SDFtool Flasher

[StarForce]

They are pretty poor quality drives. These ASUS models are essentially just rebadged LG WH16NS40's with ASUS firmware on them.

Anyhoo, since the drive is having trouble reading the disc, the first thing to do is clean the disc. Most UHD discs need to be cleaned before they can be read as they usually contain an invisible film on them from the manufacturing process.

How are the drives connected? If externally via USB, ensure all plugs are connected to ports direct on the motherboard (not case ports) and ensure your enclosure or adapter is getting enough constant AC power.

It's connected via SATA directly to the motherboard. The problem is that right now it doesn't recognize any discs. It tries to read them and finally says "No disc inserted." I'm completely lost. It won't even play the UHD disc of "The Boy and the Heron" or the regular Blu-rays I ripped a few hours ago. It's crazy. Can I reinstall the firmware I had before? I made a dump with the "READ Firmware" option. Can I load it with the "RECOVER Drive" option?

Right now my drive has "Region 1" as Region selected but I live in Spain, "Region 2". Maybe this has changed or all regions are unlocked and I get this new "Region 1" but it's not relevant. Changed to "Region 2" and nothing change. Drive can't recognize any disc. I've really had bad luck

When I choose "RECOVER Drive" it doesn't find any firmware inside "Firmware_Dumps" but I have a dump on it.

[MartyMcNuts]

They are pretty poor quality drives. These ASUS models are essentially just rebadged LG WH16NS40's with ASUS firmware on them.

Anyhoo, since the drive is having trouble reading the disc, the first thing to do is clean the disc. Most UHD discs need to be cleaned before they can be read as they usually contain an invisible film on them from the manufacturing process.

How are the drives connected? If externally via USB, ensure all plugs are connected to ports direct on the motherboard (not case ports) and ensure your enclosure or adapter is getting enough constant AC power.

It's connected via SATA directly to the motherboard. The problem is that right now it doesn't recognize any discs. It tries to read them and finally says "No disc inserted." I'm completely lost. It won't even play the UHD disc of "The Boy and the Heron" or the regular Blu-rays I ripped a few hours ago. It's crazy. Can I reinstall the firmware I had before? I made a dump with the "READ Firmware" option. Can I load it with the "RECOVER Drive" option?

Right now my drive has "Region 1" as Region selected but I live in Spain, "Region 2". Maybe this has changed or all regions are unlocked and I get this new "Region 1" but it's not relevant. Changed to "Region 2" and nothing change. Drive can't recognize any disc. I've really had bad luck

When I choose "RECOVER Drive" it doesn't find any firmware inside "Firmware_Dumps" but I have a dump on it.

No, that dump file only contains the calibartion data for the drive, not the fulll firmware.

Those drives sometimes get confused and won't see any disc at all. Cut power to the drive for a couple of minutes so it can reset itself. Just turn off the PC for a few minutes and make yourself a cuppa. Come back, restart the PC and the drive should have reset itself.

No, the region isn't important as MakeMKV doesn't care about any region coding. You should not try to play a UHD disc as they are different to regular blu-ray discs and can only be played using unofficial players such as VLC when integrated with MakeMKV to decrypt on-the-fly.

[StarForce]

I don't understand anything. Hours ago I turned off the computer completely disappointed because my ASUS BW-16D1HT drive with the firmware downgrade to version 3.10 MK was not able to recognize any BluRay neither normal nor Ultra HD. A couple of hours ago I turned the computer on, I realized that I had forgotten inside the drive a normal BluRay animation movie for kids (Mia and Me: The Hero of Centopia), I checked that the reader detected it, I decided to open MakeMKV to rip it and it did it!! I extracted the movie and introduced "The Boy and The Heron" in Ultra HD, I checked that MakeMKV detected it, I tried to rip it and it did it too!!... Insane. I can't find any explanation but I can confirm that it worked. Well, now I feel very luck and very very grateful. Thanks a lot.

[Billycar11]

I don't understand anything. Hours ago I turned off the computer completely disappointed because my ASUS BW-16D1HT drive with the firmware downgrade to version 3.10 MK was not able to recognize any BluRay neither normal nor Ultra HD. A couple of hours ago I turned the computer on, I realized that I had forgotten inside the drive a normal BluRay animation movie for kids (Mia and Me: The Hero of Centopia), I checked that the reader detected it, I decided to open MakeMKV to rip it and it did it!! I extracted the movie and introduced "The Boy and The Heron" in Ultra HD, I checked that MakeMKV detected it, I tried to rip it and it did it too!!... Insane. I can't find any explanation but I can confirm that it worked. Well, now I feel very luck and very very grateful. Thanks a lot.

Yes this is very common to happen to LG/Asus media tech drives

[Mr_Orange]

I just tried running the latest version and it errored out with "MakeMKV installation not found. Please install MakeMKV".

MakeMKV is installed, albeit in the non-default location, however I have copied SDFtool Flasher.exe to the MakeMKV directory and run it from there and it still doesn't work.

I haven't had this issue before because MakeMKV has been installed in the same directory for years and I have run SDFtool Flasher before.

Any ideas please?

[MartyMcNuts]

I just tried running the latest version and it errored out with "MakeMKV installation not found. Please install MakeMKV".

MakeMKV is installed, albeit in the non-default location, however I have copied SDFtool Flasher.exe to the MakeMKV directory and run it from there and it still doesn't work.

I haven't had this issue before because MakeMKV has been installed in the same directory for years and I have run SDFtool Flasher before.

Any ideas please?

Install MakeMKV in the default location.

[Mr_Orange]

I just tried running the latest version and it errored out with "MakeMKV installation not found. Please install MakeMKV".

MakeMKV is installed, albeit in the non-default location, however I have copied SDFtool Flasher.exe to the MakeMKV directory and run it from there and it still doesn't work.

I haven't had this issue before because MakeMKV has been installed in the same directory for years and I have run SDFtool Flasher before.

Any ideas please?

Install MakeMKV in the default location.

I haven't had to before. Why wouldn't SDFtool Flasher look for MakeMKV in the same directory as it is running from?

[MartyMcNuts]

I just tried running the latest version and it errored out with "MakeMKV installation not found. Please install MakeMKV".

MakeMKV is installed, albeit in the non-default location, however I have copied SDFtool Flasher.exe to the MakeMKV directory and run it from there and it still doesn't work.

I haven't had this issue before because MakeMKV has been installed in the same directory for years and I have run SDFtool Flasher before.

Any ideas please?

Install MakeMKV in the default location.

I haven't had to before. Why wouldn't SDFtool Flasher look for MakeMKV in the same directory as it is running from?

There was a c# change a while ago then the code that it used to use to search for it no longer worked and was removed. It now only looks for it in the default location.

Once we have an update on the Pioneer firmware situation, I may update SDFtool Flasher then.

[Mr_Orange]

Install MakeMKV in the default location.

I haven't had to before. Why wouldn't SDFtool Flasher look for MakeMKV in the same directory as it is running from?

There was a c# change a while ago then the code that it used to use to search for it no longer worked and was removed. It now only looks for it in the default location.

Once we have an update on the Pioneer firmware situation, I may update SDFtool Flasher then.

OK, thank you. I ran the command line tool instead to reflash my LG, but it looks as though it has given up the ghost. Even after being fully powered down (i.e. power cord removed from the PC PSU) for 10-15 minutes, it isn't recognising any discs.

[MartyMcNuts]

I haven't had to before. Why wouldn't SDFtool Flasher look for MakeMKV in the same directory as it is running from?

There was a c# change a while ago then the code that it used to use to search for it no longer worked and was removed. It now only looks for it in the default location.

Once we have an update on the Pioneer firmware situation, I may update SDFtool Flasher then.

OK, thank you. I ran the command line tool instead to reflash my LG, but it looks as though it has given up the ghost. Even after being fully powered down (i.e. power cord removed from the PC PSU) for 10-15 minutes, it isn't recognising any discs.

Could be a dead laser. Did you try cleaning the lasers?

[Mr_Orange]

There was a c# change a while ago then the code that it used to use to search for it no longer worked and was removed. It now only looks for it in the default location.

Once we have an update on the Pioneer firmware situation, I may update SDFtool Flasher then.

OK, thank you. I ran the command line tool instead to reflash my LG, but it looks as though it has given up the ghost. Even after being fully powered down (i.e. power cord removed from the PC PSU) for 10-15 minutes, it isn't recognising any discs.

Could be a dead laser. Did you try cleaning the lasers?

No and, TBH, I wouldn't know how to. It is a 5.25" internal BH16NS55 (flashed to WH16NS60 1.02MK).

[MartyMcNuts]

OK, thank you. I ran the command line tool instead to reflash my LG, but it looks as though it has given up the ghost. Even after being fully powered down (i.e. power cord removed from the PC PSU) for 10-15 minutes, it isn't recognising any discs.

Could be a dead laser. Did you try cleaning the lasers?

No and, TBH, I wouldn't know how to. It is a 5.25" internal BH16NS55 (flashed to WH16NS60 1.02MK).

There are a couple of posts on the forum somewhere explaining how. You might have to do a bit of searching.

[Mr_Orange]

Could be a dead laser. Did you try cleaning the lasers?

No and, TBH, I wouldn't know how to. It is a 5.25" internal BH16NS55 (flashed to WH16NS60 1.02MK).

There are a couple of posts on the forum somewhere explaining how. You might have to do a bit of searching.

OK, will have a look around. I have an external Pioneer (Verbatim 43888) drive too, so I'm not completely out of action.

[Coopervid]

No and, TBH, I wouldn't know how to. It is a 5.25" internal BH16NS55 (flashed to WH16NS60 1.02MK).

There are a couple of posts on the forum somewhere explaining how. You might have to do a bit of searching.

OK, will have a look around. I have an external Pioneer (Verbatim 43888) drive too, so I'm not completely out of action.

Buy a CD cleaning disc for your 5,25" drive.

[Mr_Orange]

There are a couple of posts on the forum somewhere explaining how. You might have to do a bit of searching.

OK, will have a look around. I have an external Pioneer (Verbatim 43888) drive too, so I'm not completely out of action.

Buy a CD cleaning disc for your 5,25" drive.

Well I never! I did not know that was a thing. I'll try one, thanks for the tip.