Firmware downgrade using official (patched) flasher, the "Ultra hax0r guide"

[Coopervid]

I'm also pretty sure it's the enclosure.

Open it and check the type of main chip doing the job. That's the biggest chip you see on the PCB.

If it says it is a JMS539 I have some remedy for you. If not - you have to check and ask google.

[filmgeek47]

MartyMcNuts, you're the man! Didn't realize my motherboard in my PC doesn't have an IDE mode. Was about to despair when I found your updater. Worked like a charm on my Asus. Thanks so much!

[jkeener88]

I'm on ASUS BW-16D1HT 3.01

Should I run the patcher and go to 3.02, Assuming this is the best version for ripping?

I watch the youtube video, he said you just download and run it, and no issues, no worry to brick drive...

TRUE??

[Billycar11]

I'm on ASUS BW-16D1HT 3.01

Should I run the patcher and go to 3.02, Assuming this is the best version for ripping?

I watch the youtube video, he said you just download and run it, and no issues, no worry to brick drive...

TRUE??

yes but i did make the video lol
but if you are on 3.01 no point really

[tragicgames]

So I tried to downgrade my LG WH14NS40 that had 1.03 on it, down to 1.02 that was supplied in your zip file. It flashed successfully, then I restarted the PC. Now it only recognizes the drive in device manager and My Computer. NO spin up or anything. It gets power, as it can open and close the drive, but nothing else. MakeMKV shows firmware 1.02 and NO DISC INSERTED, but any disc at all will not spin or show discs in My Computer.. CD, DVD, Blu Ray, DATA CD, anything. I then flashed back to the official latest 1.03 firmware and its doing the same thing. Any advice for me?? i had also changed the sata cable, tried it in a usb 3 enclosure, all same thing... Is there some certain revision or year number that I needed to have prior to flashing? Did this brick my drive? Using Windows 10 Pro 64bit.

[Billycar11]

So I tried to downgrade my LG WH14NS40 that had 1.03 on it, down to 1.02 that was supplied in your zip file. It flashed successfully, then I restarted the PC. Now it only recognizes the drive in device manager and My Computer. NO spin up or anything. It gets power, as it can open and close the drive, but nothing else. MakeMKV shows firmware 1.02 and NO DISC INSERTED, but any disc at all will not spin or show discs in My Computer.. CD, DVD, Blu Ray, DATA CD, anything. I then flashed back to the official latest 1.03 firmware and its doing the same thing. Any advice for me?? i had also changed the sata cable, tried it in a usb 3 enclosure, all same thing... Is there some certain revision or year number that I needed to have prior to flashing? Did this brick my drive? Using Windows 10 Pro 64bit.

Does your drive have svc ns50 on the label?
Your drive should not be bricked if you flash back to the proper firmware

[tragicgames]

I don't see it on the label, however, when I downloaded the 1.03 firmware, it states it directly in the flasher program. It was flashed back to the 1.03 And still does not spin up when a disc is inserted. I am going to order a new one on amazon and it will be in tomorrow, hopefully I can hook it up and it works. I am just scared to run this flasher on the new drive I am getting tomorrow. I thought it might be something in my windows installation corrupt, but even in the bios when I put a disc in it, there is no spin up. It just takes the disc in and that's it. The indicator light does nothing, nor does it make noise. Does the label on the new one I am getting tomorrow have to state those numbers directly on the label? I assume the one I am getting will be at least a 2018 production year. The drive I am having the problem with is a 2013 model.

[Billycar11]

I don't see it on the label,
production year. The drive I am having the problem with is a 2013 model.

2013 is to old flash back to ns 40 and it will fix the drive if the new drive is 2018 it will work fine with svc ns50

[tragicgames]

I don't see any NS40 in the zip file you provided. Do you have a link to the NS40 firmware or can you tell me where I can get it? Thank you so much!

[tragicgames]

I just got the new drive in today, its dated 2018 and SVC code NS50. Rom 1.03... So I opened your program again, and now it says NO error occured... It wont show the drive on either USB dongle or on the chipset motherboard. Both will show in the computer and I tossed in a blu ray disc just to make sure it worked. I opened the asus unlocker program you also linked just for the heck of it, and that program indeed does recognize my drive. But yours doesn't. Can you assist? I am giving up on the 2013 drive and will just keep the 2018 drive, but I cant get your program to recognize it. I even deleted the zip and contents, re downloaded your program and same issue.

[d00zah]

I am giving up on the 2013 drive

Try this image on the old drive. Just downloaded the 'official' flash tool from the LG site (dated 04/10/2014) & ran it thru 'FirmwareExtractor2.exe'.

WH14NS40_140326_1.03-A0_NOBJ_DE.zip

(1.17 MiB) Downloaded 2679 times

Try it with the 'ASUS_ODD_FW_Changer_(Modified).exe' tool. If it works, great. If not, you're no worse off.

[cas1701]

Hi Guys,

I've just bought an LG BH16NS55 (SVC CODE: NS55 according to the label) and I've been trying to downgrade the firmware with the excellent flasher. But so far I've been unsuccessful. Before you say anything I have to tell you that I'm on Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa (Cinnamon) and that I've been trying to flash the FW using Q4WINE i.e. running a windows program in side Linux. I'm a complete novice where Linux is concerned so if anyone knows how I can do this, I would be extremely grateful for your thoughts and answers.

I have tried to flash the drive from Window 7 running in a VM but that wasn't any good either. The Flash program couldn't detect the drive even though I have it on passthrough in the VM.

I read in an earlier post that changing to IDE also has to be done. I did that just before posting here. I changed from AHCI to IDE to see if that would help but again to no avail.

Does anyone have any ideas, help or general info on what I can do? If anyone does please remember that I'm completely new to Linux so words of one syllable and act like your talking to an complete numpty (which you are). Thanks in advance.

[tragicgames]

Thank you, I will try that with the 2013 drive for sure.

As far as the 2018 I got it to work completely. I had to reformat and reinstall windows 10 from scratch brand new. After all the latest drivers and updates, I decided to try the tool again, and it worked and now it downgraded successfully to 1.02 and I can now see contents of my UHD discs! Thank you so much!

[Gentler]

Here are instructions for the super-duper-secret-mega hack that would allow flashing the old firmware into drives with latest firmware:
Open the firmware BIN file with a hex editor.
Navigate to the offset 0x1ec056 . The byte at this location should be FF . In fact on all (old) firmwares the bytes just before this byte have some distinct values, and all bytes after this byte are FFs.
Change just this single byte (at location 0x1ec056) from 0xFF to 0xDE ("downgrade enable").

Congratulations! You are an elite hacker now. With this byte changed, the firmware will be accepted by drives with latest firmware, allowing downgrade using official flasher. No checksums, no digital signatures, nothing. Just. One. Byte.

Thank you very much! After spending a day in futility with other methods, and believing I had bricked my WH16NS40, I came across your post. It worked like a charm and now the drive can read UHD discs. It's greatly appreciated.

[MartyMcNuts]

Hi Guys,

I've just bought an LG BH16NS55 (SVC CODE: NS55 according to the label) and I've been trying to downgrade the firmware with the excellent flasher. But so far I've been unsuccessful. Before you say anything I have to tell you that I'm on Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa (Cinnamon) and that I've been trying to flash the FW using Q4WINE i.e. running a windows program in side Linux. I'm a complete novice where Linux is concerned so if anyone knows how I can do this, I would be extremely grateful for your thoughts and answers.

I have tried to flash the drive from Window 7 running in a VM but that wasn't any good either. The Flash program couldn't detect the drive even though I have it on passthrough in the VM.

I read in an earlier post that changing to IDE also has to be done. I did that just before posting here. I changed from AHCI to IDE to see if that would help but again to no avail.

Does anyone have any ideas, help or general info on what I can do? If anyone does please remember that I'm completely new to Linux so words of one syllable and act like your talking to an complete numpty (which you are). Thanks in advance.

Try using the modified ASUS FW Changer + firmwares (see thread viewtopic.php?f=16&t=18933) and boot from a windows (10) 32 bit PE USB stick.