are DRW 1004IM and DRW 1008Im the same

hi to all of u.
I bought a 1004 and i am beginning to play.
I had the last firmware installed, i bought it as a OLIDATA.
Is it possible 1004 and 1008 are the same drive?
Anyone did install the 1008 formware to test if it runs?
Thanks on advance.
MArco

That would be a big surprise if, just by firmware, you can change a 4x generation drive into the next 8x generation.

tell you what, you try it, and let us all know the result!

You will have the pride of being a pioneer, and I suspect you will have a dead drive.

You have to realise that, while you can sometimes increase the available speeds of a drive/media combination by updating firmware, you cannot transform last year's drive into this year's drive, just with a magic firmware update.

Or am I wrong?

Or am I wrong?

this is what i was trying to understand.

Two post after this, there is a guy who did it.
I didnt see it before posting.
IT's not a news that hardware firm have an economy on doing the same hardware and selling it under more performance dress..
It happens with Radeon, cd writer, cpu..
What has the 1008 that the 1004 do not?
That's the question..
Am i on the forum of dvdr enthusiast or not??

I remember now I made my Liteon 48x cdwriter into a 52x model just with a firmware update.

But that was a small change, compared to a doubling of speed.

And I once killed an ATI Radeon card by flashing the wrong firmware, two days after I bought it! I took it back to the shop and said it was faulty

What is the name of the 2 post after this where the guy did it?

Also, this is Club CD Freaks on cdfreaks.com.

me too i had some problem with an ATI. i was using that strange overclock software... i dont remember his name, i removed it from my mind

Well, i think that a percentuage of risk must be taken to have the best spending the minus

It worked well with the earliest Pentium 90 (they were the same unit of 150, underclocked..)

Now i am trying to understand if this work on DVD.

It will be strange if the BTC was assumed to spend a lot of money to make two hardware totally different. The hardware producer usually dont do this, for economy.

So...

He was trecivettesulcomò.

And someone has replied, but the topic is still alive.

I think that there are many step between 4x and 8x, 6 for example, and i am triyng to understand if one can use it.

Perhaps it will work..

Or not?? If not, i will be going to the shop as u did..

Questa avrei dovuto capirla ma non l'ho capita...


Traslation:

This I had to understand but I didn't...

trecivettesulcomò

means three little owls on the bureau...

Is a common Italian phrase

is the posting name of the person who - maybe - is trying to flash a 1004 to be a 1008.

I found it by typing that very word trecivettesulcomò into Google. It found me a thread on this forum.

Maybe you can search using this forum's search function.

Yes - copy and paste the word into the search for user name box.

He is crazy, he says he will flash and if the drive is ruined, he will pretend it is faulty and ask for a refund...

I know I did that to ATI once, but I am sorry, and also I did not post it on the net!!!

The final letter, ò - an o with a grave accent, means he is Italian, non e vero?

Anyway, if you read his posts, I think he is making a mischief because he does not actually say he has done the flash.

After being asked plenty of times. Maybe he is a troll. Comme il est con!

My thoughts are these:-

1. manufacturers often sample their products. That means they test all the - for example - memory chips or cpus that come off a production line and they separate them into grades. the best ones are marked at the highest specification, the next get a lower spec. and so on.

So it is true that maybe 2 items came off the same production line, but they may not work the same.

Sometimes a cpu manufacturer will deliberately down grade a cpu to fill a gap in its range, so you buy an Athlon 2100 which is a good 2400 (not a real example). In that case you are lucky, but you cannot depend on it!!!

You could find you have borderline performance issues with your unofficial use of components in this way.

I am afraid that the magic download that doubles your performance for free, and saves you 50 euros, is from the land of dreams!

2. Marco is the moderator of this forum. He works for BTC Europe. That means you will not be likely to read on here advice to break your equipment!!!

From what I have read, and from my own personal experience, Marco is a helpful and friendly person. I do not think he would like to see people break their equipment.

Like that other thread, the trecivettesulcomò one, says, you could burn out your laser head!!!

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Last edited by contrex; 07-01-2004 at 15:38.

I have had this POS BTC1004 drive for almost 2 months now and got so sick of it that I started using it just to read difficult discs. Then I came accross this thread that led me to the other that talked about applying the 1008 firmware to the 1004. Since I have not recieved a reply from Marco (You get smart and go to work for Lite-on?) I decided to perform the flash upgrade. Just to make this clear:

I DID FLASH THE DRIVE WITH THE 1008 V 54 FLASH.

I have no idea what the two media types listed as 8X compatable on the BTC web site are, so I have not tried to burn at 8X, and I don't really care to right now.

What I did test was the two types of media that I am currently using. Both Memorex brand with the following MID code: PRODISCS03 AND CMCMAG.AF1.

The Prodisc media worked fine with the 1004 firmware, but the cmcmag disc's did not. I used both version 47 and 48.

After upgrading to the 1008 firmware guess what? Both disc's worked fine! I am wasting some additional media right now to be sure it was not a fluke.

So what is the deal? The BTC engineers can not offer the same supported media for both drive (4X and under of corse) when the are the same hardware (probably)?

This is VERY interesting!
Can you provide us information on how to flash 1004 to 1008's firmware? I tried some time ago but the WinFlasher provided within the downloadable firmware package didn't do the job.
Also, colud you post KProbe disc scans after the update?
And please, don't disappear like trecivettesulcomò!
Hope to hear you VERY soon!

I'm working on the Kprobe results right now. All you need to do to flash is download the 54.bin file from the first post and the 47t firmware. I used the copy of mtkflash that was provided there and change the f.bat file to look like this:

rem 'f means MTKFLASH 4 W /C /b 54.bin
@echo off
if 1%1 == 1 goto default
goto end

:default
@echo on
mtkflash 4 w /c /b 54.bin
goto end

:end


You will need to change the 4 after mtkflash to the correct ide port:

1 Primary Master
2 Primary Slave
3 Secondary Master
4 Secondary Slave

Then copy 54.bin, mtkflash.exe and f.bat to a floppy disk.

Then I went to rpc1.org and downloaded >NIL's boot iso image and wrote it to a cdr.

All that is left to do is boot with the cdr and run f.bat from the floppy.

Keep in mind that I did not write anything at 8X, I just want to see if the media that I use works better.


UPDATE: If you use mtkflash 1.80.1 then do not use the /b switch or it will leave your drive in a bad state!!

---

Last edited by ccbadd; 21-01-2004 at 15:47.

Great explanation, thank you very much!
I'll wait for KProbe scans to decide wheter to update or not.
Keep us informed! Thank you again!

i am Italian too. And happy to share it with Trecivette.
He replied to me by mail.

And, Ccbad, u have a great italian dinner with great italian wine and a great italian coffee paid, when u ll do holidays here.
U replied to my question.
The answer was YES.

THANKS.

il n'est pas con .Seulement il n'avait pas lit, Contrex.

Naturally I'm Italian like you

And so am I
I agree with you giaguaro: we've got to pay this guy something if this trick really work!

Better than mountain goats?

Ha ha ha...

Here are my first Kprobe scan:

Disc Type = DVD-R
Manufacturer = CMC Magnetics Corporation

<< Disc Information >>
Erasable = False
Status of Last Session/Border = Complete Session/Border
Disc Status = Complete Disc
Number of First Track/RZone on Disc = 1
Number of Sessions/Borders(LSB) = 1
First Track/RZone Number in Last Session/Border(LSB) = 1
Last Track/RZone Number in Last Session/Border(LSB) = 1
Disc Identification Valid(DID_V) = False
Disc Bar Code Valid(DBC_V) = False
Unrestricted Use Disc(DRU) = True
Disc Type = CD-DA or CD-ROM Disc
Disc Identification = 00000000h
Lead-in Start Time of Last Session = 00:00:00(00:00:00h)
Last Possible Start Time for Startof Lead-out = 00:00:00(00:00:00h)
Disc Bar Code = 0000000000000000h
Number of OPC Table Entries = 0

<< Track Information >>
Number of Complete Sessions on Disc = 1
Session 1 :
A0 = 0:0:0
A1 = 0:0:0
A2 = 0:0:0
Track Number 1
Track Start 0:0:0

Errrrrrr... Is it good?

If it wasn't for that one line I think it would be perfect. With the 1004 firmware it couldn't even finish. I just started using Kprobe so I don't really know what to look for yet. I also tested a Princo disk and it was good until the last 5% or so but I can't upload it because I saved it as a bmp instead of png.

Oui, il n'est pas du tout con. Je m'excuse!!!

Maybe I have been confused. Is the purpose of flashing a 1004 with 1008 firmware:-

1. to improve media compatibility at 4x speed and below?
or
2. to get an 8x burner cheaply?

if the reason is (1) then I won't do it because my 1004 has not made a coaster yet. I have gone to 0.48 firmware and all is good. If the answer is (2) I would like to know that the drive has been in normal use as an 8x burner for some weeks and burnt many disks.

I still think that sampling of laser heads may be a problem. You may get a good one for 8x, I may have a bad one.

I don't really care about the 8X, just this particular media that the 1004 could not write reliably. The 8X features of this drive are not like that of the Plextor and Lite-on which can burn a 4X disc at up to 8X speed. There are only two media's listed on the BTC website rated at 8X and I have no idea where to get them, I have never heard of either. I tried the firmware because I have not seen nearly as many problem posts about the 1008 as far as media compatability goes.

Now here is what would be really interesting and most definitely not possible: both the Lite-on and this drive are based on Mediatek chipsets. I sould love to see all the components of each and if they are compatable, convert this thing to a Lite-on 411S or maybe even an 811S!!!!!

This is probably just a dream, but a good one!

I'd love to see PRINCO graph after the 1008 update!
You could convert it to jpeg/png/gif (photoshop/paint shop pro should do the job) or upload the bmp on a free web space and link it here! Or you could send it to me by mail!
I also thought some time ago of flashing this drive with the 411-S firmware, but I think that in this case, even if the chipset is the same, mechanic, laser, eeprom and whatever is totally different...
But maybe, if someone would like to trash his 1004, he could try out this first...
Last thing: i think that the high peak in KProbe's graph is either a reading fault of the drive, or a little scratch or pixel of dust on the disc...the result is perfect! (PI should be under 300 and PO under 32 if I remember correctly...)

OK here it is:

Is the last part of that dvd readable?

[edit]

Did you checked it with for example cd-dvd speed from nero?

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