For those of you who have a UHD friendly drive or any of the drives listed in the UHD Drives board (https://makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=16832) and have been unable to downgrade it because the Downgrade Enabled (DE) flashers will only work in Windows, I’ll tell you how you can still use the flasher apps in something called a Windows PE.
According to Wikipedia:
Windows Preinstallation Environment (also known as Windows PE and WinPE) is a lightweight version of Windows used for the deployment of PCs, workstations, and servers, or troubleshooting an operating system while it is offline. It is intended to replace MS-DOS boot disks and can be booted via USB flash drive, PXE, iPXE, CD-ROM, or hard disk. Traditionally used by large corporations and OEMs (to preinstall Windows client operating systems on PCs during manufacturing), it is now widely available free of charge via Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK).” (Now called the WADK).
What this means for those of us who use Linux in all its flavours, is that by using WinPE we can boot into a Windows environment in the same way that we can with a Linux Live Disc.
Before I go further, let me say that I have been a Windows user since the dim and distant days of Windows 95, going through all the different editions up to Windows 7 Pro. I tried Windows 10 but couldn’t get on with it and reverted to Windows 7. And as Microsoft is stopping its support for Win 7 in early 2020 and having already tried Win 10 and with the disasters that MS has inflicted on Windows users in recent months I decided to to go the Linux route. Which is really a long way of saying that I have absolutely no experience with any form of Linux.
So, where do you go from here? Well, if you are familiar with WinPE and are able to adapt and customise it to suit your needs, then read no further other than use it to boot into a live windows environment and use the flasher to downgrade your BD drive. You can download the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) and the Window PE add-on pack from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... windows-pe
However, if you’re like me, and over the years have had to move further and further away from using commands (until you start using Linux that is) then you need another flavour of WinPE.
I won’t bore you with the hoops I went through to come to this point, but I found that I needed to have the .Net Framework in use so that one of the flashers would operate correctly. Therefore I had to find a version of WinPE that came with it.
If you aren’t already aware there are many bespoke versions of WinPE available readily on the internet and it was with one of these that I created a bootable DVD and was finally able to get into a fully featured version of WinPE and downgrade my new LG drive. However, if you’re able to I would recommend using a USB to boot from as it’s faster. The version I used was Hiren’s BootCD PE available from https://www.hirensbootcd.org/. After booting into this I was able to flash my drive without any further problems.
So after what for me was days worth of research into Windows PE and how to use it, all I had to do in the end was very simple. And now I impart this knowledge to you.
Enjoy!
