WH16NS40 old model bricked - N00b mistake :(

[Laithan]

Ok my tail is between my legs... I flashed my WH16NS40 drive with the 1.20 modified firmware however I learned AFTER the fact (MY fault) that there are 2 revisions of this drive.. The one I have is the OLDER WH16NS40 that is NOT UHD friendly My drive does NOT have SVC code NS50. The firmware for the two models are not compatible. After flashing it with the wrong firmware it no longer reads/works.

I can flash another firmware but I cannot seem to find the ORIGINAL firmware for this drive... and it seems bricked until I can get that stock firmware back. None of LG's flashers work because the drive is flashed with the SVC NS50 firmware now so it thinks it is the newer model.

Can anyone give me any advice?
Thank you in advance

[st4evr]

Read this thread:

https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 19&t=19533

Same applies to you except you’ll need to find LG firmware obviously.

[SamuriHL]

The only time I've seen one of these drives saved is through some very painful work. It requires using dosflash to extract the current firmware, using the firmware mover tool to move the encryption data and calibration data to the proper firmware bin for the drive, and then flashing the new firmware bin with dosflash. To my knowledge no one's successfully flashed the original bin file on one of these older drives without using the process I just outlined.

[maxblack]

The only time I've seen one of these drives saved is through some very painful work...

It must not have been here or you'd have linked to it? The OP already said he couldn't find the original firmware, and while I've heard of the dosflash tool, what is the "firmware mover tool" of which you speak.

I have a WH16NS40 (older model) that I knew not to mess with, so might be able to help others by providing my good firmware, if I knew how.

[SamuriHL]

No, it's posted here somewhere in one of the older threads. I think Marty or Billy provided the original firmware that needs to be used with the extracted firmware and the data mover tool. I don't have time to search for the thread which is why I didn't link to it, but, the information is here somewhere.

[d00zah]

Similar situation resolved here:

https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 16&t=19071

Original 'official' download found here:

https://www.lg.com/us/support-product/lg-WH16NS40

Use this as the 'clean' image required for reversion:

WH16NS40_1.02-A0_NOBJ_DE.zip

[Laithan]

First, thanks to all for the replies.

The only time I've seen one of these drives saved is through some very painful work. It requires using dosflash to extract the current firmware, using the firmware mover tool to move the encryption data and calibration data to the proper firmware bin for the drive, and then flashing the new firmware bin with dosflash. To my knowledge no one's successfully flashed the original bin file on one of these older drives without using the process I just outlined.

Thank you. I've accepted that this is probably the only way (unless I am missing something).

Similar situation resolved here:

https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 16&t=19071

Original 'official' download found here:

https://www.lg.com/us/support-product/lg-WH16NS40

Use this as the 'clean' image required for reversion: WH16NS40_1.02-A0_NOBJ_DE.zip

Thanks I had not seen that link. So I've got all the tools now (dosflash, datamover, patched flasher). I've been doing a lot of reading but some of it has honestly started to blend together but I think I got most of it.

So at this point I will share more details/updates. I think I may have found an old post with the original firmware. I also found the firmware extractor tool and extracted what could be the original firmware. I am unable to flash any of them as they all tell me that "CheckSum is mismatched. Drive will go to BOOT mode Please retry again.".

What I don't understand is how the "UHD downgrade" firmware files are getting past this "Checksum" issue when using the patched firmware tool.... I thought that my solution might be to to modify the original STOCK firmware in the same way that the "downgrade firmware files" were modified so I could then flash using the patched firmware updater... Is that not possible or am I still missing part of the puzzle

I may not be 100% clear about the "clean file" method. I think I got this, so the datamover process is used with BOTH the DOSFlash process and to also with the "Clean file" method? In both methods you are still reading the existing firmware and importing a portion of it into another firmware file that can be flashed. Is this the process to get past the Checksum error? Is that why?

[SamuriHL]

Thanks for finding that. I knew it was posted somewhere.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[d00zah]

So at this point I will share more details/updates. I think I may have found an old post with the original firmware. I also found the firmware extractor tool and extracted what could be the original firmware. I am unable to flash any of them as they all tell me that "CheckSum is mismatched. Drive will go to BOOT mode Please retry again.".

What I don't understand is how the "UHD downgrade" firmware files are getting past this "Checksum" issue when using the patched firmware tool.... I thought that my solution might be to to modify the original STOCK firmware in the same way that the "downgrade firmware files" were modified so I could then flash using the patched firmware updater... Is that not possible or am I still missing part of the puzzle

I may not be 100% clear about the "clean file" method. I think I got this, so the datamover process is used with BOTH the DOSFlash process and to also with the "Clean file" method? In both methods you are still reading the existing firmware and importing a portion of it into another firmware file that can be flashed. Is this the process to get past the Checksum error? Is that why?

You'll get the checksum error if you try to flash directly from Windows. On the 2nd page of the provided link, the user created a bootable WinPE USB image & successfully completed the procedure.

[Laithan]

You'll get the checksum error if you try to flash directly from Windows. On the 2nd page of the provided link, the user created a bootable WinPE USB image & successfully completed the procedure.

SUCCESS! Thank you all so much. The drive is working again yay

I built the WinPE 7 but I ended up using an old WinXP machine I had hanging around in storage and it seemed to work just fine.

You guys rock!

[SamuriHL]

Yea, to be clear, you must extract your firmware that's on the drive now with dosflash to create a firmware bin. The data mover tool is then used to take the encryption and calibration data from that extracted firmware and move it into the clean, old firmware bin that you're trying to restore to the drive. that will produce a new firmware bin file that can only be flashed with dosflash. At this point, none of the windows flash utilities are going to work for you. That's why this is a royal pain to accomplish, but, you can do it.