Au87101a Ufdisk Review
is a specific USB flash drive controller chip manufactured by Alcor Micro . When paired with the term
- Always unmount before unplugging: sudo umount /mnt or sudo udisksctl unmount -b /dev/sdb1
- Backup important data; assume flash drives can fail without warning.
- Use checksums (sha256sum) when moving critical files.
- For distribution/ISO writing use tools like balenaEtcher or dd with sync and verify:
- sudo dd if=path/to.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync; sync
- Verbose USB info:
- Generic Name in Device Manager: Under "Disk drives," you see "AU87101A UFDISK USB Device" instead of your drive's real brand.
- 0 Bytes Capacity: When you open "This PC" (or My Computer), the drive shows 0 bytes total space and 0 bytes free space.
- "Please Insert Disk" Error: When you try to open the drive, Windows prompts: "Please insert a disk into USB Drive (E:)."
- RAW File System: In Disk Management (
diskmgmt.msc), the file system appears as "RAW" instead of FAT32, exFAT, or NTFS. - Write Protection: You cannot delete, add, or modify files, even though the physical drive has no write-protect switch.
- Wrong Capacity: A 64GB drive appears as 2GB or 0GB.
- Firmware Zone: The controller firmware is stored in a reserved area of the NAND flash (or occasionally in internal ROM). The
ufdiskutility overwrites this area. - Memory Mapping: The utility rewrites the translation table, mapping logical block addresses (LBA) to physical NAND blocks. If this mapping is corrupted, the drive appears corrupted until reflashed.
"Load Firmware Error": You are likely using a version of UFDisk that is too new or too old for your specific NAND flash memory. au87101a ufdisk