The risk comes with the possibility fo "frying" your drive, so I usually let others do the "dirty" work first and when there is success, upgrade with the so-called "unofficial firmware" when it is available. Burning speed can also sometimes be increased with good results. There are those for instance who hang out at CDfreaks who can take firmware files and reverse engineer them with a hex editor and make the strings within the files which limit Region Free setting for instance or Bit-setting burning for instance and open them up with less or no restrictions. Having a firmware file can mean excitement for those who know about these BIN files and location of data in them. But as long as the drive works perfectly, I don't see the benefit of messing with the firmware just to "have the latest" version. Since the drives are designed for compatibility with current operating systems, if you were to upgrade to Windows Longhorn (excuse me, Vista) I see how that could necessitate flashing the eproms. I do see one exception: If you change your operating system. So unless I were to physically alter my DVD drive, I'd want the firmware to stay as it is. It's true that there are always new DVD drives being manufactured, but I would think that when a particular DVD drive is shipped, it ships with the firmware needed to run that drive properly with the major operating systems. Thanks for clarifying, but the benefits of messing with the firmware still seem questionable to me if the drive is working perfectly well. available and the firmware must support them for optimal results.Īlso it is good to know that the product (which I just bought) is "supported". Especially for DVD drives it is a "must have" because there are always new dvd manufacturer etc.
It is always good to know that there are newer firmware versions available.
What sorts of problems are you having with your MultiBurner that require fixing through changes to the firmware? My own MultiBurner has worked flawlessly ever since I installed the proper drivers so I want the firmware on mine to stay just the way it is, but I am curious about your situation. Have you ever heard the expression "If it ain't broke don't fix it"? Never before have I seen so many people itching to fix things that ain't broke. I assume you're talking about the microcode stored in the erasable programmable memory (EPROMs) that are part of the DVD drive circuitry. Glancing at your post I thought you were looking for drivers.
I can use Windows Explorer to drag & drop files and folders to the disks on either system, and they read each others disks fine.īTW: Is there a support Email for driver updates from IBM/Lenovo available? Formatting 4.7 Gb DVD-RAM disks is a slow, tedious process, but aside from that it works great. I format them using the right click & format option, and the two systems read each other's disks with no problem. Now on both my desktop and ThinkPad I format DVD-RAM disks using UDF 2.0 (1.5 works too). That's OK, I've found it is perfectly compatible with the UJ-822 (IBM's Multi-Burner) in my T42. The page lists the UJ-825 but not the UJ-822. I selected the first link which is for the UJ series on Windows XP.
Then, for the final step I went to this web site:
Then, on the ThinkPad I went to the control panel and selected the option to Uninstall Software, and UNINSTALLED the DLA (Drive Letter Access) software IBM provides for working with rewritable DVD's. I made sure I had updated UDF (universal disk format) drivers for the DVD-RAM drive (LF-D521U) in my desktop system. Here's what I did to get everything working right: DVD-RAM disks formatted or written to on my T42's Multiburner (the matshita UJ-822). Panasonic=matshita.Īt first I had incompatability issues between DVD-RAM disks that were formatted or written to on my desktop system Vs. I'll share my own experiences in this area.įirstly, I have a DVD-RAM drive (the panasonic LF-521U) in my desktop system. Is there a support site for the Matshita DVD-RAM UJ-822S - especially for Firmware updates?