NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Drives

Forum for discussions about UHD-capable dives
BIGTOM221
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Sep 08, 2020 1:13 am

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by BIGTOM221 »

Ok I am looking to buy a LG BH16NS55 & a ASUS BW-16D1HT I take it the LG drive needs to be SVC Code: NS50 and also I will buy the ASUS BW-16D1HT Drive Platform MT1959 I can use the windows booted pc based tool to downgrade the firmware or must I use a bootable windows flash drive and boot from the flash drive to perform the firmware downgrade is there anything else missing can anyone elaborate on the procedure. Where does one buy the drives I mean if you lot can buy these drives to flash do I understand you buy lot of drives and return them because you will not be able to flash because of certain criteria meaning version numbers can anyone give a link where to buy the bare drive or is it just post luck if you get sent the correct internal pc drive.
MartyMcNuts
Posts: 2460
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:45 pm

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by MartyMcNuts »

subzero wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 1:30 am
hi. i got new LG drive thats 1.05FW. when i crossflash 3.10 i get an error failure #5. ive tried different methods and nothing seems to downgrade. any ideas lmk thanks advance!
Please download the SDFtool Flasher, check the "enc" box and flash the drive with 1.05 MK from the MK firmware pack. Once this has been done, you can flash whatever firmware you want, just make sure you uncheck "enc".
Cheers :D
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For UHD enabled drives (AU/NZ/SG) & DIY Single Drive Flasher (WW): https://www.uhdenableddrives.com
pepe_69
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2020 8:58 am

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by pepe_69 »

Hi All,
Very stupid question: when run, after selecting the firmware, the ASUS_ODD_FW_Changer tool let user select drive, and drives are displayed with what seems to be the current firmware of the drive, correct?
In my case 1.01 for an ASUS BW-16D1HT bought in classifieds, supposingly from 2016. I have hard time to verify current firmware beside going via windows systems info\components and get something meaningless to me "SCSI\CDROM&VEN_ASUS&PROD_BW-16D1HT\4&4DDA929&0&020000"

Thanks in advance for your help
SamuriHL
Posts: 2223
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 5:32 pm

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by SamuriHL »

Makemkv will tell you the drive info when you start it and select the drive. However if that drive has a 1.x firmware on it do not, I repeat, do not flash it. You will brick it.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

pepe_69
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2020 8:58 am

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by pepe_69 »

Thanks for the reply.
Can't the drive be upgraded first with official ASUS firmware update tool to official 3.10 and then downgrade to custom 3.02
Still a brick for my future house?
pepe_69
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2020 8:58 am

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by pepe_69 »

Damned.. I've asked for the purchase date (2016), but I should have asked for the firmware instead.
Got it for few $ but still lost $
Now I see that there is a difference between models on the front panel. One should purchase one without the M disc sign, at least, isn't it?
SamuriHL
Posts: 2223
Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 5:32 pm

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by SamuriHL »

The front isn't what matters. It's the chipset within the drive. Those on the 1.xx firmware for the BW16D1HT are the older chipset and will brick if you try to flash them with the 3.xx firmware. They just don't work with UHD and never will.
trippycat
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2020 5:46 pm

Post by trippycat »

PrimoAngelo wrote:
Fri Sep 06, 2019 11:27 am
I have an LG BE16NU50 and LG BH16NS55 drives. Thanks to this guide I have succesfully flash a DE firmware and I can rip 4K and burn blank media.

Is it possible to crossflash these drives to enable scanning of burned bluray? (Qpxtools or Opti Drive Control).

Could this change possibly break the possibility of burning new discs?
I'm almost exactly one year late to the party, but as I've been looking to do this too, and information is extremely difficult to find about this topic, and it's only getting worse as time passes, I figured it can be of some use to drop my findings here. You know, for posterity (and lost souls coming from search engines).

Only a few models are able to do quality scans on optical media, using softwares such as Opti Drive Control, KProbe or QPXTool. This is true since the CD era.
Unfortunately, nowadays most of these models are long gone, and are proving impossible to find now. It's even worse for Blu-Ray because there has never been a lot of models that supported quality scanning to begin with. Apparently the Lite-On iHBS series were the most often used, but Lite-On is out of the business of optical drives since a few years now.

To answer MartyMcNuts 's question, doing quality scans require specific drives with specific firmware, because in most firmwares, the required commands simply don't exist. These commands are completely undocumented, and vendor-specific. Maybe more models are able to do quality scanning, but nobody knows which low-level commands to toss at them to do this, and even less how to interpret the bytes they would answer on the bus.

Long story short, there seems to be only one model left in 2020 that seems to be able to do this: the LG WH16NS58. I don't know in your country, but in mine it can't be found. It's not hopeless though: apparently crossflashing from BH16NS55 works. However the regular firmware of WH16NS58 does NOT have the commands to do quality scanning, so it doesn't work. However, a company named Vinpower has modified this drive for his own use (they sell duplicators), and built a firmware which, for some reason, has the commands to do quality scanning. Apparently at some point they also sold these drives directly to consumers. Their firmware versions always have "V" in them. This is how you tell them from the regular LG firmwares. Only a few people ever had their hands on them, and of course even less dumped their firmwares to make them available for others.

But there's a good news: in the MK firmware pack, we have a nice WH16NS58-1.V5 firmware. It sounds like a Vinpower firmware, so... maybe it'll work. I ordered a BH16NS55 today, I'll flash it to BH16NS55-MK (as it'll probably come with the 1.04 firmware version with downgrade protection), then crossflash it to WH16NS58-1.V5-MK. I'll cross fingers and report whether it works here. :)

If it doesn't, well, we're probably out of luck (and I've been looking into this topic for a bunch of hours).
Coopervid
Posts: 1145
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2019 10:32 pm

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by Coopervid »

Quality scans are OK. But LG drives are lousy burners. So doing a quality scan with a LG drive on discs burnt with LG drives doesn't help. It will just confirm that the quality is bad. This is especially true for BD50 double layer discs burnt with LG drives. Pioneer drives produce a much better quality with BD50 discs, especially if Japanese Verbatim discs are used.
trippycat
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2020 5:46 pm

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by trippycat »

I thought most of the BD-R burners available today were mainly rebranded LGs. Does Pioneer still manufacture drives of their own making?
Quality scans are not only useful right after burning a disc, it can also be useful to review your BD-R backup discs fleet once a year, and notice when a disc is degrading too much (if you have the right-after-burning quality scan reference), before you actually loose data. At least, that's my use case.
GregoryV
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:06 am

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by GregoryV »

Hello

Total noob here! I downloaded the modified tool with the firmwares and followed the directions and keep getting failure #5 messages

im trying to get my brand new lg bp60nb10 to 1.0 so it will be dvdfab friendly.

thank you in advance for any help

gregory
MartyMcNuts
Posts: 2460
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:45 pm

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by MartyMcNuts »

GregoryV wrote:
Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:13 am
Hello

Total noob here! I downloaded the modified tool with the firmwares and followed the directions and keep getting failure #5 messages

im trying to get my brand new lg bp60nb10 to 1.0 so it will be dvdfab friendly.

thank you in advance for any help

gregory
What firmware is it on now? You cannot go directly to 1.00. Flash the equivalent MK firmware first. So, if the drive came with 1.01, flash 1.01-MK, then flash 1.00.

Also, you are better off using the new SDFtool Flasher. Get it from here. viewtopic.php?f=16&t=22896
Cheers :D
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For UHD enabled drives (AU/NZ/SG) & DIY Single Drive Flasher (WW): https://www.uhdenableddrives.com
GregoryV
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:06 am

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by GregoryV »

Hello

I believe it is 1.02. i just downloaded the other tool and will give it a try. So flash the 1.02 mk then the 1.0 correct?

Thank You in advance! :D
GregoryV
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:06 am

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by GregoryV »

Hello
Thank youas the newer tool worked to get me to 1.02 mk. Will now try to get to 1.0.

Your help is massively helpful! :D
GregoryV
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2020 2:06 am

Re: NEW OPTION: 'UHD Friendly' Firmware Downgrade / Cross-Flash Using Official (Modified) ASUS Flasher for ASUS & LG Dri

Post by GregoryV »

Hello

Well the new tool showed a success but the firmware never changed. I flashed the 1.2 and it said success.I then flashed 1.0 and again it said success but version never changed.then redid 1.2 then 1.1 both showed success but now version number change. Can the firmware actually be changed on this drive? Ive tried all day to get this to work. its getting to where i just might send this drive back to Newegg and pay through the nose for a drive from Japan.
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