NEC ND-3550A firmware upgrade problems

While being able to recover from self inflicted mistakes may be a plus,
I am clueless as to what went wrong.

I installed the trial version of AnyDVD 6.1.3.6
I installed the trial version of CloneDVD2 2.9.0.3

I have an NEC DVD burner ND-3550A with original firmware v 1.05

I downloaded Binflash - NEC GUI version 1.39.
Backed up the original firmware, then flashed
Liggy's ND3550 Bitsetting Firmware 1.07 - RPC1.

I made backup copies of a movie using AnyDVD and CloneDVD2.
When I played the backup copy on the DVD player connected to my television, I noticed there were no menus.
I put the inserted the original DVD into the NEC drive and got got an elaborate error message that I did not writedown.

I tried different things with and without AnyDVD running, with DVD discs, CD discs, and blank discs. In all cases inserting a disc into the drive locked up the computer which required powering down in order to reboot.

I disabled AnyDVD, I uninstalled the DVD drive from the Device Manager, then rebooted, and finally I reflashed the original firmware. Restoring the original firmware gave me control of my dvd drive.

Looking a Nero InfoTool today, I noticed that the region code appears to have been reset one time.
This leads me to suspect that somehow I changed the region code.


Nero InfoTool 4.4.0.0

Drive Information
------------------
Drive : _NEC DVD_RW ND-3550A
Type : DVD±R/RW DL Recorder
Firmware Version : 1.05
Buffer Size : 2 MB


Region Protection Control : RPC II
Region : 1
Changes User : 4
Changes Vendor : 4


I suspect that I either picked the wrong firmware or I missed one or more additional steps that I needed to complete in order to use Liggy's firmware. In either case, I am clueless on how to proceed or what went wrong. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Welcome to CDFreaks Forum, did you have a CD or DVD disc in the drive while you were trying to upgrade its firmware?.

TCAS, I would have had no reason to have a disc in the drive as I had not yet tested the applications. However, I can not state no for a fact.

There were enough users who had left a disc in the drive during flashing and had an paperweight after...

Try to reflash it again making sure there is not disc in the drive that is being flashed see if the resolve the problem.

Binflash won't allow a drive to be flashed if there is a disc in the drive (all recent version of Binflash check this).

Thanks for this information it is good to know these new versions with this limitaion..

Good feature!