Soft bricked 1st gen WH14NS40

[Juan_Ladines]

Post your makemkv drive info section
If your actually in boot mode you are in luck just flash the original firmware and it should be fixed
Here is old fw https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZtdhSX ... sp=sharing

Thank you Billycar11! I downloaded your link, and it seems to me it's for WH16NS40, and my unit is a WH14NS40 model dated from 2012 November, are you sure it is the right firmware for me to update drive?

[Billycar11]

Post your makemkv drive info section
If your actually in boot mode you are in luck just flash the original firmware and it should be fixed
Here is old fw https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZtdhSX ... sp=sharing

Thank you Billycar11! I downloaded your link, and it seems to me it's for WH16NS40, and my unit is a WH14NS40 model dated from 2012 November, are you sure it is the right firmware for me to update drive?

Yeah same drive

[ealz79]

I don't know why a customer should protect from the manufacturer, I mean how should be possible that updating the firmware of a drive may become the drive useless and the manufacturer states that the drive is not under warranty and the user must ship it to the factory to proceed with a technical -and paid- service... They had no responsability with their products, I had the worst experience possible with LG: everything became damaged, e.g. 2xLCD tv, 2xDVD burner, Blu ray burner, washing machine, and very bad customer service. Don't buy their products.

My situation was that my WH14NS40 is from June 2012 V.1.00. I burnt no more than 10 blu ray discs. In 2014 I upgraded the firmware and the drive became partially ususable: it read all type of discs and writes cd/dvd but don't writes blu rays... In 2021, the firmware 1.05 damaged the drive like many other people.

I tried some different solutions without success, including the dosflash32 procedure.

Please, I would like to understand why the firmware must be read and modified with the new firmware before flashing...

Does anyone here know how to use a Windows debugger like Ollydbg? I tried also with a debugger and also without success. I guess using a debugger we can run the LG 1.00 flasher and bypass (jump) the verification of the version number that must be greater than the drive current version. I did try it but resulting on different kind of errors like checksum mismatch, boot mode, and so forth.

Thanks for your comments.

The following text is in spanish:

Juan, saludos; yo también soy de Venezuela y he probado de todo lo posible para recuperar esta unidad pero nada ha servido, lo del dosflash32 no lo pude realizar; por si ayuda soy usuario Linux aunque todo esto por lo visto se hace nada mas desde Windows. Intenté con un depurador como comenté en el texto en inglés para tratar de hacer un bypass a la condición de comprobación de versión pero me daba también errores o se cerraba el depurador con el EXE que estaba ejecutando. He estado por darla por perdida pero aún la conservo por allí por si acaso algo se logra; de verdad los productos LG son una basura, hechos con obsolescencia planificada (mas que otros productos), o simplemente de mala calidad, el hecho es que todo se daña. Me sorprende cómo ponen un firmware que daña los equipos y no pasa nada, simplemente te dicen que los mandes a servicio técnico pago con ellos y el envío internacional va por cuenta tuya...

?Has logrado algo?

Saludos

hi guys, i bricked my WH14NS40 V1.01 November 2012 with latest firmware published on LG Official page today, my bad. There is a saying here in venezuela. If its not bad, don´t touch it. I wish to getback time now. The firmware updater could not perfom completely, it dropped a message "try in boot mode, but after that i could not read cd/dvd/and bluerays. It still says 1.01 Version, an does not work. I am going to enroll in this journey to save my only blueray player at home. I hope i can get it back to life with your help.

[Nage1951]

It sounds like you're on the right track with attempting to recover your drive, and yes, setting your SATA ports to IDE mode in the BIOS could make a difference for booting into your USB and using tools like dosflash. Some systems require this setting for older flashing tools to work properly, so it’s definitely worth trying.

As for the incorrect firmware, it shouldn't matter too much what is currently flashed as long as you can properly extract the firmware using dosflash. The calibration data is typically retained unless the flashing process has completely corrupted the drive, which seems unlikely if the drive is still responding to flashing attempts. When you extract the firmware, the data mover tool should help in transferring that essential information to the new firmware file.

Regarding the tools and process:

WinPE Boot: Make sure the USB is bootable by checking your BIOS/UEFI settings and ensuring that the boot order is correct. You might also try a different USB port, as sometimes certain ports are prioritized for boot devices.
Data Mover: Follow SamuriHL’s instructions closely, especially when it comes to the extraction and modification of the firmware bin file.
If you can’t get it to boot, double-check your BIOS boot options and confirm that your WinPE USB is built correctly. If needed, try creating the USB again with the Aomei tool or another PE builder.

Good luck, and be sure to read through the process carefully before proceeding. Let me know if you hit any more roadblocks!