BP50NB40 (ext USB): DE flash OK, but OmniDrive RECOVER flash reports success yet drive stays 1.00 unpatched

[dooperdan2]

I'm trying to flash OmniDrive onto an external USB LG BP50NB40 and I've hit a wall where the OmniDrive flash reports success but the drive never actually leaves stock firmware. I've worked through the usual suspects already, so I'm hoping someone who knows these external BU40N-based drives can spot what I'm missing.

I followed the wiki's BP50NB40-specific path: flashed the downgrade-enabled firmware first (DE_LG_BP50NB40-NB50_1.03_MK.bin) in WRITE mode, which completed fine. The drive dropped to 1.00 and the anti-rollback lock lifted. I then did the second stage via RECOVER Firmware, selecting the DE firmware in the recovery popup as the current firmware and the BU40N OmniDrive image in the bottom dropdown as the target. SDFtool reports "Done successfully," but it completes almost instantly, and after a power-cycle MakeMKV still shows the firmware as Original (unpatched), version 1.00.
I've verified the OmniDrive file is authentic, its MD5 matches the official _files.xml on the archive.org OmniDrive_v1.0.2 listing exactly (3f52f08519268f04b8bfcce098085fb6), so it's not a bad or mislabeled download. The drive is detected correctly (SDFtool sees MT1959; MakeMKV shows the platform), and GameCube discs predictably fail to read, consistent with the drive still being on stock firmware. Because the file checks out and the procedure matches the wiki, I suspect this is something specific to this drive/unit rather than a step I got wrong. Is there a known issue with the RECOVER flash silently no-op'ing on BP50NB40s, or an additional step (bus-encryption handling, a different DE base, verbose logging to capture) I should be doing? Happy to provide any logs or drive details that would help.
My setup:

Drive: LG BP50NB40, external USB
MakeMKV drive info: Drive platform MT1959; LibreDrive Status showing possible/enabled; Firmware type: Original (unpatched); Firmware version: 1.00
Stage 1 (DE): flashed DE_LG_BP50NB40-NB50_1.03_MK.bin via WRITE Firmware — completed successfully, drive rolled to 1.00, downgrade lock lifted
Stage 2 (OmniDrive): RECOVER Firmware → DE firmware selected in the recovery popup → HL-DT-ST_BD-RE_BU40N_1.00_OmniDrive.bin in the bottom dropdown → START
Result: SDFtool reports "Done successfully" (completes near-instantly), but post-power-cycle MakeMKV still reads Original (unpatched) 1.00
File integrity: OmniDrive .bin MD5 3f52f08519268f04b8bfcce098085fb6 — verified matching the archive.org OmniDrive_v1.0.2_files.xml
Symptom: GameCube disc (verified good) fails to read — CANNOT READ MEDIUM - INCOMPATIBLE FORMAT
Tools: SDFtool Flasher v1.3.5, MakeMKV (latest), Windows

[Sayaka]

The drive dropped to 1.00

With all due respect, I doubt it did that after this first step, unless something went very wrong. You flashed a 1.03 MK firmware for this first step, after all. In that case, MakeMKV was supposed to show LibreDrive enabled with "Microcode access re-enabled" and 1.03 firmware.

SDFtool reports "Done successfully," but it completes almost instantly, and after a power-cycle MakeMKV still shows the firmware as Original (unpatched), version 1.00.

It is supposed to do that. If MakeMKV shows BU40N firmware v1.00 after this second step, it means the flash operation succeeded.

Symptom: GameCube disc (verified good) fails to read — CANNOT READ MEDIUM - INCOMPATIBLE FORMAT
Tools: SDFtool Flasher v1.3.5, MakeMKV (latest), Windows

MakeMKV is for ripping Blu-ray discs of movies/series, not GameCube discs. For GameCube discs, please see here : https://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-To ... Dump.shtml (I did an antivirus scan for you and the file seems to be clean, but feel free to do another one for good measure) , here : https://dn710103.ca.archive.org/0/items ... 0setup.exe , and finally here for the instructions : https://web.archive.org/web/20260615182 ... _with_a_PC

EDIT : My mistake, apparently with OmniDrive you have to use redumper instead of rawdump : https://github.com/superg/redumper and https://github.com/superg/redumper/releases

[dooperdan2]

Thank you very much! Just confirming that it did actually flash the correct firmware, and I was mistakenly checking MakeMKV to read the disc as confirmation, as opposed to MPF/Redumper which worked just fine. Appreciate the reply!