Just grabbed an old revision WH16NS40, will I have any issues?

[AndrewHamOp]

Andrew here, thanks for clicking. Fair warning, you're going to get a short story along with a question so please bare with me.

As I mentioned in my title, I recently grabbed an old revision LG WH16NS40. I've always had an interest in ripping my physical media, and I can remember some of my first experiences with optical media (however deprecated it may be) were trying to copy movies onto the home PC so I could watch them without accidently damaging the discs. As I got older I started to worry less about damaging my discs, and more about the longevity of them. With the rise of streaming services and constant quality reduction I once again saw the need to bypass greedy corporate DRM.

Naturally I stumbled onto MakeMKV. With it's easy to understand UI and dead simple operation, I thought I had found a quick solution to my problem. After coaxing my old Dell XPS 420 BD-ROM drive to spin back to life, I was off to ripping some of my old DVDs (and a few blue-rays) with a combination of HandBrake and MakeMKV. However, this had all been too easy and I knew something had to give. Sadly that "give" was my old BD-ROM drive. Turns out my firmware is simply too old for most of my blue-rays (and certainly 4K UHD discs). So after looking at some information on Google and YouTube I decided on grabbing an older revision LG WH16NS40 from eBay.

However after finding some more info about staying away from older drives, I'm worried I might've made a bad purchase. The drive I purchased was manufactured in November of 2014, and has v1.00 of the firmware. I had read that this old firmware will allow my drive to read UHD discs with no modifications, but I've now found some other guides that tell me to stay away from them? I'm not sure which to believe. The drive is currently in the mail, so I haven't been able to test it yet.

My goal is to flash my WH16NS40 with a LibreDrive modified firmware, so I don't have to rely on only using MakeMKV and the auto LibreDrive injection thing. I believe my older firmware allows LibreDrive operation without flashing, but I'd rather have modified firmware. I purchased the LG drive because it was affordable and seemed like the best choice at the time. I don't need my UHD rips to finish in 45 minutes, nor do I need to rip a massive movie collection. I just need something that has the firmware support for UHD discs, and the reliability for occasional ripping.

Thanks for reading
-Andrew

[d00zah]

STOP!!!

Versions of LG WH16NS40 manufactured before ~Oct. 2015 are too old to support UHD (HW predates the standard). MakeMKV will report " Drive Platform MT1939".

"Drive Platform MT1959" is required for UHD.

Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide Updated 2023

[AndrewHamOp]

Yeah, this was my fear.

I'm hoping the eBay seller will be cool about it. I've already found another drive which has v1.0.2 and was manufactured in March of 2017, but I'll have to wait for my current one to be delivered so I can start the return process.

Thanks for the confirmation. This outcome sucks but hopefully someone can learn from my mistake here.

[dcoke22]

MakeMKV can support using more than one drive at a time. While your too old drive won't be able to rip UHDs, it'll probably work to rip DVDs and regular blu-rays.

[AndrewHamOp]

Yeah my old drive rips DVDs no problem.

With some Blue-Ray discs I get SCSI errors and MakeMKV isn't able to decrypt them. I just assumed that was my drive revoking the key or whatever. In one instance, HandBrake was able to decrypt a Blue-Ray when MakeMKV was not.

Strange stuff.

[MartyMcNuts]

Yeah my old drive rips DVDs no problem.

With some Blue-Ray discs I get SCSI errors and MakeMKV isn't able to decrypt them. I just assumed that was my drive revoking the key or whatever. In one instance, HandBrake was able to decrypt a Blue-Ray when MakeMKV was not.

Strange stuff.

SCSI errors often mean the disc is scratched or dirty and may need a clean.

[AndrewHamOp]

I had read that dirty or scratch discs were a potential cause, but I was getting these errors with brand new discs that were spotless. And like I said in my previous post, one of the two blu-rays that MakeMKV failed to read were successfully decrypted by Handbrake and I was able to rip it.

I assume this is a fairly rare occurrence, since I've heard nothing but good things about MakeMKV regarding its ability to decrypt whatever you throw at it.

[MartyMcNuts]

I had read that dirty or scratch discs were a potential cause, but I was getting these errors with brand new discs that were spotless. And like I said in my previous post, one of the two blu-rays that MakeMKV failed to read were successfully decrypted by Handbrake and I was able to rip it.

I assume this is a fairly rare occurrence, since I've heard nothing but good things about MakeMKV regarding its ability to decrypt whatever you throw at it.

It is quite common for brand new discs to require cleaning as they can sometimes have an invisible film from the manufacturing process on them that can cause read issues.

[AndrewHamOp]

Ah, gotcha. How would I go about cleaning the discs without scratching them?

Just got the other drive today, thankfully the seller has automatic eBay returns so I've just got to print out a label and drop it off in a FedEx box.

[MartyMcNuts]

Ah, gotcha. How would I go about cleaning the discs without scratching them?

Just got the other drive today, thankfully the seller has automatic eBay returns so I've just got to print out a label and drop it off in a FedEx box.

Try with just a soft microfiber cloth first. Some people clean using soapy water and a microfiber cloth, then dry with another microfiber cloth.

[AndrewHamOp]

Alright, I'll have to try that.

Just wanted to double check, will this drive be flashable? Here's the Amazon link.

LG Electronics WH16NS40 16X Blu-ray/DVD/CD Multi compatible Internal SATA Rewriter Drive, BDXL, M-DISC Support, Black https://a.co/d/65Wnt7a

[MartyMcNuts]

Alright, I'll have to try that.

Just wanted to double check, will this drive be flashable? Here's the Amazon link.

LG Electronics WH16NS40 16X Blu-ray/DVD/CD Multi compatible Internal SATA Rewriter Drive, BDXL, M-DISC Support, Black https://a.co/d/65Wnt7a

Not if it is manufactured before October 2015 and MakeMKV shows the drive platform as MT1939. If it is manufactured after Oct 2015 and the drive platform is MT1959 then yes.

[AndrewHamOp]

That's what I figured, but I wanted to make sure.

I'll add another reply in a few days once I receive my new drive.

[AndrewHamOp]

Got my new drive today!

I got a May 2020, v1.04 unit. After some fiddling and a couple errors, I flashed the v1.02 WH16NS60MK firmware onto it. LibreDrive is now enabled.

The rip speed for HD Blue-Rays is slightly higher than I saw from others. I'm currently ripping a 4K disc so we'll see how that goes. MakeMKV is estimating 1 hour and 10 minutes which I think is expected, oh and no more SCSI errors!

Thanks for the assistance.

Edit: I also forgot to mention the firmware was not encrypted. This was different than all the guides and videos I had seen, which made me a bit worried. I dumped the firmware before I flashed, so if it's unique or something and anyone wants to take a look please let me know.

[AndrewHamOp]

Ripped a 70GB UHD disc in 47 minutes! I assume the time is variable for every title, but that's pretty good I'd say.