Fake USB Flash Drive – Model Numbers USM4024 – USM500024
Posted by flashchiptutor on March 26, 2009
Beware Sony Microvault models USM4024, USM500024 advertised as 500GB with a packaging label of 500G are a counterfeit – fake! Sony never produced these usb flash drives. It will be a number of years before there will be a 500GB usb flash drive available. These are the most outrageous and wild false capacity usb flash drives. Sold on wholesaler internet sites in China and Hong Kong. Often sold as “upgraded” – there is no such thing. These drives are unlikely to have a real capacity of more than 512MB. This model type the favorite Sony Micro vault counterfeit sold on eBay. It comes in other sizes and packaging. Avoid being frauded or scammed. Do not buy this usb flash drive, you risk data loss. Do not sell this usb flash drive!
This is a very popular article. If you bought one of these drives, please send the details to sosfakeflashdrive@gmail.com
Important Reading:
- USB Flash Drives Best Price Bargains Fair Value To Sell Or Buy 8GB 16GB 32GB
- Genuine Verses Fake Counterfeit USB Flash Drives – A Guide – USB Flash Chips Used – Grades A B C D
- Sony MicroVault Genuine USB Flash Drives – Archive Of Retired Models To Avoid Fakes And Counterfeits
- H2testw 1.4 – Gold Standard In Detecting USB Counterfeit Drives
Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.
The fakes shown above have been around a long time. One is a relabeled item.
Please report any internet listing to:
Visit http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/ for the list of sites in the FrankenFlash Project. You will find plenty of evidence on this counterfeit line that has been documented.
Dermott said
Had a coworker bring some of these back from China last month. I tested mine and got up to 2 gig onto it before it broke (obviously I knew it was fake but I was curious). He gave another one to a friend and it came pre-loaded with spyware that launched through an autorun exploit. Redirected him to chinese sites, changed his default search to Baidu, broke his LSA stack, etc. SKU USM500024 UPC 2724263969
You might want to have a note that it is probably very likely that spyware/adware can be pre-flashed on these drives before sale.
kittyfireflash said
Yes, depending on how people have their operating system configured – autorun on for usb flash drives – this is a very serious exposure. In reprogramming the flash drives ie changing their reported size, the tools and environment where this is done is not very “clean”. For people who buy on eBay this happens a lot when they buy these fakes. Alot of viruses seem to be reported. There are more dangers then just lossing data. Some come with a setup disk and these often have viruses too. It tends to happen a lot with those bargain basement MP Players, but also sometimes with usb flash drives.
And an odd thing doing a general search on the interent for code UPC 2724263969, or just plain 2724263969 comes up empty too.
Dermott said
Yeah, probably because I typed the UPC wrong (it’s only 10 digits when it should be 12). ‘Real’ UPC is 027242639690 which comes up blank on http://www.upcdatabase.com though if you look at things with a similar prefix http://www.upcdatabase.com/by_prefix.asp?prefix=27242 they are all Sony. These guys did their homework.
neoice said
i have several of these and all have copied data up to 488gb.
However these drive will not format into NTFS only FAT32
kittyfireflash said
Hi Neoice
Please test the drives. Read http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/h2testw-14-gold-standard-in-detecting-usb-counterfeit-drives/ This drive was never made by sony. It is a counterfeit. You need to find the true capacity.
Generally usb flash drives do not like being formatted in to NTSF. It is complicated. FAT32 is understood by most operating systems so this is why it is normally used. It does present a problem with video and files more than 4 GB. But you are very very unlikely to have even 4GB with this flash drive. The highest real capacity found so far is only 512 MB.
Goodseek said
Hi. a friend who recently came back from china take like 25 of those USB 10 of 500GB and 15 of 640GB i already tell him is a fake but im looking for some tool or any way to use that USBs, like restore it to its original sise: 512mb, 1gb anything is better that nothing y have tried several utilities like Portfree production, iformat, HDLLF, and some others but non of those work, in other forums say that this tools work to restore fake usbs of 8 or 4gb but i cant find anything to restore USBs of 640gb not eaven 500gb if someone know a way to restore those usbs plz tell me.
THX and sorry for the english that i dont speak it to well.
InspectorTech said
You need to visit my site. Look at the post on vid and pid. It explains what you must find before trying to fix usb flash drives. You need information on what the controller chip is and possiblily the flash drive chip. If you do not know what the controller is, then how to find the right tool?
Please becareful Goodseek, if you use the wrong tool you could damage the drive(s). In your case if they are all the same model and if you are very very gentle, you could try to open one and see what the controller is. Then look at my site to see if there are any articles on it. The vid and pid article has links to the russian site with translation to look for a tool that somebody might have uploaded.
If you have more questions you could leave comments at my site, but it is better at sosfakeflash site, for the repairing fakes post to see if somebody could answer you. Also look at that article for the many comments people have left. Once you know the controller you may have a better chance to fix the usb flash drives.
sktr said
how to format microvault 640 gb,please help me.please sent instruction to my email ok
fightflashfraud said
If it is 640GB it is fake – there are no genuine flash drive of this capacity. Don’t waste your time and effort on it. Een if you managed to rescue it both the capacity and reliabillity of such flash drives would be very low.
saber said
Hi everyone
I bought one of this fake flash with capacity “80GB SONY VAIO” unfortunately, so I can format this USB with DRAGON software, but I cannot partition this flash if evrybody have information about this problem I’ll appropriate if help me.
tanx
Ph.Sarbaz@yahoo.com
Randy said
Have you tested drive with h2testw? What was the output?
Some of these drives have a small real capacity and are not worth repairing of partitioning.