Posted August 10, 2016 · Original PosterOP Hi guys! I found this at my local dollar store, a USB drive that comes with the installer for a program called Win Cleaner. I thought maybe I could reformat it as an empty USB drive so I could get a cheap flash drive, but it's seen by my computer as a CD-ROM so I can't format it in Windows Explorer or Disk Management. Does anyone have some advice on how I could format this thing as a normal flash drive? Even if it's just 8 MB, for $1 each that makes for a cheap throw away drive if I want to give a PDF or a few photos to someone, and they have tons of these at the dollar store! If we can't figure this out, it's just $1 lost, I can accept that. But this could make for some cool projects if we can get this to work! P.S: I already searched Google for this, and found a program called hpflash1 that some Reddit'rs said would work, but it doesn't recognize the drive. (To be more precise, the drive doesn't appear on the list of format-able drives) Link to post Share on other sites
Posted August 10, 2016 chances are that it's a ROM chip, and not actually flash memory. in that case, you're SOL Link to post Share on other sites
Posted August 10, 2016 you may be able to format it on linux Good luck, Have fun, Build PC, and have a last gen console for use once a year. I should answer most of the time between midday and midnight. NightHawk: i5 6600k @4.2, ASUS Z170m-plus, H105, 16gb corsair vengeance LPX, Strix GTX 970, Corsair RM750X, Samsung 500 gb 850 evo, Samsung 250gb 750 evo and 5tb Toshiba x300 My new NAS (remember to add link) HP DL380G6 with 4x146gb 10k drives and 4x300gb 10K drives, running FreeNAS PSU White list: Link to post Share on other sites
Posted August 10, 2016 · Original PosterOP 9 minutes ago, manikyath said: chances are that it's a ROM chip, and not actually flash memory. in that case, you're SOL That would suck. Can you tell by looking at the chip? Link to post Share on other sites
Posted August 10, 2016 · Original PosterOP 7 minutes ago, GDRRiley said: you may be able to format it on linux Hmm. If I installed linux on a bootable USB then I could maybe format this using a tool built into linus? Link to post Share on other sites
Posted August 10, 2016 4 minutes ago, Jason Betts said: Hmm. If I installed linux on a bootable USB then I could maybe format this using a tool built into linus? you can run linux live off a usb stick and then you should be able to reformat it Good luck, Have fun, Build PC, and have a last gen console for use once a year. I should answer most of the time between midday and midnight. NightHawk: i5 6600k @4.2, ASUS Z170m-plus, H105, 16gb corsair vengeance LPX, Strix GTX 970, Corsair RM750X, Samsung 500 gb 850 evo, Samsung 250gb 750 evo and 5tb Toshiba x300 My new NAS (remember to add link) HP DL380G6 with 4x146gb 10k drives and 4x300gb 10K drives, running FreeNAS PSU White list: Link to post Share on other sites
Posted August 10, 2016 11 minutes ago, Jason Betts said: That would suck. Can you tell by looking at the chip? i would guess thats a ROM chip tbh, i dont see any flash storage on there I spent $2500 on building my PC and all i do with it is play Paladins & watch anime at 720p... Builds: The Toaster Project! Northern Bee! The LAN PC 5.0 The original LAN PC build log! (Old, dead and replaced by The Toaster Project & 5.0) Spoiler "Here is some advice that might have gotten lost somewhere along the way in your life. #1. Treat others as you would like to be treated. #2. It's best to keep your mouth shut; and appear to be stupid, rather than open it and remove all doubt. #3. There is nothing "wrong" with being wrong. Learning from a mistake can be more valuable than not making one in the first place. Follow these simple rules in life, and I promise you, things magically get easier. " - MageTank 31-10-2016 Link to post Share on other sites
Posted August 10, 2016 1 minute ago, Bananasplit_00 said: i would guess thats a ROM chip tbh, i dont see any flash storage on there it actually looks like it could be one of the common DIRT cheap rom chips, and offcourse the blob chip on the back for the USB connection. Link to post Share on other sites
Posted February 14, 2017 That 8-pin chip is a flash memory. I can't identify the manufacturer of the chip (The logo is some sort of stylized "G" with maybe another letter intertwined?), but the chip is wired just like a 64 Mbit SPI serial NOR flash memory; see attached datasheet. This type of flash memory is VERY SLOW for the erase/write operations; in the millisecond range. The controller chip (blob) probably supports erase and write operations, but what are the commands through the USB interface to make that happen? Even if you knew the commands to send to the blob chip to erase/rewrite the 8-pin flash chip, it would be VERY SLOW! The controller chip emulates a CDROM drive ( that's what both Windoze 10 and Linux say), so it cannot be formatted as a disk drive. From the reviews I've read about the WinCleaner software, both this USB drive and the software on it are useless... n25q_64mb_1_8v_65nm.pdf Link to post Share on other sites
Posted February 19, 2017 Spoiler I Found A PINOUT digram for the memory chip Link to post Share on other sites
