UHD (Official) Friendly Drive - Archgon MD-8107S-U3-UHD (Powered by LG BU40N)

[stevethornley]

I think I have this drive (mine is MD-8107S-U3YC-UHDB and cannot read UHD BluRay out of the box and, reading the forum, have guessed that this is because I have 1.02 firmware. I have tried flashing with 1.0 using the SDFtool Flasher (v1.3.5) but keep getting error: Command produced error code 0x82052603.

I am not sure if Encrypted should be ticked (I have tried both ways) or Include Boot? (I've tried both ways there too) but without success.

There seem to be a lot of users getting 4K back-ups with success. I would like to join the club!

Any help would be appreciated.

[Coopervid]

Start Makemkv. Copy and paste the status information it shows here.

[stevethornley]

Drive Information
OS device name: D:
Manufacturer: HL-DT-ST
Product: BD-RE BU40N
Revision: 1.02
Serial number: MO1M5VF4652
Firmware date: 2120-12-01 17:16
Bus encryption flags: 1F
Highest AACS version: 68

LibreDrive Information
Status: Possible (with patched firmware)
Drive platform: MT1959
Harware support: Yes
Firmware support: No
Firmware type: Original (patched version available)
Firmware version: 1.02
DVD all regions: Possible (with patched firmware)
BD raw data read: Possible (with patched firmware)
BD raw metadata read: Possible (with patched firmware)
Unrestricted read speed: Possible (with patched firmware)

No disc inserted

[Billycar11]

I think I have this drive (mine is MD-8107S-U3YC-UHDB and cannot read UHD BluRay out of the box and, reading the forum, have guessed that this is because I have 1.02 firmware. I have tried flashing with 1.0 using the SDFtool Flasher (v1.3.5) but keep getting error: Command produced error code 0x82052603.

I am not sure if Encrypted should be ticked (I have tried both ways) or Include Boot? (I've tried both ways there too) but without success.

There seem to be a lot of users getting 4K back-ups with success. I would like to join the club!

Any help would be appreciated.

what cooper said but also you cant go direct to 1.00 you need to follow the guide and go t 1.03 first

[stevethornley]

Thank you for your guidance. I have looked at the Guide but cannot see reference to flashing to 1.03 first and then what, straight down to 1.0? Encrypt on Boot off?

Thanks for your help. Would be good to get it working!

[Billycar11]

Thank you for your guidance. I have looked at the Guide but cannot see reference to flashing to 1.03 first and then what, straight down to 1.0? Encrypt on Boot off?

Thanks for your help. Would be good to get it working!

If your unable to use the guide I recommend you buy an automated flasher from me or Marty

[cloaked1]

I am very grateful for this forum, but trying to quickly find the correct information one needs in an effort to answer one's question is VERY difficult and cumbersome.

I purchased this drive from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. Overall, I've been very pleased with it. Note that the one I purchased *is* the 8107S (UHD).

Context: I'm a Linux user (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS) and I am currently in the process of ripping all of my DVDs, BDs, and UH BDs to my Jellyfin server strictly for personal use (no really. very strictly personal use). At first I decided to upscale a BD title to 4K if I really wanted 4K, which worked OK for original/newer BD titles, but ultimately, I really wanted to get UHD ripping working. Finally got it!

Tools I use: makemkvcon, handbrakecli. Tools I can/have used: ffmpeg and vlc as well as these commands (not exhaustive): bd_info, cd-drive, lsscsi, lsusb lsdvd, ripit (for music CDs)

I knew nothing about this stuff until I started this project. Note: I'm a software developer and systems engineer (SRE) of 20+ years of Linux experience. However, when I first started this project, I never did this kind of thing, so everything has been new for me.

When I purchased this drive, it would not read BD discs. That got me to reading this forum and I immediately realized that trying to get a straight foward answer here is nigh impossible *especially* if you're a Linux person.

I decided to write this up and hopefully it will help people. Unfortunately, mine is a narrow use-case when it comes to this project; namely use of this specific drive in Linux for the purpose(s) mentioned above. Note that I don't tell HOW to do anything here. I just give the broad line items:

tl;dr here's what you need to do to get your drive to read UHD and BD media:

1. download https://makemkv.com/sdf.bin
2. download the https://www.mediafire.com/file/ph1ap2eg ... 9.zip/file (mentioned in viewtopic.php?f=16&t=22896)
3. I'm not going to dictate where you put these files but once you've downloaded them, you'll need to extract (unzip) them.

For the last part, note that you do not need to use encrypted firmware. So the following worked for me assuming you've placed the sdf.bin and unzipped the firmware bundle relative to one another:

4. Note: you must already have makemkvcon installed. Flash your drive with

Code: Select all

DE_LG_BU40N_1.00.bin

binary file. If you only have one drive plugged in then "<devicenum>" is likely "0" (/dev/sr0)

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makemkvcon f -d /dev/sr<devicenum> rawflash -f ../../sdf.bin -i DE_LG_BU40N_1.00.bin

** if you're confident then you can use

Code: Select all

--all-yes

to by-pass the required user input answering "yes" or "no" during the firmware update.

5. AACS needs to be configured correctly to read BD media. You need to download the latest KEYDB.zip and unzip it to

Code: Select all

$HOME/.config/aacs/KEYDB.cfg

(note that KEYDB.cfg IS CASE SENSITIVE! It MUST be "KEYDB.cfg"). Try doom9 forums. See #4 reference below for good information on that.

A few things to note. Before doing any firmware updating, I could not read BD discs at all. I immediately updated to the latest BU40N 1.04 and that allowed reading BD media. UHD media was NOT readable. All hints pointed to downgrading from 1.04 to 1.00, which worked. I tested with BD media as well, which worked. It's mildly counterintuitive that such an earlier fw version should be successful when new versions are not, but this is the case with this use-case. The only thing I've noticed so far with the downgrade is reading BD media is seemingly slower when loading metadata noticed only during cursory testing so YMMV.

references:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=18933
viewtopic.php?t=23169
viewtopic.php?p=145506#p145506
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Blu-ray