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LG WH14NS40 Won't Spin Suddenly

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2024 5:00 am
by timothydog
Greetings all,

Recently bought an LG WH14NS40 new from Amazon along with the OWC Mercury Pro external enclosure to begin ripping my Blu ray library to my new NAS. I've ripped about a dozen BR discs so far and last night after reading all the guides here decided to flash the drive to WH16NS60 1.02MK in anticipation of ripping some UHD discs that will arrive this week. I used the SDFtool flasher per the instructions and everything went just fine. I have ripped a couple more BR discs since doing the flash. Fast forward to this evening. I popped in another BR disc and the drive just won't spin up at all. As soon as I close the drive (disc or no disc) the light will blink rapidly and no sound is made and the tray will eject immediately after 5 seconds. I've restarted the computer many times. I've powered down and unplugged everything from the enclosure and left it for 30 minutes. Still nothing. MakeMKV and SDFtool Flasher both see the drive but it just won't even begin to read a disc. Strange that it behaves the same with or without a disc in the tray.

Has anyone had this happen? Did the drive just crap out on me? I've seen people talk about bricking their drives after flashing but mine was working fine after flashing. Below is the Info in MakeMKV currently. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Code: Select all

Drive Information
OS device name: J:
Manufacturer: HL-DT-ST
Product: BD-RE WH16NS60
Revision: 1.02
Serial number: [redacted]
Firmware date: 2118-10-29 19:36
Bus encryption flags: 17
Highest AACS version: 12

LibreDrive Information
Status: Enabled
Drive platform: MT1959
Firmware type: Patched (microcode access re-enabled)
Firmware version: 1.02
DVD all regions: Yes
BD raw data read: Yes
BD raw metadata read: Yes
Unrestricted read speed: Yes

Re: LG WH14NS40 Won't Spin Suddenly

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2024 5:14 pm
by timothydog
Just an update to this:
Today I took the drive out of the OWC enclosure and plugged in my Unitek Y-3322A just as a test and there is no change. It seems like the LG drive is just toast. After closing the tray there is barely any sound inside and the light flashes rapidly and the tray just reopens. Will Amazon take this thing back even with the ROM flashed? Do I need to recover it back to the wh14ns40 version?

Re: LG WH14NS40 Won't Spin Suddenly

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2024 6:52 pm
by zittrig
It's no reaction I've had after flashing dozens of drives.

This could be a total failure of the drive without relation to the flashing process.

You can try a flash back zu the original firmware with the offical LG firmware tool and then try again ....

Re: LG WH14NS40 Won't Spin Suddenly

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2024 7:15 pm
by zittrig
Äh, sorry, I've overseen your update post. So forget my post. :wink:

If you're able with the the drive, try flash to original firmware with the official LG firmware tool before trying the guarantee way. But I don't think the firmware will be checked.

Re: LG WH14NS40 Won't Spin Suddenly

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2024 7:20 pm
by timothydog
zittrig wrote:
Mon Dec 02, 2024 6:52 pm
It's no reaction I've had after flashing dozens of drives.

This could be a total failure of the drive without relation to the flashing process.

You can try a flash back zu the original firmware with the offical LG firmware tool and then try again ....
I am going to reflash the drive back to the stock version just to try it. If that doesn't work it's going back. It's a shame since the price just spiked to $73 dollars on Amazon in the last day. Cheaper to get the WH16NS40 right now.

Re: LG WH14NS40 Won't Spin Suddenly

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2024 7:41 pm
by timothydog
Wild turn of events.
I downloaded the stock firmware flasher and I plugged the drive back into the OWC enclosure to hook up to the PC to get ready to flash. Turned it on and it blinked and opened the tray like it has been. Then I closed it and it started making noises and acting normal! I've got a BD in there now and it seems to be ripping it normally. Maybe just a glitch in the Matrix?