Help an idiot with a 1st gen WH14NS40

[gefukt]

Hey guys,
Encouraged by firmware DE_flash_HL-DT-ST_BD-RE_WH14NS40_1.02_NS50.bin I thought it could flash my drive to support UHD, but this only works with the 2nd gen of this drive. Don't make the same mistake as me, buy a newer version of this drive or another drive for UHD support. Anyway, my drive still powers up, opens and closes, and is recognized by the system, but can no longer read any disc. The firmware flasher I used is able to ignore the model/firmware mismatch and flash it anyway, but it won't go back to the old one as the old firmware (NS40.bin) is not an option. Does anyone have a WH14NS40 NS40.bin firmware that they can share with me? I've already tried using the official LG firmware flasher, but it sees the drive as a NS50.bin (2nd gen) drive now and gives me a mismatch error if I try to flash to the NS40.bin (1st gen). I know this qualifies the drive as soft-bricked, but I am hoping I am not completely SOL.
Thanks and best wishes.
Gefukt

[gefukt]

To give you more background, I have tried the stock LG firmware upgrade options and they fail with a drive mismatch error as they think the drive is now a NS50.bin (2nd gen) drive. Obviously there was some way to override this mismatch with the hacked firmware updater to allow the wrong firmware to be applied, so it would seem that there would be some way to make the hacked firmware updater override the mismatch to flash it back to the appropriate firmware. I also tried the WH14NS40_140326_1.03-A0_NOBJ_DE firmware but it cannot proceed either. If whoever made the hacked updater could add the NS40.bin (1st gen) firmware as an option for those of us who misunderstood we would greatly appreciate it. Also if there is some option to crossflash to something that would just get it to read discs again that would be greatly appreciated as well.
I'll punch myself in the face on Youtube as a reward for the person who can get this working.
"The problem with being poor and stupid is that you're poor and stupid." -me

[gefukt]

If there was some way to be able to have a command line switch to ignore checksum errors we should be able to flash it to the correct firmware.

[subman]

have you tried the dosflash method ?
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=17058
firmwares here https://www.firmwarehq.com/LG/WH14NS40/files.html
drive not seen try this it https://team-xecuter.com/community/thre ... fix.92119/ helped me today a used sata port 0 you can get that file here http://www.eurasia.nu/modules.php?name= ... t&lid=5394
tell us how did it go

[SamuriHL]

Is there a link to the LG firmware version it tells you is a checksum error? I can use my FirmwareExtractor2 program and extract it and patch it for DE and you can try flashing that with the patched Windows flasher before you go all dosflash on its ass. Dosflash is inherently dangerous and more likely to cause problems than solve them in this case.

[d00zah]

Is there a link to the LG firmware version it tells you is a checksum error? I can use my FirmwareExtractor2 program and extract it and patch it for DE and you can try flashing that with the patched Windows flasher before you go all dosflash on its ass. Dosflash is inherently dangerous and more likely to cause problems than solve them in this case.

'WH14NS40_140326_1.03-A0_NOBJ_DE.bin' was produced using your tool (thanks for that, BTW) on the last LG update for that particular drive. The only thing I remain unclear on is why they got no checksum error flashing the NS50 FW to a NS40 drive, but did when attempting to revert? Curious.

[gefukt]

SamuriHL, here's a link to the o the LG firmware version where it tells you there is a checksum error. Thanks very much.

https://makemkv.com/forum/download/file.php?id=1817

thanks also to d00zah for your help as well.

[SamuriHL]

Is there a link to the LG firmware version it tells you is a checksum error? I can use my FirmwareExtractor2 program and extract it and patch it for DE and you can try flashing that with the patched Windows flasher before you go all dosflash on its ass. Dosflash is inherently dangerous and more likely to cause problems than solve them in this case.

'WH14NS40_140326_1.03-A0_NOBJ_DE.bin' was produced using your tool (thanks for that, BTW) on the last LG update for that particular drive. The only thing I remain unclear on is why they got no checksum error flashing the NS50 FW to a NS40 drive, but did when attempting to revert? Curious.

Flashing the wrong firmware changes how the drive is seen. God this is a nasty situation. if you've already tried this and it fails to bring the drive back, then there's only ugly solutions left to try.

If you tried that and it's still giving errors and/or not working....

o) Create a WinPE boot usb stick with dosflash and WH14NS40_140326_1.03-A0_NOBJ_DE.bin and the data mover tool
o) Put the SATA port to IDE mode in the bios
o) Boot from the WinPE USB stick

The rest of this is INCREDIBLY important to not screw up so read this twice:

o) Using dosflash, extract (read) the current firmware
o) Run the data mover and move the data from the extracted firmware to the WH14NS40_140326_1.03-A0_NOBJ_DE.bin file and write out a new bin file
o) Flash the new bin file with dosflash

Put your sata port back to ahcpi mode and see if the damn thing will read a disc at that point. It's ugly, and it's incredibly nasty...but that will completely overwrite the firmware and should hopefully restore the thing to working order.

[MartyMcNuts]

Yes, as per SamuriHL's instructions, this is currently the only chance you have of restoring your drive.

[Billycar11]

how to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXgybNfHhcg
someone was telling to take it down but we see it is still useful for these situations where the unlocked flashers do not work
i have the link to the pe and everything in the description you just need your ns40 fw

[SamuriHL]

Yea that video is great. It will walk you through everything you need to do quite well. It's how I learned. Thanks for that.

[gefukt]

Thanks so much to all of you. I know there are a few of us who've done this, and there will probably be a few more, so it's good that there will be a record of last resorts to use.

To make things more clear,
A) I'm supposed to use dosflash to read the inappropriate firmware that's on the drive currently?
Or
B) do you mean use dosflash to extract the current LG website firmware to a file to be named "WH14NS40_140326_1.03-A0_NOBJ_DE.bin"?
I'm not sure how to use the data mover software, so I guess I'll do my best when it comes to that based on your description and won't proceed if I think I may make things worse.

I won't get a chance to try till tomorrow night as I've been using the drive hooked up as an external USB drive and will have to put in my machine and give all this a try when I get back from work tomorrow.
Thanks again and if anyone else in this boat tries this before I can, please post your results here.
I appreciate your help so much.

[Billycar11]

Thanks so much to all of you. I know there are a few of us who've done this, and there will probably be a few more, so it's good that there will be a record of last resorts to use.

To make things more clear,
A) I'm supposed to use dosflash to read the inappropriate firmware that's on the drive currently?
Or
B) do you mean use dosflash to extract the current LG website firmware to a file to be named "WH14NS40_140326_1.03-A0_NOBJ_DE.bin"?
I'm not sure how to use the data mover software, so I guess I'll do my best when it comes to that based on your description and won't proceed if I think I may make things worse.

I won't get a chance to try till tomorrow night as I've been using the drive hooked up as an external USB drive and will have to put in my machine and give all this a try when I get back from work tomorrow.
Thanks again and if anyone else in this boat tries this before I can, please post your results here.
I appreciate your help so much.

A. yes

B. no just use the firmware d00zah made for you, just watch my video and anything you are unclear on just ask here and me or someone else will help you i have done this over 100 times so i could just have forgotten a part that i think is common sense and its not.

[SamuriHL]

Careful. The question in B is very specific. I was clear in the directions I wrote for a reason. I know you obviously know this but if you read that as use what d00zah made and they dosflash that as is, they will brick the drive permanently. So I want to be extra clear here to avoid mistakes.

The very first thing you must do with dosflash is to perform a read to extract your current firmware. This is by far the most important thing that has to be done before flashing anything else. Once you extract your current firmware you will have two bin files... The one you just extracted from your drive and the one d00zah made for you. Using the data mover tool, you will select your extracted bin file, then you will select the bin file doozer provided, then you will name the new combined bin file. Call it whatever you want just so long as you know what it is. Then in dosflash you'll flash the newly created firmware bin. That should restore your drive to working order.

I only wanted to be clear because if you've never done this before it could be confusing and I don't want to see anyone flash the file d00zah provided without extracting their own firmware first.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[gefukt]

Thanks very much. I've watched the video a bunch of times to make sure I understand every step of what's going on.

I'm relieved that this can be run from a GUI, but I've never used this Windows boot maker before, so I'm not sure if it's going to ask for a CD or a 32-bit Windows license or something.

I use a small Windows 10 desktop, but have access to a 32-bit Windows XP netbook, but no way to hook the drive up internally, but hopefully that won't be an issue. Should I be able to have it hooked up via USB as long as it is in IDE-SATA mode and not AHCI mode? Or is it necessary (or just safer) to be hooked up via the internal SATA connection?

I'll report back with my results, hopefully later today.
Thanks again for all your help and hopefully this will benefit a few people.