Fake Kingston 32gb Flash Drive

Fake it is.

The world these days. You never really now what you are going to get. So here I was, very happy from a computer fair having got myself a 32gb flash drive for Usd30 dollars. I haven't really used it much. Filled it up with some files here and there. But I never did copy any files back from it.

We've all heard about fake flash drives being sold online these days. Well "lucky me!". I guess these they are pretty much being sold offline too and everywhere. As you can see on the picture of the packaging it does not specify the capacity size on the packaging.

 

This model is supposed to be the DataTraveler 101 32GB. 

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke

Fake serial numbers.

Having nothing to do, I decided to just mess around and check the serial number at the back of the packaging to verify it at Kingston's website. Lo and behold the reply I got was a shocker. I thought I must have entered a wrong digit for the serial number. After trying for a second time the reply I got was still the same. "The device was not manufactured by Kingston" uh-oh, this isn't going to be good.

Amongst the first things that I noticed were wrong was when I plugged in the flash drive. The device is identified as "Sales Udisk 2.0".

A real Kingston flash drive would be identified as the model number specified on the flash drive and packaging. It should state "Kingston DT101" in the device manager. The screenshot below shows the device identified.

It didn't say Kingston.

Another method of testing the true capacity of the flash drive is by using a software called H2testw 1.4  ( The link is via Google Translate since the website is originally in German ). It will write data to the size u specify and afterwards verifies the data integrity. Errors would start showing up on verification of data, usually after an amount of data is processed because of fake data size. This is when you know the true capacity of the flash drive. Unfortunately I only took a screenshot of a pretest window, not the results. I forgot, brilliant.

H2testw

A simpler method is just by copying large amounts of data to the flash drive. And afterwards while attempting to copy back the data from the flash drive you might encounter errors because the data is corrupted.

Here is a source of identifying fake flash drives. Also there are comparisons of fake and genuine flash drives as well as examples of identifying genuine flash drives.

Flashchiptutor's Flash Drive Facts Guide 

Remember if its too cheap, it most probably is too good to be true. Fortunately for me I successfully got my money back from the shop after pointing out that it is a counterfeit flash drive. If you go down this route, remember to always keep your receipts and email of verification from manufacturer.