Help an idiot with a 1st gen WH14NS40

[SamuriHL]

The WinPE creation process is super simple. You just select 32 bit Windows 10, you can add whatever files you want to it (I added a firmware folder and dosflash and the data mover utils), and then it'll write it to a bootable USB stick. No need for CD's or licenses.

It can NOT be done via USB. It must be on an actual SATA port that is set to IDE mode. In my ancient machine, it has to be on SATA 1 or 2 even though I have 6 sata ports in the darn thing. Usually I just disconnect my second HDD and connect the drive to that sata cable and call it good. But yea, no USB for dosflash.

[gefukt]

I am having an insane, mentally-challenged time with the PE Builder. It fails saying it can't download the environment when all my other network activity is fine. It gives me the option to download it separately and point to it. I do that and it doesn't see it and fails. I swear the program doesn't work as it is. Is there any chance they just uploaded a buggy version of it. I have been beating my head against a wall and don't want to download some other 3-5GB PE builder but I guess I will break down and do that. I feel like like my brain is broken. I swear I am not absolutely stupid.

[SamuriHL]

Not sure what's going on there> I used it about a month or so ago to build my image and it worked fine. I had zero issues. Maybe Billy will chime in on this one.

[gefukt]

drive saved-flash success.jpg (177.18 KiB) Viewed 25955 times

I found the Julia Window PE and booted to that and it worked!!!

The drive is saved thanks to you guys!!
If you have one of these drives that you think you bricked, you should be able to bring it back to life and I'd be happy to help anyone who did this and I'll do what I can to save you going through my mistakes.

Thank you so much. The drive, a first gen WH14NS40 is not UHD-friendly and does not support LibreDrive mode, but at least it is now a working Blu-ray burning drive again.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SamuriHL]

Oh Jesus not Julia! LMAO Billy and I are never going to hear the end of this.

Seriously though, VERY glad you got it back up and running and that this worked to save the drive. Hopefully this will help the myriad of others that have run into this issue.

[mike admin]

Glad it worked out!

There is another (last-resort!!!!) option for NS40 models. The ASUS-BC-12D2HT-3.01-WM00900-211711151926.bin from viewtopic.php?f=19&t=19113&p=71880 is a firmware for NS40 hardware. It MIGHT work in NS40 WH14NS40 models. I never tested it myself, please use it only as the last resort. Good thing it can be flashed with "official patched" flasher in self-update mode.

[pixlz]

So, thanks for this Thread. Helped me fix my 1st Gen Player as well. You guys are great.

[Ceetch]

I've tried following these steps as best as I can understand them, but I'm getting stuck...
As with the OP, I flashed NS50 to my NS40 drive and now it can't read discs. I was able to boot into a 32bit Windows and get DOSFlash to see the drive, but I have no binary to flash to it. I downloaded what was supposed to be the stock firmware, but it's an EXE, not a BIN. No one seems to have the actual firmware file that I can just flash to the drive. Is there some way to get the BIN file out of that EXE, or some site that I can download it from?

The drive is WH14NS40 on 1.03.

[MartyMcNuts]

I've tried following these steps as best as I can understand them, but I'm getting stuck...
As with the OP, I flashed NS50 to my NS40 drive and now it can't read discs. I was able to boot into a 32bit Windows and get DOSFlash to see the drive, but I have no binary to flash to it. I downloaded what was supposed to be the stock firmware, but it's an EXE, not a BIN. No one seems to have the actual firmware file that I can just flash to the drive. Is there some way to get the BIN file out of that EXE, or some site that I can download it from?

The drive is WH14NS40 on 1.03.

You have to extract your firmware with dosflash first.

[d00zah]

And apply calibration data (DataMover) to this:

WH14NS40_1.02-A0.zip

[Ceetch]

I finally managed to get DOSFlash to work and get my old firmware out. I also got the firmware extractor tool that got the BIN out of the EXE and copied the calibrations to it and I was able to flash it back to my drive and resurrect it. Unfortunately, I had to do this using that buggy Julia ISO of Windows 7, so it took a couple tries to flash it. For some reason that ISO kept resetting everything, the mouse and keyboard kept disappearing, drives went offline....it's a mess. At the same time, I was able to get the drive working again, so there's that... Now we just need a proper NS40 patched firmware with that LibreDrive patch and I'll be set.

[matrixprime]

Hello all! I've recently started making the jump to 4K UHD media. I have a LG WH14NS40. I spent a great deal of time reading and watching this thread to see how the process works. I went through and flashed the drive to 1.02. I see in the YT link it says to use the ASUS tool, but that throws an error saying there isn't a target drive when I select the BD.

I did try ripping Avengers IW and it got to about 50% completed and locked up. I'm not sure if that was because of a firmware issue or because of a systems issue. Any help would be appreciated as I don't know what to do from here.

Thanks!

[d00zah]

A log would help immensely, but the advice will probably be to try cleaning the disc... despite it appearing pristine to the human eye.

[matrixprime]

Thanks! I'll try running the rip again and get MakeMKV to produce a log file. Hopefully someone will be able to see what I'm not seeing or be able to instruct me on a step I missed.

Two quick questions though...

1) Is it necessary to use the MK bin file for this drive, if the flash has downgraded it and the file is now ripping?

2) The read rate will be at 2.7x or higher until about 35,500.0 M is pulled and then slow down to 0.0x. Is that normal when ripping UHD content from a disc?

[Billycar11]

Hello all! I've recently started making the jump to 4K UHD media. I have a LG WH14NS40. I spent a great deal of time reading and watching this thread to see how the process works. I went through and flashed the drive to 1.02. I see in the YT link it says to use the ASUS tool, but that throws an error saying there isn't a target drive when I select the BD.

I did try ripping Avengers IW and it got to about 50% completed and locked up. I'm not sure if that was because of a firmware issue or because of a systems issue. Any help would be appreciated as I don't know what to do from here.

Thanks!

there was no problem flashing if your on 1.02 and your drive sees the disk
pc locking up while ripping sounds like a system problem