Verbatim 43888 & 43890

[MartyMcNuts]

I just wanted to note that there does not appear to be anymore Verbatims in stores or on Amazon that contain Pioneer drives inside.

Both the 43888 and the 43890 now come with LG BU40N drives inside. These have v1.05 firmware and can be flashed/downgraded to enable LibreDrive and UHD readability.

[Coopervid]

I just wanted to note that there does not appear to be anymore Verbatims in stores or on Amazon that contain Pioneer drives inside.

Both the 43888 and the 43890 now come with LG BU40N drives inside. These have v1.05 firmware and can be flashed/downgraded to enable LibreDrive and UHD readability.

Same applies to drives in Europe.

[MartyMcNuts]

I just wanted to note that there does not appear to be anymore Verbatims in stores or on Amazon that contain Pioneer drives inside.

Both the 43888 and the 43890 now come with LG BU40N drives inside. These have v1.05 firmware and can be flashed/downgraded to enable LibreDrive and UHD readability.

Same applies to drives in Europe.

Worldwide, I believe.

[sanjay]

Dang. And I ordered one from Amazon Germany a couple of hours before coming across this information!
It's already shipped. I guess I will be sending it back as I can get a LG slim external for cheaper from Amazon Canada.
I think those ones are also BU40n on the inside. I already have two of BU40n anyway.

[sanjay]

Just wanted to confirm indeed I recieved a BU40N in the verbatim 43888.
Will be sending it back to Amazon Germany.

[baliw]

Staples Canada still has some that are Pioneer. One other poster has reported the same recently.

The one I bought didn’t have a picture of the drive in the corner of the back of the box.

[gentile2226]

Just bought another 43888 from awd-it since mine refuses to recognise Dumb & Dumber To and Derek S1. It's done me good by reading over a thousands discs at this point it just doesn't like those two. Mine is also a BU40N with firmware 1.05, I flashed it successfully with no hassle at all and will be enjoying the faster read speeds. It's pretty crazy how much more flimsy the loading mechanism feels compared to my Pioneer version but it is what it is. I'll use this BU40N one for now unless I encounter an issue with a disc being recognised.

Have a good day everyone!

[jujin]

I just wanted to note that there does not appear to be anymore Verbatims in stores or on Amazon that contain Pioneer drives inside.

Both the 43888 and the 43890 now come with LG BU40N drives inside. These have v1.05 firmware and can be flashed/downgraded to enable LibreDrive and UHD readability.

How do you find out what's inside the Verbatim before you buy it?

[MartyMcNuts]

I just wanted to note that there does not appear to be anymore Verbatims in stores or on Amazon that contain Pioneer drives inside.

Both the 43888 and the 43890 now come with LG BU40N drives inside. These have v1.05 firmware and can be flashed/downgraded to enable LibreDrive and UHD readability.

How do you find out what's inside the Verbatim before you buy it?

You don't!

Anyway, all of them now come with a LG BU40N inside unless you buy from a brick & mortar store that may still have some old stock (at least 2-3 months old).

[zzz00]

So I have a 43888 with BU40N flashed to firmware 1.03 I got a few months ago and I've noticed something and wanted to ask if this was normal behavior for these drives. On some, but not all, discs (for example Pulp Fiction 4k and Aliens 4k, but not the Lord of the rings series 4k or Alien 4k), I get the drive spinning down to 0.0x according to makeMKV. Sometimes it will stay there for a few minutes sometimes a lot longer, and make a lot of noise and as far as I can tell make no progress. Is this normal/expected behavior?

I did have the drive stop working altogether several times which I attributed to a bad disc or not using the USB-C adapter. But since then I've used the USB-C adapter, replaced the disc and not had any of that happen again.

[Coopervid]

So I have a 43888 with BU40N flashed to firmware 1.03 I got a few months ago and I've noticed something and wanted to ask if this was normal behavior for these drives. On some, but not all, discs (for example Pulp Fiction 4k and Aliens 4k, but not the Lord of the rings series 4k or Alien 4k), I get the drive spinning down to 0.0x according to makeMKV. Sometimes it will stay there for a few minutes sometimes a lot longer, and make a lot of noise and as far as I can tell make no progress. Is this normal/expected behavior?

I did have the drive stop working altogether several times which I attributed to a bad disc or not using the USB-C adapter. But since then I've used the USB-C adapter, replaced the disc and not had any of that happen again.

Normal. Don't worry.

[xSephirothAngelX]

Hi, just bought this drive and am trying to get MakeMKV to read the BluRay I'm putting in.

The system reads it fine and I can even mount it, but MakeMKV is stuck on just loading the disc.

Any way I can fix this or am I screwed because this is an BU40N on Firmware 1.05?

[zzz00]

Hi, just bought this drive and am trying to get MakeMKV to read the BluRay I'm putting in.

The system reads it fine and I can even mount it, but MakeMKV is stuck on just loading the disc.

Any way I can fix this or am I screwed because this is an BU40N on Firmware 1.05?

No idea how to add links on this forum but, you gotta go down to Firmware 1.03. The first thread in the UHD drives section tells you all the instructions. Look for "flashing Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide Updated 2025" and read the guide and use the link towards the end for the flashing tool and the firmware. Look for that in the section titles "Unlocked Flashers, Downgrade Enabled Firmware and MK Firmware:"

[dcoke22]

Hi, just bought this drive and am trying to get MakeMKV to read the BluRay I'm putting in.

The system reads it fine and I can even mount it, but MakeMKV is stuck on just loading the disc.

Any way I can fix this or am I screwed because this is an BU40N on Firmware 1.05?

No idea how to add links on this forum but, you gotta go down to Firmware 1.03. The first thread in the UHD drives section tells you all the instructions. Look for "flashing Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide Updated 2025" and read the guide and use the link towards the end for the flashing tool and the firmware. Look for that in the section titles "Unlocked Flashers, Downgrade Enabled Firmware and MK Firmware:"

Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide

[MartyMcNuts]

Hi, just bought this drive and am trying to get MakeMKV to read the BluRay I'm putting in.

The system reads it fine and I can even mount it, but MakeMKV is stuck on just loading the disc.

Any way I can fix this or am I screwed because this is an BU40N on Firmware 1.05?

It should still work fine as is for DVD/BD discs but as LibreDrive isn't enabed, your drive could get revoked if you insert a new disc with AACS MKB revision. You would then have to wait for a MakeMKv software update. If you want to avoid this, you need to flash it. After flashing, Libredrive will be enabled and so will UHD readability.