Verbatim 43888 guide

[Raziel]

Hey guys,

I was pretty overwhelmed by all the information that I found here and wanted to share my findings and my way from a stock Verbatim 43888 drive to an unlocked one.

Notice: This is a guide based on Linux and my experience - a full detailed and more general guide can be found here viewtopic.php?t=19634 - I just wanted to share my way since this would have helped me a lot when flashing the drive myself and gathering information from here and there. Kudos goes out to Billy who helped me and answered my questions via mail.

So you just bought a Verbatim 43888 drive and you see the following information in the MakeMKV gui:

Code: Select all

Drive Information
OS device name: /dev/sr0
Manufacturer: HL-DT-ST
Product: BD-RE BU40N
Revision: 1.05
Serial number: MOEPBC93457
Firmware date: 2124-04-23 13:47
Bus encryption flags: 17
 
LibreDrive Information
Status: Possible, not yet enabled
Drive platform: MT1959

Perfect. This means you may flash your drive. Todo this, you will need the following things:

sdf.bin: viewtopic.php?t=42158
MakeMKV 1.17.6 (since there are problems when flashing with newer versions): viewtopic.php?t=42158
the firmware pack: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HRnbXi ... sp=sharing

After you have downloaded everything, you just put all of that in one directory. From the firmware pack you are going to use the firmware from the "LG slim BU40N" directory. So it should look something like this then:

Code: Select all

❯ ls
drwxr-xr-x    - martin 19 Jan  2024  bin
drwxr-xr-x    - martin 19 Jan  2024 󰣞 src
drwxr-xr-x    - martin 10 Aug 14:57  'The all you need firmware pack'
.rw-r--r-- 6,7M martin 10 Aug 14:57  firmware.zip
.rw-r--r-- 2,1M martin 10 Aug 14:58  HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_BU40N-1.03-NM00000-211810241934.bin
.rw-r--r-- 1,2k martin 19 Jan  2024  Makefile
.rw-r--r--  16M martin 10 Aug 14:55  makemkv-bin-1.17.6.tar.gz
.rwxr-xr-x 6,6M martin 10 Aug 14:56 󰡯 makemkvcon
.rw-r--r-- 2,1M martin 10 Aug 14:56  sdf.bin

The 'makemkvcon' file is from the makemkv-bin-1.17.6.tar.gz archive from the bin directory.

So after you have that structure, it is time to flash your drive with the following command:

Check your drives adress before flashing:

Code: Select all

./makemkvcon f -l

For me it returned 'dev_21:0' and some more stuff. If you need further information in that regards, check out viewtopic.php?t=19634 - there is a better example

Code: Select all

./makemkvcon f -d 'dev_21:0' -f ./sdf.bin rawflash enc -i ./HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_BU40N-1.03-NM00000-211810241934.bin

Please pay attention to the 'enc' part, since the firmware is encrypted. Flashing without that will not work (I don't think it will brick the drive, but I don't know for sure).

And thats already it. Afterwards MakeMKV 1.18.4 started working without an issue. Before the flash info commands just didn't return anything or Blue-Rays did not load in the MakeMKV gui. It just loaded inifinitely.

[MartyMcNuts]

Hey guys,

I was pretty overwhelmed by all the information that I found here and wanted to share my findings and my way from a stock Verbatim 43888 drive to an unlocked one.

Notice: This is a guide based on Linux and my experience - a full detailed and more general guide can be found here viewtopic.php?t=19634 - I just wanted to share my way since this would have helped me a lot when flashing the drive myself and gathering information from here and there. Kudos goes out to Billy who helped me and answered my questions via mail.

So you just bought a Verbatim 43888 drive and you see the following information in the MakeMKV gui:

Code: Select all

Drive Information
OS device name: /dev/sr0
Manufacturer: HL-DT-ST
Product: BD-RE BU40N
Revision: 1.05
Serial number: MOEPBC93457
Firmware date: 2124-04-23 13:47
Bus encryption flags: 17
 
LibreDrive Information
Status: Possible, not yet enabled
Drive platform: MT1959

Perfect. This means you may flash your drive. Todo this, you will need the following things:

sdf.bin: viewtopic.php?t=42158
MakeMKV 1.17.6 (since there are problems when flashing with newer versions): viewtopic.php?t=42158
the firmware pack: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HRnbXi ... sp=sharing

After you have downloaded everything, you just put all of that in one directory. From the firmware pack you are going to use the firmware from the "LG slim BU40N" directory. So it should look something like this then:

Code: Select all

❯ ls
drwxr-xr-x    - martin 19 Jan  2024  bin
drwxr-xr-x    - martin 19 Jan  2024 󰣞 src
drwxr-xr-x    - martin 10 Aug 14:57  'The all you need firmware pack'
.rw-r--r-- 6,7M martin 10 Aug 14:57  firmware.zip
.rw-r--r-- 2,1M martin 10 Aug 14:58  HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_BU40N-1.03-NM00000-211810241934.bin
.rw-r--r-- 1,2k martin 19 Jan  2024  Makefile
.rw-r--r--  16M martin 10 Aug 14:55  makemkv-bin-1.17.6.tar.gz
.rwxr-xr-x 6,6M martin 10 Aug 14:56 󰡯 makemkvcon
.rw-r--r-- 2,1M martin 10 Aug 14:56  sdf.bin

The 'makemkvcon' file is from the makemkv-bin-1.17.6.tar.gz archive from the bin directory.

So after you have that structure, it is time to flash your drive with the following command:

Check your drives adress before flashing:

Code: Select all

./makemkvcon f -l

For me it returned 'dev_21:0' and some more stuff. If you need further information in that regards, check out viewtopic.php?t=19634 - there is a better example

Code: Select all

./makemkvcon f -d 'dev_21:0' -f ./sdf.bin rawflash enc -i ./HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_BU40N-1.03-NM00000-211810241934.bin

Please pay attention to the 'enc' part, since the firmware is encrypted. Flashing without that will not work (I don't think it will brick the drive, but I don't know for sure).

And thats already it. Afterwards MakeMKV 1.18.4 started working without an issue. Before the flash info commands just didn't return anything or Blue-Rays did not load in the MakeMKV gui. It just loaded inifinitely.

If using Linux you should then flash again to BU40N 1.00 (replacing enc with main) as 1.03-MK can have issues on Linux.