Firstchip Fc1179 Firmware Link
You cannot usually find official drivers on a manufacturer's website because FirstChip supplies the controller to flash manufacturers who then assemble the drives. Instead, you need "Mass Production Tools" (MP Tools).
⚠️ Warning: Flash drive vendors often use low-quality NAND with the FC1179. Even after a successful firmware restore, data integrity may be poor. Do not store anything important on these drives long-term.
Yes, in limited scenarios. If the controller firmware is corrupted but the NAND chip is physically fine: Firstchip Fc1179 Firmware
For most users: Flashing new firmware will permanently erase your data. Accept this before proceeding.
| Issue | Solution |
|-------|----------|
| Tool shows “Check sum error” | Use a different MP Tool version (try FC1179 v1.0.3.6) |
| Still 0 MB after success | Run diskpart → clean → recreate partition |
| Drive fails at Pretest 30% | Bad NAND blocks – reduce capacity (e.g., 64GB → 32GB) |
| MP Tool doesn’t detect in ROM mode | Re-short or try another USB port (Intel USB 2.0 preferred) | You cannot usually find official drivers on a
The FC1179 controller gained a notorious reputation in the mid-2010s as the controller of choice for "fake" flash drives. Scammers would take small capacity drives (e.g., 512MB or 1GB) and program the FC1179 firmware to report a much larger capacity (e.g., 128GB or 1TB) to the operating system.
When a user would write data beyond the actual physical capacity, the drive would simply overwrite the beginning of the memory chip, resulting in massive data corruption. Identifying these drives often required testing with tools like H2testw or analyzing the firmware parameters via the MPTool to reveal the true physical geometry of the NAND Flash. ⚠️ Warning : Flash drive vendors often use
Unlike an SSD or high-end flash drive, the firmware on an FC1179 is fairly simple. It handles:
Crucially, the FC1179 does not have a dedicated SPI flash chip for firmware. The firmware is stored inside the controller’s internal ROM and on reserved blocks of the NAND flash itself. This makes it fragile – if the NAND develops bad blocks in the firmware area, the drive can brick.