Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide Updated 2026

[Billycar11]

Yeah I’ll be flashing it on a VM.

What are the drawbacks between these two drives, outside of cost?

LG WH16NS60, UHD Official Internal 5.25
LG BU40N, UHD Official Internal Slim Sata 9.5mm

Are their speeds the same or is the NS60 the best one? I’d prefer the slim one for portability and it’s a bit cheaper but not if I gimp myself out on drive abilities. Hope that makes sense... Any insight is appreciated.

i do not recommend flashing it in a vm if you don't have a windows pc or are not willing to bootcamp your mac i would recommend you buy one preflashed

the BU40N is only slightly slower than an NS60
but if you want faster and cheaper go with WH14NS40 with WH16NS60 firmware the only thing you lose is UHD official playback capability that you cant use on a mac anyway.

[MartyMcNuts]

I take it there is no current way to flash a SLIM official drive to a friendly one?

What model and what firmware?

Hi Marty
Thanks for the response!
I have a couple of external LG BP60NB10 drives with ROM ver 1.00. I've managed to use the MK firmware on these. However I would like to be able to use them with AnyDVD-HD as well like I can with the flashed non-slim drives. And that ability requires a friendly drive, not an official one.

More important would be the ability to use LG BU40N drives this way. ROM version: 1.03

Nope. Neither of those drives can be flashed to a "UHD Friendly" firmware. They are stuck as "Official UHD" drives.

The problem is that there aren't any laptop drives that are "friendly". They are all "official". The BP60NB10 cannot be cross-flashed at all. The others I can think of (Buffalo, Archgon) also contain a BU40N inside their respective enclosures.

If you want to use AnyDVD, your best bet would be to buy an internal 5.25" drive.

Cheers

[fitbrit]

Thanks. That's what I thought.

The problem is that the cases I use (for work) can only take slim drives. And even that is a step-up from only being able to use slot-loading drives which had been the case so far. I do use external full size drives out of necessity, but a one-box solution is much more appealing to customers. What I'm really looking for is the ability to play a UHD disk in JRiver Media Center without having to rip it first. Sadly, MakeMKV's ability to decrypt the video stream for playback by another application has been abandoned.

What model and what firmware?

Hi Marty
Thanks for the response!
I have a couple of external LG BP60NB10 drives with ROM ver 1.00. I've managed to use the MK firmware on these. However I would like to be able to use them with AnyDVD-HD as well like I can with the flashed non-slim drives. And that ability requires a friendly drive, not an official one.

More important would be the ability to use LG BU40N drives this way. ROM version: 1.03

Nope. Neither of those drives can be flashed to a "UHD Friendly" firmware. They are stuck as "Official UHD" drives.

The problem is that there aren't any laptop drives that are "friendly". They are all "official". The BP60NB10 cannot be cross-flashed at all. The others I can think of (Buffalo, Archgon) also contain a BU40N inside their respective enclosures.

If you want to use AnyDVD, your best bet would be to buy an internal 5.25" drive.

Cheers

[MartyMcNuts]

Thanks. That's what I thought.

The problem is that the cases I use (for work) can only take slim drives. And even that is a step-up from only being able to use slot-loading drives which had been the case so far. I do use external full size drives out of necessity, but a one-box solution is much more appealing to customers. What I'm really looking for is the ability to play a UHD disk in JRiver Media Center without having to rip it first. Sadly, MakeMKV's ability to decrypt the video stream for playback by another application has been abandoned.

Hi Marty
Thanks for the response!
I have a couple of external LG BP60NB10 drives with ROM ver 1.00. I've managed to use the MK firmware on these. However I would like to be able to use them with AnyDVD-HD as well like I can with the flashed non-slim drives. And that ability requires a friendly drive, not an official one.

More important would be the ability to use LG BU40N drives this way. ROM version: 1.03

Nope. Neither of those drives can be flashed to a "UHD Friendly" firmware. They are stuck as "Official UHD" drives.

The problem is that there aren't any laptop drives that are "friendly". They are all "official". The BP60NB10 cannot be cross-flashed at all. The others I can think of (Buffalo, Archgon) also contain a BU40N inside their respective enclosures.

If you want to use AnyDVD, your best bet would be to buy an internal 5.25" drive.

Cheers

I don't think firmware 1.03 is any good for UHD.

The only thing I can think of, is flashing the BU40N to Buffalo BU10 (or apparently they now support BU40N 1.01) firmware. This is compatible with DVDFab's software, so you could then use their "Passkey" software instead of AnyDVD.

Sorry I couldn't be any more helpful...

[fitbrit]

Thanks. That's what I thought.

The problem is that the cases I use (for work) can only take slim drives. And even that is a step-up from only being able to use slot-loading drives which had been the case so far. I do use external full size drives out of necessity, but a one-box solution is much more appealing to customers. What I'm really looking for is the ability to play a UHD disk in JRiver Media Center without having to rip it first. Sadly, MakeMKV's ability to decrypt the video stream for playback by another application has been abandoned.

Nope. Neither of those drives can be flashed to a "UHD Friendly" firmware. They are stuck as "Official UHD" drives.

The problem is that there aren't any laptop drives that are "friendly". They are all "official". The BP60NB10 cannot be cross-flashed at all. The others I can think of (Buffalo, Archgon) also contain a BU40N inside their respective enclosures.

If you want to use AnyDVD, your best bet would be to buy an internal 5.25" drive.

Cheers

I don't think firmware 1.03 is any good for UHD.

The only thing I can think of, is flashing the BU40N to Buffalo BU10 (or apparently they now support BU40N 1.01) firmware. This is compatible with DVDFab's software, so you could then use their "Passkey" software instead of AnyDVD.

Sorry I couldn't be any more helpful...

Not at all. That last post could be very helpful indeed. If Passkey will work - that's fine. I did flash the BU40N to the MK 1.03 first, and then to 1.00. That allowed me to rip 4K discs. If I can crossflash to BU10 and make it PassKey compatible, that would be ideal.

[Billycar11]

Not at all. That last post could be very helpful indeed. If Passkey will work - that's fine. I did flash the BU40N to the MK 1.03 first, and then to 1.00. That allowed me to rip 4K discs. If I can crossflash to BU10 and make it PassKey compatible, that would be ideal.

1.00 works with dvdfab no need for bu10

[Allistah]

i do not recommend flashing it in a vm if you don't have a windows pc or are not willing to bootcamp your mac i would recommend you buy one preflashed

the BU40N is only slightly slower than an NS60
but if you want faster and cheaper go with WH14NS40 with WH16NS60 firmware the only thing you lose is UHD official playback capability that you cant use on a mac anyway.

Ok so the BU40N is only slightly slower than the NS60. I’m fine with that, currently I only have the internal SuperDrive in the MacBook Pro which is rip locked. The BU40N will be pretty portable, and still pretty fast.

Anything else I should know about this BU40N slim drive? I’m going to get the Vantec slim USB case that works with flashing as well.

Hah, just thought of something, this drive works on a Mac doesn’t it?! Haha

[fitbrit]

Not at all. That last post could be very helpful indeed. If Passkey will work - that's fine. I did flash the BU40N to the MK 1.03 first, and then to 1.00. That allowed me to rip 4K discs. If I can crossflash to BU10 and make it PassKey compatible, that would be ideal.

1.00 works with dvdfab no need for bu10

Thanks for that tip. When I was finally able to navigate the mess that is the DVDFab site to get the right software, I did indeed confirm that the BU40N with 1.00 firmware works with PassKey. I bought the 5-license full package DVDFab bundle as a result. Pretty cool to be able to play a disc without ripping it first.

[bosknet]

Hi,

one short question:
I want to buy the "LG BH16NS55" to rip my UHD-Blu-Rays.
In the Buyers Guide on the first site is this Drive recommended.

Is this still OK?
Thank you to all

[Billycar11]

Hi,

one short question:
I want to buy the "LG BH16NS55" to rip my UHD-Blu-Rays.
In the Buyers Guide on the first site is this Drive recommended.

Is this still OK?
Thank you to all

yes as long as it meets all the requirements

[troyBORG]

You can only flash the drive if it is newer than late 2015 and has the NS50 service code on the drive label. If neither of these are true, then do not flash it.

Yeah I bought it back on 9/18/2016 according to newegg.
It had 1.02 on it originally, and I flashed 1.03 on it a while ago.

I got it flashed back to 1.02 so I'm good.

[kherg]

i crossflashed a LG BU40N (slimline, internal) to ASUS BW-16D1HT. Worked with no other FW. Tried then to downgrade to LG 1.0 FW but was not possible.
I can see the device in the MKV screen with the ASUS FW, but the device doesnt work.

Any ideas?

[Billycar11]

i crossflashed a LG BU40N (slimline, internal) to ASUS BW-16D1HT. Worked with no other FW. Tried then to downgrade to LG 1.0 FW but was not possible.
I can see the device in the MKV screen with the ASUS FW, but the device doesnt work.

Any ideas?

Crossflashing Warnings:

1. Don't crossflash desktop drives to slim drives or the other way around

You need to use dos flash to recover your drive now or send it to me to recover otherwise it's ruined

And most likely the new dosflash at that if your drive had 1.03 that you need to boot in a real dos environment

[MartyMcNuts]

i crossflashed a LG BU40N (slimline, internal) to ASUS BW-16D1HT. Worked with no other FW. Tried then to downgrade to LG 1.0 FW but was not possible.
I can see the device in the MKV screen with the ASUS FW, but the device doesnt work.

Any ideas?

Why would you do that!! Why not flash BU40N 1.03-MK??? As Billy said, you will now have a very hard time recovering the drive!

[Billycar11]

you will now have a very hard time recovering the drive!

and these drive are strange some need the new dos flash others don't even when they were on 1.03 i don't understand it i have recovered quite a few already. i think some firmware unblocks dosflash when the user starts flashing all sorts of firmware to try and make it take bu40n slim firmware. i dont know what firmware it is though