Do Not Buy Fake 32 GB Sony Vaio Pen Drive
Posted by CoolGeek in Disk Storage
Last week I came across the following drive that claims to be from Sony. It is in silver black colours and has markings saying it is a 32GB / USB 2.0 flash drive.
Being an editor of a gadget blogs like this, I should have come across such a device earlier. Unfortunately, I didn’t. Then I researched about it and found this page.
This drive looks awesomely original and even shows you it can hold 32GB when connected to PC. It will even copy data. However, when you try reading back the same data, you will learn that it became corrupt. This drive just writes some binary code instead of the data and shows that as much space is in use.
As far as I can learn, this pen drive is a total fake from China. Somebody found the requirement of a cheap 32GB drive would drive sales of such a crappy device. I must say that if you are not a geek you may fall in this trap.
In short, if you found such a device, never buy it.
If you are really looking for a genuine 32GB pen drive, check this: http://www.kanguru.com/flashblu.html
Update:
It seems there are similar fakes branded as Kingston memory sticks. Check comments below for more information.
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i have exactly the same one 120GO, shows 118GO, same problem.
Yes, i’ve got to agree only due to the fact that i was duped once after purchasing a fake pendrive which was 32G size.hence forth i was able to copy the data but could not read from it”it came up with an error when tried to connect to the any system and the system would restart again.however i have concluded that it was indeed fake one.
i have a similar experience in 8 GB , it shows 7.87 memory but have only 1 GB .don’t get cheated,,,,,,,,,,,,
i got the same experience .i bought 2 pen drives of 32gb but i was shocked when i was enable to read the data i had copied in pen drive.so be aware friends
Even i have got the same one… but it is working absolutely fine with me..
By the way how much did u guys pay for it?
@Abhi,
Even Sony’s website don’t have this product displayed. It is quite obvious that this is a total fake.
I’m surprised to see it working. Have you tried using it for full space ?
Did you read back the data?
-CG
even the same fact is been seen in 32GB kingston pen drive. It shows that the whole pendrive consists of 32 GB space and even copies the data but when we try to fetch or read the data it will show the binary codes (specially in video files)
Yesterday 3rd dec 08, i also bought 4 kingston 32GB pen drive. Same problem am facing. Properties are showing 31.XXX GBs. Even Disk Management is also showing 32GB. I tried to play a movie from pen drive to see how much ACTUAL is the memory. It was around 128 MBs.
My friend told me this is some Virtual memory concept.!!
Abhishek & Udai,
Thanks for the information. This is the first time we are hearing about Kingston fakes.
Can anyone send us a picture of this drive?(So that anyone reading this won’t get cheated again)
You can send the image to tharakkal[at]gmail[dot]com
Thanks
CG
I bought a 8Gb Toshiba pen drive and found out that it does not hold data more than 1.2gb
Its seriously pathetic but quite common in the grey market so please make sure u buy the real ones….. The best practice is to format it atleast thrice and then u copy some data to it and then copy back from it…..
hey , even same thing happend to me too , the selled for cheap amount, when we checked the properties was showing 32gb correctly, on that confidence , i buyed it, after using that pen drive, i stored some photos , it was working , i stored two movies total properties may be around 1.5 gb, i played , but it was not playing, then i played the same movies in my movies, it was cool working, now , i confirmed its fake, but i thought , if we update with its , software cd , it may , but that guy , did not gave any cd , but the amazing thing, is the others who purchased with me the same product is working, thats what iam thinking about how it is . The blady fucker cheated me.
Hey guys beware of these pirated gadgets, dont buy with third parties , please prefer show room originals , with bill warranty…………..
It’s True..
I Have a 32GB SONY P_en Drive..
But When I Copy Data to My Pen Drive & Try To Open It Messaging ” DATA CORRUPTED”..
Hi,
Yesterday,i came accross 512GB sonyvaio pen drive. it looks similar to above. the guy show me 512GB space in properties. fortunately i postponded my plan to buy it. now i realies that it was not origional from sony. sonyvaio does not have any product on USB flash drive (i.e. pen drive), but sony have its product for USB flash drive.
Hi Saloni,
Yes your are absolutely correct. Sony Vaio is the brand name of notebooks from Sony. They only use “Vaio” for notebooks.
Faker’s didn’t realize that this would be a problem!
I become the victim of the same FAKE Kingston 32GB pen drive.
I even confirm the capacity and data holding capacity by connecting the computer, but I forget to get back data from pendrive to computer. Unfortunately this was my fatal mistake.
i also bought 32gb kingston pen drive yesterday…it is not working…i bought it in just rs,1000 only….it is fake..plz buy original one.
my usb 32gb sony works fine
Yes this is true. This is a fake pen drive so don’t buy such pen drive. I have one and i know the same about it. This is a true thing.
thanks for saving my precious time and money.
i was trying to bye it but when i gone through to your the facts through your site i denied it. thanks for such a nice guidence. thankyou forever……………..
don’t buy the same if your believe on quality.
I HAVE THE SAME TYPE OF THIS PEN DRIVE AND I REALLY WANT TO KNOW THAT IT IS OF SONY OR NOT.
Hi HEMANT,
Please read my post.
Guys’ i am also a victim of the 32GB sonyvaio flash drive…. anybody know how to make this drive works…. ? ?? ? it would be a big help…. i paid US$ 3.5 (Rs.3500 sri Lankan money) & i can’t get money back alsoo….
so instead of these posting can we came up with solution for this matter?
irtiza :
hi buddy i see that your thumb drive is working… tell me , did it comes with a box or something like that? … if so, can you tell me the website or a link to get connected to the site.
jD839
my pen drive is 32gb sony vaio
when i get the data it will get it to my pen drive but other computer when i save my data or folder its show the folder is impty
pls tel me solution
hai guys,
how much rubees this pendrive
very intresting
A lot of the “fake” memory is just VERY slow. Sometimes they give you a lot less memory then they claim.
I bought five of these pen drives,due to its verry cheap price.but latter on I found these to be for nothing.
Therefore I sold these pen drives to my friends and making a net of RS500 profit
thanks very much Asis for your awesome idea.Even i was cheated by some fake persons selling fake pendrives.but you have given me truly an orignal idea.yr idea i believe is not a fake idea.. i too did the same thing and my net profit was 1000 rs.
I suggest not to buy these pendrives.As these are totaly fake one.The Gay peoples are selling these gray pendrve from grey markets.i was fooled hence I too fooled others and made a net profit of rs500
hi friends ,
i have also buy a kingston 80GB pen drive with 1500rs, but its not working.
OMG, i already bought this kind of fake pendrive
i bouht 256GB pendrive from china!
hi these memory are upgraded one, china also sells orginal,i got 32GB working fine, tested with software if it is orginal or not and came out to be orginal with full memory.
+ 5 year warranty.
I’ve bought a Sony pendrive 120 GB.For the first time I was using it for keeping some pictures.I can read it back.But each time I want to connect it to the other pc, it told me to format it.When I want to format it, it showed only 8 GB instead of 120 GB.When I want to start the formatting, it told me that Windows can’t format it.Somehow I’d figured out how to get the data back by changing its autoplay.It worked normally after that.But when I want to copy a lot of movies in there, it started to have prolems again.I can’t even see the data in there anymore.I can’t open it anymore until today.
I had the same problem with a 32gb “sony vaio” flash drive that i bought on ebay it looked real. I got it for $25 chinastore88 selld the same thing but im not sure what to believe anymore. i bought it from another person though and the day i was ready to write a complaint, he became an unregistered user. when i tried to format the 32gb flash drive it read as if there were only 8 MB. Then it said it was unable to format. And on the guys feedback other people posted the same problem and he said it was the companys fault to all of them spanding over 3-4 months it was still the company’s fault.oh well time to find a new drive i guess. hope you guys have a better experience.
My dad just got two from HK: same problem, putting data on the stick works but reading data does NOT work, files are damaged!
Even worse: there were already some crappy chinese songs installed and NOD32 found a virus on it!!!
Hi, I had the same problem, everything from China is bad quality!
I was lucky that my sony usb32gb was cheap. Now is on rubbish heap.
Just bought a fake on eBay from xiyouji1houzhuan2010
Hi Guys.. I bought a Sony Vaio too. 32 gb. And the day after the eBay seller was no longer registered. So I just thought that I’d been cheated. So I asked ebay for a refund, and I got it! But now today, my drive turns up in my mail. Nice, I thought. I am totally sure that mine’s the same as yours. But I found a solution to this problem:
SOLUTION:
Format you drive with windows (right click your drive from My Computer, and click format). Then:
Test your drive with this program: http://www.heise.de/ct/Redaktion/bo/downloads/h2testw_1.4.zip
When you have downloaded it then unzip it to the directory: C:\checkflash. Then run the program. Leave the options on the standard EXEPT from the size. Change the test size to 5000 mb. Els the test will take like forever. If you choose 5000 mb it will take around 25 min. At some point the test fails and you can see how much space your drive actually have. Then download: http://www.pcdisk.com/download.html
Install the program and run it. Find your drive and click the “+” sign to expand the options. Click the “Primary FAT32″ and then click delete in the top of the screen. After that click on the “unallocated” and then click create in the top of the screen. The settings here are a bit tricky. After you runned the test in the second step you found out the actual size of your Flash Drive. Mine was fx. 3.7 gb. Then multiply that size with 1024: 3.5 * 1024=3585. Then put in 3585 in the “Default partition geometry” box. And then press ok. When that progress is done, press the “Format” button in the top of the screen. Enter a name for your drive and click OK. And now, congratulation, your drive will hopefully work. Please leave a comment if it worked or not.
Daniel
Thanks Daniel,
Thanks for the information.
-CG