Is it time to buy a new drive?

[agerius]

We have a LG Slim Portable Blu-ray/DVD Writer - Model WP50NB40 (March 2018) with the patched firmware and it's having the most villainous time reading brand-new Blu-ray disks (after patching, finally managed to scan titles which took several hours, and then it was only able to save 5 titles out of 20) - with lots of SCSI errors popping up.

Is it fair to assume that the drive is not in a good shape and it's time to buy a new one? What's a good recommendation at the moment for *external* drives? Type of USB/OS doesn't matter (Windows or MacOS is fine). Prefer drives that can be bought in Canada (e.g. amazon.ca).

[Carlos G]

Same drive, same issues. Success has been hit or miss. Can't get it to work for Knives Out or The Grand Budapest Hotel.

How did you flash the drive? viewtopic.php?f=4&t=23129

I'm at the point of looking for an alternate drive as well that specifically works with Makemkv and Macs. viewtopic.php?t=21894

[paramour]

The Buffalo drive I purchased has worked great, it's external with usb connectors but you can easily remove it from the case and use standard sata connections if you want. The reason I chose that drive was that it was new and recently manufactured, mine was made Dec. 2021. I ordered on Amazon but it had to be imported from stores in Japan. Buffalo drive is LG BU40N.

[dcoke22]

Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide Updated 2022

The flashing guide has the list of recommended drives at the top. Generally speaking, if you a get one of the Pioneer drives, you don't have to flash the firmware on it. The other drives will probably have to be flashed. There are sellers on this forum that sell flashed and tested drives (also listed in the flashing guide) if you don't want to mess with it.

The little secret of all those optical drives is this: The Pioneer drives are made by Pioneer. All the other drives, regardless of their brand, are made by LG. The LG BU40N is also made by LG, but its internal hardware is a bit different than the standard desktop drives.

MakeMKV can use more than one optical drive at the same time. There's something called 'Ask for single drive mode' in the preferences. If this is turned on and you have more than one drive, when you start MakeMKV it'll ask you which drive you want to use. You can then launch a second instance of MakeMKV and point it at the other drive. Now you can rip two (or more) discs independently.

Finally, I have found that some discs just don't get along with some drives. I have three different drives currently. When a disc doesn't work in my 'main' drive, I try the disc in a different drive. Often, but not always, it works fine in one of the other drives. YMMV of course.

[vjunkie]

We have a LG Slim Portable Blu-ray/DVD Writer - Model WP50NB40 (March 2018) with the patched firmware and it's having the most villainous time reading brand-new Blu-ray disks (after patching, finally managed to scan titles which took several hours, and then it was only able to save 5 titles out of 20) - with lots of SCSI errors popping up.

Is it fair to assume that the drive is not in a good shape and it's time to buy a new one? What's a good recommendation at the moment for *external* drives? Type of USB/OS doesn't matter (Windows or MacOS is fine). Prefer drives that can be bought in Canada (e.g. amazon.ca).

I have the same drive, only mine is manufactured in 2022, Instead of that silly 2 dongle that comes with the device, replace it with a USB 3.x cable, type a to micro usb. When mine started acting up, replacing the cable cleared all errors. You only need that dual cable if you only have usb 2.0 ports, 1 is for data and 1 is for power. However if you have just 1, USB 3.x port, a single type a to micro works just fine to power it and use it at the same time.

[Billycar11]

I have the same drive, only mine is manufactured in 2022, Instead of that silly 2 dongle that comes with the device, replace it with a USB 3.x cable, type a to micro usb. When mine started acting up, replacing the cable cleared all errors. You only need that dual cable if you only have usb 2.0 ports, 1 is for data and 1 is for power. However if you have just 1, USB 3.x port, a single type a to micro works just fine to power it and use it at the same time.

not always i have even see the usb A and c 3.x ports not supply enough power
sometimes its not even a craptop its expensive mac book with usb c most are fine but there are variances laptop to laptop one guy it just did not work at all with his usb c mac but worked fine with a high powered hub

[vjunkie]

I have the same drive, only mine is manufactured in 2022, Instead of that silly 2 dongle that comes with the device, replace it with a USB 3.x cable, type a to micro usb. When mine started acting up, replacing the cable cleared all errors. You only need that dual cable if you only have usb 2.0 ports, 1 is for data and 1 is for power. However if you have just 1, USB 3.x port, a single type a to micro works just fine to power it and use it at the same time.

not always i have even see the usb A and c 3.x ports not supply enough power
sometimes its not even a craptop its expensive mac book with usb c most are fine but there are variances laptop to laptop one guy it just did not work at all with his usb c mac but worked fine with a high powered hub

There's so many factors that can cause this. The quality of the cable, the length of the cable, how the usb port is setup in the bios etc. I was just throwing in my .02 because after I ditched the dongle and plugged my LG drive into my USB 3.2 gen 1 port with power share , ALL of my read errors and A/V sync errors went away. In a previous post I just made, I was getting so many a/v errors it seemed a bit to much. But being on this new cable that is about as thick as an rg6 coax, lol.... all my issues went away, I have not seen any a/v sync issues yet, when previously I would get them on every disc. Its like this cord actually made my drive come to life ( fully ) That's just my personal experience.

[simonpeterjames]

mvjunkie, that was a great interesting answer. I learnt some thing from it to..., thankyou

[agerius]

Uh-oh, I realized I completely missed all the responses here (I think my post took a bit to approve and I didn't realize folks were replying).

Update: I am lucky enough to have an old desktop running, so I just ordered an LG WH16NS40 (April 2022) off Amazon and it arrived recently. I flashed it using SDFtool Flasher (v1.3.5) with the HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_WH16NS60-1.02-NM00100-211810291936 firmware and was able to finally rip the Justice League War disk (incidentally, I never even cared to watch it but I'm happy it works).

Good callout on the cables - but now that I have a working internal drive I probably don't care about fixing the problem with the external ones.

[dcoke22]

Good callout on the cables - but now that I have a working internal drive I probably don't care about fixing the problem with the external ones.

A handy side note, MakeMKV can use more than one optical drive at the same time. If you have more than one optical drive connected, in MakeMKV's Preferences on the IO tab, check 'Ask for single drive mode'. Then you can rip more than one disc at a time, which can be useful for chugging through ripping a TV show.