Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide Updated 2024

[jonghotti]

Just recently found this site while trying to get into backing up my Blu Ray and 4K collection. Awesome work everyone is doing here. As someone fairly new to hardware aspect does anyone have first hand recommendations on drives they would give? My tower doesn't have space for an internal so would need an enclosure for one if they are the better source to go to. I checked out the first post for ideas to shop around but was curious about first hand recommendations anyone has had with these or other drives. Will be doing burning as well. Thanks all!

I would love to talk to you sir. My info is in my signature hit me up anytime!

[asmcom]

This Guide Is Made By: Billy/Billycar11, Alex/jonghotti, MartyMcNuts, Blackened2687, d00zah, mike admin, SamuriHL, st4evr, TeddyRaspin and Woodstock
Even if they didn't contribute directly i have used their information

Recommended UHD Drives to get:



All of these drives will need to be flashed to unlock UHD Reading/Ripping

LG WH16NS60, UHD Official Internal 5.25
LG BU40N, UHD Official Internal Slim Sata 9.5mm
LG WH14NS40, UHD Friendly Internal 5.25
LG WH16NS40, UHD Friendly Internal 5.25
ASUS BW-16D1HT, UHD Friendly Internal 5.25
ASUS BW-16D1HT Pro, UHD Friendly Internal 5.25
LG BH16NS55, UHD Friendly Internal 5.25
Buffalo BRUHD-PU3-BK, UHD Official, External Slim 9.5mm USB 3.0-Must use Marty's asus tool to flash
Archgon MD-8107S-U3-UHD, UHD Official, External Slim 9.5mm USB 3.0-Marty
BP60NB10, UHD Official External Slim 9.5mm USB 2.0-Must use Marty's asus tool to flash 8/24/19 or later only
BP50NB40, UHD Officialish External Slim 9.5mm USB 2.0-Must use Marty's asus tool to flash 8/24/19 or later only with HBD Firmware only


There is no “Best Drive” They are all made by LG and rebranded the drives just fit different use cases.



Recommended Pre-Flashed Drive Sellers:
We are not affiliated with MakeMKV just fellow users

Billy: Billycar5924@gmail.com
https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 20&t=17831 USA


Alex: alexcoluzzi32@gmail.com
https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 20&t=17829 USA & International


Marty: martymcnuts@outlook.com
https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 20&t=18747 Australia & NZ only


BluntmanUHD@protonmail.com
https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 20&t=21354 Canada Only

asmcom: uhdfriendlydrives@gmail.com
https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 20&t=19387 UK & International


additional resources/options can be found here:
https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=20



USB enclosures/sata adapters that work with optical drives and flashing:

Vantec NST-536S3-BK 5.25 case
Vantec NST-510S3-BK 9.5mm slim sata case
OWC Mercury Pro 5.25 case
Unitek Y-1034 USB to sata cable-Marty
Unitek Y-1099 USB to sata cable-fishman
ICY BOX IB-550StU3S 5.25 case-ddeconin

USB enclosures/sata adapters that work with optical drives but don't support flashing:

Vantec CB-ST00U3?
Buffalo BR3D-12U3

Sleep Bug:

All UHD Friendly drives have the sleep bug, this is when a UHD disk is left idle in the drive for 2 minutes. Once the drive goes to sleep, the UHD Friendly drive will no longer be able to read the disk without opening and closing the disk tray and will make horrible seeking noises until this is done.

Sleep Bug Fix:

To fix the sleep bug on a UHD Friendly drive flash firmware from an UHD Official drive like WH16NS60 DE 1.00 or 1.01MK

IMPORTANT Before you flash:

1. Make sure your Drive was built after 2015
2. Drive Platform MT1959<Most important
3. SVC NS50+ LG only
4. Just because your drive is the same model number does not mean it will work, if you are unsure ask me i offer remote flashing and check everything before i flash.
5. Dont flash your dive if it does not meet these requirements if you do you will be unable to read all disks and unable to restore without dosflash that does not work on most modern computers

Crossflashing:

1. Changes the drive to act as another and gain most or all of its benefits
2. Can be used to increase a drives ripping speed and fix the sleep bug



Crossflashing Warnings:

1. Don't crossflash desktop drives to slim drives or the other way around
2. In some cases crossflashing an Asus drive to an LG or the other way around you may no longer be able to burn disks-SamuriHL
3. Flashing Official UHD firmware to a UHD Friendly drive will not enable Powerdvd aacs 2 decryption or playback

Newer OEM Firmwares:

LG 1.04+ / BU40N 1.03 / Asus 3.10+ and similar
The newer OEM firmwares cannot be flashed easily due to the additional downgrade checks implemented by the drive/firmware manufacturer. If your drive has one of these firmwares, and there is no MK version of the same firmware/drive model or higher number, you will have to sidegrade to Asus 3.10MK (for compatible ASUS 5.25 drives ONLY) or (LG WH16NS60 1.02MK for compatible LG 5.25) or (BU40N 1.03MK LG Slim drives ONLY) respectively. Keeping the flashing of firmware in these scenarios within their respective family of drives/firmware (e.g ASUS firmware for ASUS drives and LG firmware for LG drives) at this stage of flashing. Then afterwards if that initial flash is successful you can move to different firmware respectively if you would like a different and compatible firmware version for the drive in question.

As previously stated in this guide. DO NOT crossflash between ASUS and LG firmware for slim drives like the LG BU40N for example. It will brick your drive. You’ve now been warned twice within this guide regarding this.


Unlocked Flashers, Downgrade Enabled Firmware and MK Firmware:

https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 16&t=18933
https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 873#p70284
https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 19&t=19113
https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 19&t=19422



How To Flash Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfpf6HoMMis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXgybNfHhcg - Obsolete but can be useful for recovery

NS40 Recovery Image:
Flashed an NS50 firmware to an NS40 drive and can no longer read disks this IMG has all the NS40 FW you need to recover your drive just follow my dos flash video guide linked above
https://www.mediafire.com/file/8by2zqop ... D.zip/file Made by

Useful Links:
Manual Libredrive SDF download only for offline systems: http://www.makemkv.com/svq/sdf.bin
Hashed keys for UHD disks only for offline systems: https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 12&t=16959

A special thank you to BillyCar for adding me to the Ultimate UHD Drives Guide, as one of the recommended sellers.

I very much respect you Billy as a fellow seller and also your level of Technical know how. You are a great asset to the MakeMKV forum along with Martymcnuts. I appreciate you adding me Billy.

Asmcom

[jayb3369]

Can you flash these drives from a Mac? If it must be windows, can it be done from a windows Emulator like parallels desktop?

Some of these drives say, must be newer than 2015. I assume getting a new drive off amazon Takes care of this.

Will this drive still rip non 4k blu rays? Or do i need to keep my old asus External drive ?


Thank you

[jonghotti]

Can you flash these drives from a Mac? If it must be windows, can it be done from a windows Emulator like parallels desktop?

Some of these drives say, must be newer than 2015. I assume getting a new drive off amazon Takes care of this.

Will this drive still rip non 4k blu rays? Or do i need to keep my old asus External drive ?


Thank you

No, yes, yes, yes, no

[jonghotti]

Answers posted in order.
What’s way better though is supporting one of the hard working and very grateful folks here who sell flashed drives that just work.
Saves you a lot of time and the prices are nice too. Not to mention the customer support should have an issue. You can reach me for instance 24 hours a day. I don’t sleep. I’m here should any customer need anything. I’m passionate about this hobby, maybe a little crazy but that adds to my personality.

Anyways, skip Amazon and hit me up. I guarantee you’ll say later that was the right move!

Thank you,

Alex

[jayb3369]

Thanks for the answers so far. I think I have only one more question. This is posted at the top of this thread:

IMPORTANT Before you flash:

1. Make sure your Drive was built after 2015
2. Drive Platform MT1959<Most important
3. SVC NS50+ LG only
4. Just because your drive is the same model number does not mean it will work, if you are unsure ask me i offer remote flashing and check everything before i flash.
5. Dont flash your dive if it does not meet these requirements if you do you will be unable to read all disks and unable to restore without dosflash that does not work on most modern computers

What does #2 mean?

Thanks again.

[MartyMcNuts]

Thanks for the answers so far. I think I have only one more question. This is posted at the top of this thread:

IMPORTANT Before you flash:

1. Make sure your Drive was built after 2015
2. Drive Platform MT1959<Most important
3. SVC NS50+ LG only
4. Just because your drive is the same model number does not mean it will work, if you are unsure ask me i offer remote flashing and check everything before i flash.
5. Dont flash your dive if it does not meet these requirements if you do you will be unable to read all disks and unable to restore without dosflash that does not work on most modern computers

What does #2 mean?

Thanks again.

You can see #2 in MakeMKV on the right hand side under "LibreDrive Information". (see image)

Capture.jpg (17.23 KiB) Viewed 22473 times

[jayb3369]

Thanks for the answers so far. I think I have only one more question. This is posted at the top of this thread:

IMPORTANT Before you flash:

1. Make sure your Drive was built after 2015
2. Drive Platform MT1959<Most important
3. SVC NS50+ LG only
4. Just because your drive is the same model number does not mean it will work, if you are unsure ask me i offer remote flashing and check everything before i flash.
5. Dont flash your dive if it does not meet these requirements if you do you will be unable to read all disks and unable to restore without dosflash that does not work on most modern computers

What does #2 mean?

Thanks again.

You can see #2 in MakeMKV on the right hand side under "LibreDrive Information". (see image)

Capture.jpg

Can I assume that any of the listed drives will be the correct drive platform? It would suck to buy the drive, install it in the enclosure and find out it won’t work. Or is this a setting somewhere?

Thanks

[jonghotti]

Yes, buy them here www.centralcomputer.com

[dlinefive]

Is the BUBRPT6U2VB https://www.adorama.com/bubrpt6u2vb.html the same as the Buffalo BRUHD-PU3-BK ?

[Billycar11]

Is the BUBRPT6U2VB https://www.adorama.com/bubrpt6u2vb.html the same as the Buffalo BRUHD-PU3-BK ?

No it USB 2. 0 and does not officially support UHD.
But you can replace the cable the case is 3.0
And it has a BU40N inside

[omk1980]

I have an early macbook pro 2011. I took out the optical drive at the time and replaced it with a 2nd hard drive. Now that i'm backing up my collection, I was thinking of throwing in an internal optical drive.

I was looking at the supported drives on p. 1 of this thread and saw the bu40n, a 9.5mm drive.

Would the LG BU40N work? would it be compatible with macOS?

I figured i could add this and also upgrade the SSD on this as well. Any help is much appreciated. Thank you.

[jonghotti]

Yes if you've got room for a 9.5mm drive the BU40N will work for you. Feel free to drop me a line if you'd like one my info is the link in my signature. Thank you!

[kurko1992]

Hello guys, i need some help.

I have an LG Blu-Ray Disc Re Writer WH16NS40 SVC: NS50
I was with the firmware 1.00, from the LG website, i download the F 1.03 and after i did the update, the problems started.

So, after the updated, the LG didn't read originals BluRays.
A non original CD yes, a non Original DVD yes.
Then i found your video and try to downgrade to the 1.02 firmware.
No still read a regular CD, but nothing else, and after i try to put a DVD or BR the LG just stops working and i need to reset my PC.

I try to use this:
"NS40 Recovery Image:
Flashed an NS50 firmware to an NS40 drive and can no longer read disks this IMG has all the NS40 FW you need to recover your drive just follow my dos flash video guide linked above"

But i can't do the first step ( i boot with the USB Drive but when i open the first tool dosn't work, i read in the info that it's means that my driver is not instaled good or somthing like that) so i don't know what to do.

If it helps, this is how i use my LG (when i bougth my new NZXT Source 340 Matte Black Razer Edition i didn't see that is no space for the LG ) so i use like this (i don't know if is a problem or not really)

20200514_074718.jpg (71.28 KiB) Viewed 22107 times

20200514_074741.jpg (105.9 KiB) Viewed 22107 times

So, someone can help me?
What can i do to recover my LG?

Thanks from the Help

[omk1980]

Yes if you've got room for a 9.5mm drive the BU40N will work for you. Feel free to drop me a line if you'd like one my info is the link in my signature. Thank you!

very cool. I've also got a windows laptop that has a 12.5mm blu-ray drive. Are any of the supported UHD drives compatible for a 12.5mm bay in a laptop?