www.makemkv.com

Hello. This will be my 2nd time needing to flash a drive for LibreDrive to work (my old Asus burned out its laser after only a few hours of read time but it was at least easy to flash).

I recently bought an LG WH16NS40 with a manufacturing date of 2024.08.18 reporting as being on the 1.01 unpatched firmware but enabled for LibreDrive (so, it should work out of the gate?). Problem is, when I put a 4K Blu Ray in it, it took a few min then decided there was no disk (yes the disk is fine). So, I figured it needed to be flashed to an MK firmware and went to the SDFTool and tried flashing it to the WH16NS60 1.03 MK firmware from the "Last Firmware You'll ever Need" package since the flashing guide seemed to say the 40 should be a direct flash to the 60 firmware. Problem is, when I went ahead with the flash, SDF said it couldn't handshake with the drive (despite MakeMKV seeing it just fine) and then, after accepting that error, it suddenly blasted to 100% complete and now the drive says it's a WD16NS40 BOOT in MakeMKV. Even better, now SDFtool won't do anything with it and the drive won't even open when I push the button on its faceplate.

I had the wherewithal to backup the original firmware from the drive before flashing (though I can't even flash that back to it now) but it seems like still I'm completely stuck now. Can anyone provide and guidance on what's wrong and how to fix it with flashing to get the drive working again (and ideally reading 4K disks)? The flashing guide is helpful but, without SDF doing anything with the drive, I assume I'm headed into the terminal but that it will take a bit extra to force this thing to behave again.

Thanks in advance!

Read this:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=19634&start=3300

Thanks for the fast response. That didn't change the behavior. I have the SDFtool 1.3.6 copied to the default install directory of MakeMKV (running as admin too). It's telling me too that the platform isn't MT1959 and doesn't support flashing (though I don't know how it did anything in the first place then) and errors out.

Any further suggestions? My understanding is that anything modern (which 2024 should count as) would satisfy the MT1959 requirement.

bryanvh wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 16, 2025 11:52 pm

Thanks for the fast response. That didn't change the behavior. I have the SDFtool 1.3.6 copied to the default install directory of MakeMKV (running as admin too). It's telling me too that the platform isn't MT1959 and doesn't support flashing (though I don't know how it did anything in the first place then) and errors out.

Any further suggestions? My understanding is that anything modern (which 2024 should count as) would satisfy the MT1959 requirement.

You should understand that libredrive does not equal UHD readability so when you got the drive and libredrive was already enabled, this does not automatically mean it can read UHD discs.

Your understanding regarding MT1959 would normally be correct except for the fact there are some fakes coming from China that have the old MT1939 drive platform and a new label on them.

How is the drive connected to the PC?
Did you make note of what MakeMKV showed for the drive before you flashed it?
Copy and paste the MakeMKV drive info and libredrive info sections.

bryanvh wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 16, 2025 11:52 pm

Thanks for the fast response. That didn't change the behavior. I have the SDFtool 1.3.6 copied to the default install directory of MakeMKV (running as admin too). It's telling me too that the platform isn't MT1959 and doesn't support flashing (though I don't know how it did anything in the first place then) and errors out.

Any further suggestions? My understanding is that anything modern (which 2024 should count as) would satisfy the MT1959 requirement.

I would say: never rely on just the label, there's too many fake labels out there. Plug it into the computer and check the info from makemkv (eg what "Drive platform" does it report etc).