LG DVD Writer FAQ (Updated 28 Jul 2008)

25.I have cross flashed my H10A->H10N. Can I cross flash it back to a H10A if I need to?

Yes, you can. However, LG's own H10A firmware has a built in check which will not allow you to flash a H10N (which you drive now appears to be to the firmware flashing program) with H10A firmware. To get around this, use TDB's H10A firmware to cross flash your drive back to a H10A. After that, if you really need to flash with LG's own firmware, you can do so (H10N->H10A TDB fw->H10A LG fw).

TDB's firmware page is here :
http://tdb.rpc1.org

Thanks to the many people who asked about this and to TDB for coming up with the modified firmware that makes this possible.

26.I have crossflashed my H10N->H12N. Can I cross flash it back to a H10N if I need to?

Yes, you can. You will need TDB's version of H10N firmware to do this as LG's original version has a built in model comparison check. That check will cause LG's original version of firmware to refuse to flash the drive because it thinks it is being used on a different (and therefore incorrect) model of writer. Should you want to go back to LG's H10N firmware, first flash with TDB's version of H10N firmware, then flash with LG's original version (H12N->H10N TDB fw->H10N LG fw).

Thanks to the many people who asked about this and to TDB for coming up with the modified firmware that makes this possible.

27.Can I cross flash a H10N/A->H10L, H12N->H12L, H20N->H20L, or H22N-H22L and gain lightscribe ability?

No. Take the H10L, for example. It has an extra sensor used for the lightscribe function it supports. This sensor is missing from the H10N/A. It may be possible to flash the H10N/A with H10L firmware (using TDB's modified version), but you won't be able to gain lightscribe ability. The same thing applies when attempting to cross flash other non-lightscribe LG writers into their respective lightscribe capable siblings.

See this post for more information :

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...7&postcount=29

Thanks to 2601 for clarifying this issue.

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Last edited by karangguni; 01-01-2007 at 21:12.

28.If I use one of the Hitachi firmware versions (DNxx, DJxx, JJxx, UJxx), can I switch back to standard LG firmware?

Yes you can. However, LG's own firmware has a built in check which will not allow you to flash a drive using Hitachi firmware with LG firmware. To get around this problem, use TDB's versions of LG firmware instead. The built in check has been disabled in TDB's versions. If you really need to use LG's own firmware versions on your writer, then first flash with TDB's LG firmware, then with LG's own versions (e.g. DJ->DL TDB fw->DL LG fw).

Thanks to the many people who asked about this and to TDB for coming up with the modified firmware that makes this possible.

TDB's firmware page is here :
http://tdb.rpc1.org

Specific drive feature issues :

29.Do LG Writers support book typing/bit setting?

Yes, all LG retail models from the GSA-4120B onwards should support book typing/bit setting for DVD+R and DVD+DL media. The exception being the 4160B, which for some reason, cannot perform book typing/bit setting at all (curiously, the external version, the 5160D, seems to support book typing).

LG writers in general do not allow book typing/bit setting for DVD+RW media, however, but this is fairly common among DVD writers at the moment.

You can set the book type on an LG drive with most software such as Nero or ImgBurn. The book type setting stays until you reboot the system, after which you have to reset the book type again. The exception to this rule is the GSA-4166B which automatically book types DVD+R and DVD+DL discs to DVD-ROM by default.

30.Do LG Writers support automatic/permanent book typing/bit setting?

The GSA-4166B automatically book types DVD+R and DVD+DL discs to DVD-ROM by default. You do not have to set anything on that drive. This may also apply to the GSA-2164D and 2166D drives as well. The newer GSA-H20L also supports this feature.

There are four models of LG writers for which it is possible to add automatic book typing/bit setting by flashing the drive with Hitachi firmware. These are the GSA-4165B, GSA-4167B, GSA-H10N and the GSA-H12N. Once flashed, the drives will book type all DVD+R and DVD+DL discs to DVD-ROM automatically. However, note that you cannot enable or disable this feature through software any more - it is virtually a hardware feature that is permanently turned on. Nero CD Speed will show that the drive does not support book typing/bit setting and other burning software that automatically book type discs using software commands, may indicate that setting the book type failed. However, DVD+R and DVD+DL discs burned with the drives will show a book type of DVD-ROM, so the feature does work. For more information on flashing with Hitachi firmware, see Q24.

For the rest of the models, however, there is no way to do automatic or permanent book typing in the same manner as done on BenQ writers with Qsuite. However, there is a sort of workaround to this : Alexnoe has written a little command line utility called BitSet which can be used to set the book type on most LG writers. If you configure this utility to run from your startup folder and tell it to set the book type on your writer for DVD+R/+DL discs to DVD-ROM, it will do that for you every time your system is rebooted or started up. This gives you a form of pseudo permanent book typing. See this thread for more information :
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=127918

Thanks to alexnoe for writing BitSet.

31.Can LG Writers perform quality scans?

Sadly, no. This is a much requested feature from users, but none of LG's writers seem capable of performing quality scans.

32.Can LG writers overspeed media?

Some models of LG writers allow limited overspeeding. The GSA-4163B for example, will overspeed the following 8x DVD+R media to 12x :

• MCC003
• RICOHJPNR02
• YUDEN000-T02
• MAXELL002
• TDK002

The GSA-4167B is supposed to be able to support overspeeding for these same media codes. It works with firmware version DL11, but overspeeding for MCC003 seems to have been crippled in DL13. With DL13, 12x write speeds are available in the firmware for this media code, but the drive itself does not seem to let you select 12x when you try to burn. This is some sort of lock in the firmware preventing burning at 12x. RICOHJPNR03 (Ricoh 16x DVD+R) discs, also burn at only 12x when 16x is selected as the burn speed. This is probably for the same reason. A hacked version of 4167B firmware which removes these speed limits was tested and burn quality at these speeds for both types of media was not good. That is probably why the write speeds for these two types of media was limited in the first place.

The same behaviour also seems to apply for the H10x/H12x series of writers.

If you want to do more extreme overspeeding, you can try using Media Code Speed Edit (MCSE), a little firmware hacking tool written by ala42. More information on MCSE can be found here :
http://ala42.cdfreaks.com/MCSE/

Thanks to ala42 for the excellent MCSE.

33.Do LG writers have a learning feature, similar to that found on BenQ/Lite-On writers?

No. LG writers do not seem to have this sort of feature.

34.Is there any hacked firmware available which will enable X feature/remove Y restriction?

Currently, the only hacked firmware available for LG writers is mentioned above. These remove region protection (see Q15) and riplocks (see Q16) for certain models of LG writers. Hitachi firmware (see Q24) also enables some new features and disables some read speed limits for certain drive models.

Unfortunately, there is no hacked firmware for enabling DVD+RW book typing/bit setting or enabling quality scans.

External writer issues :

35.Are there any LG writers which come with a firewire interface?

Yes. The older GSA-5120D/5160D/5163D external writers came with both USB 2.0 and firewire interfaces. However, LG seems to have dropped firewire support for the newer external units (GSA-216xD, GSA-5169D), which have only USB 2.0 interfaces.

36.Can I use my internal LG writer in an external USB/firewire enclosure?

The GSA-4167B was successfully used in an external casing, but it involved going through quite a lot of trouble to get it to work that way. The 4165B should also work because those two drives are essentially the same. It is possible that the GSA-H10N and GSA-H12N may also work in an external casing using the same methods, but this has not been properly tested.

Various people have tried using other internal LG writer models in an external enclosure and have run into problems. Usually one or more of the following problems arise :

• DVD+/-R media refuses to burn faster than 12x
• burning of audio CDs does not work
• trying to update the firmware fails

The results do depend on what chipset is used by the external closure but LG writers in general, do not adapt well to use in external cases when compared with other brands of DVD writers. As such, it is recommended that you avoid trying to use an LG writer in an external casing.

See these threads for more information :
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=160820 (from post #13 onwards)
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=176868

Thanks to Beefjerky and mobilenvidia for all the work done in this area.

General hardware related problems :

37.I have been getting "focus or tracking error" messages when I try to burn with my LG writer and my burns have been unsuccessful. What does this mean and can I do anything about it?

It is possible that the rails on which the lens mechanism slides need re-lubrication. The original lubrication compound applied at the factory may have dried up. This usually happens with drives that are quite old, although it can happen to newer drives. If your drive is still under warranty, send it back to have it
serviced. If your warranty has expired, there is a way to perform the re-lubrication process yourself. It involves opening up the drive's casing, which will almost certainly invalidate the warranty of the drive. This is why it is recommended that you only do this for drives with warranty which has expired. See the following thread for more information (the instructions there should work for most LG writers) :
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=158612

Thanks to luminos for bringing this up and providing the instructions to re-lubricate a drive.

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Last edited by karangguni; 01-01-2007 at 09:20.

Questions relating to specific models :

38.I have just purchased some Memorex 16x DVD-R discs but they will only burn at 4x on my GSA-4163B. What is going on?

Memorex does not make its own discs but instead gets other random manufacturers to produce discs for them. You may not be able to tell from one batch to another who makes a certain type of discs for them. The most common media ID for Memorex 16x DVD-R which this problem is usually reported with is CMCMAGAM3. This media code is not supported in any version of firmware for the 4163B up to the present A106. As a result, the writer uses its default write strategy, which only works at 4x, to burn these discs. People have been asking LG for firmware for this drive which supports these discs for some time.

If you are willing to get your hands dirty, you can try using ala42's excellent MCSE to rename an existing 16x DVD-R write strategy for another type of disc, to CMCMAGAM3. This will let you use that other disc's write strategy to burn these discs. Write quality may or may not be acceptable depending on what media code you choose to borrow. The only way to know for sure is trial and error, checking with another drive that does quality scanning as you go along.

However, there is some evidence that CMC MAG AM3 discs are based on technology from TDK. People have tried and gotten somewhat acceptable results by using the TTH02 (TDK 16x DVD-R) write strategy to burn these discs. This may be a useful starting point for you to explore, should you choose to experiment with MCSE.

The following threads may be of help to you :
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=133858
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=154752&page=2

If you find this to be too much trouble, buy discs which you know the media codes of. Avoid brands that keep switching manufacturers and disc types around. This way you can check for sure if your drive supports these discs at their rated speed.

Thanks to blackshard for experimenting with various write strategies used for burning these discs.

39.Does the GSA-4163B/4167B/H10x/H12x support burning 16x DVD-R discs at 12x?

The answer is yes and no. 12x is available in the firmware for these drives for 16x DVD-R discs. However, these writers will not let you select this speed when you try to burn them. Usually, whatever burning software you use will not let you select 12x when burning these discs. In the odd situation that the software does allow you to select that speed, the burner will burn the discs at 8x instead. Strangely enough, if you select 16x for burning, and the writer finds that it cannot manage to burn at 16x reliably, it will often drop back to 12x on its own.

So the speed is supported but you cannot select it. This is particularly annoying as 12x is often the best speed to burn many types of 16x DVD-R discs at. Why LG does this with these three burners is a subject of continuous debate.

Note that this only affects burning 16x DVD-R discs on these drives. 12x is selectable as a burn speed for 16x DVD+R discs.

This limitation may also be present in the GSA-H10N, as it uses the same chipset as the H10A.

Curiously enough, 12x is selectable for burning 16x DVD-Rs on the GSA-4166B, but that uses a different chipset from the two drives above (see Q5 for more details).

40.I cannot get my GSA-4163B/4167B/H10x to be detected as a UDMA4 drive.
What is going on?

Most LG writers are only UDMA2 devices. They do not support UDMA4 so you will never be able to get their IDE interfaces to run at 66Mb/s. This has been tested with both drives. The US LG website has posted conflicting information which indicates that the 4167B supports UDMA4. That information is incorrect.

Hitachi has its own versions of the GSA-4163B, GSA-4165B, GSA-4167B, GSA-H10N and GSA-H12N writers which are UDMA4 devices. These drives are available mostly only in Japan. See Q6 for more information on Hitachi's versions of LG drives.

It is possible to convert four models of LG writers to UDMA4 devices by flashing them with Hitachi firmware. These are the GSA-4165B, GSA-4167B, GSA-H10N and GSA-H12N. Unfortunately, the same process does not work for the GSA-4163B. See Q24 for more information on this subject.

The only current LG writers known to natively support UDMA4 are the GSA-4166B, H12x series (possibly the H20x series as well) and H22x series. The GSA-4166B seems to ship with a 40 wire cable though, which only supports UDMA2 at best. So many owners may not know that their drives are UDMA4 capable.

In any case, UDMA2 is sufficient for burning at 16x. Although your CPU usage when you read or write to the drive may drop, the only really useful benefit you get out of UDMA4 is if you do on the fly disc-to-disc copying.

The following thread may be of interest to you :
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=165931

Thanks to all the people who contributed to that thread, especially Spartane.

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Last edited by karangguni; 01-01-2007 at 21:24.

41.Audio CDs which are burned on my 4167B will not play properly on my stand alone CD player. The first track will not play, but the second onwards plays fine. How can I fix this?

Firmware revision DL13 specifically fixes this problem. Updating to it should deal with the issue.

42.My new GSA-4167B refuses to recognise blank discs/CD-Rs/DVD media/DVD movie discs/all of the above. What can I do?

This seems to be an issue with the voltage stability of certain power supply units (PSUs) used in in computer systems. It only seems to affect the GSA-4167B but only on certain drives. Some drives seem to be affected and some are not. It usually manifests itself as a combination of the symptoms mentioned above. Note that this is not an issue with how much wattage your PSU is rated to supply. Various people have gotten their 4167Bs to work properly with 250W PSUs.

This can usually be fixed by either changing to a good quality PSU (expensive), or if you are handy with a soldering iron, by adding some capacitors between the power supply and the writer (cheaper but troublesome).

Detailed information on the issue and instructions on the capacitor modification can be found here :
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=166553

Thanks to uart and weedougie for all the investigative work and information shared.

43.The quality scans done with my BenQ writer of discs burned with my H10x/H12x look absolutely horrible! What is wrong with my writer?

For some unknown reason, BenQ writers scan discs burned with the H10x/H12x series of writers with rather awful results. The usual symptoms include :

• elevated levels of PIFs, often one whole block of them in a row
• extremely high levels of jitter (16%+)

However, the same discs scanned with a Lite-On writer tell a very different story. Discs which scan with awful quality on a BenQ writer looks excellent when scanned with a Lite-On writer; PIE/PIF levels are low and jitter levels also look comparatively normal (using the still experimental DVDScan tool). Scans of the same discs with Plextor writers also confirm the results of scanning with Lite-On writers. See this post :

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...5&postcount=88
(Thanks to 2601 for the scans)

Furthermore, discs which display horrible scans on a BenQ writer seem to play without any trouble on most drives, including DVD players/set top boxes. With the PIE/PIF and jitter levels shown by a BenQ writer, this should not be possible. Every device used to read these discs should have severe problems doing so.

This seems to suggest that the results reported by BenQ writers are inaccurate for discs burned with the H10x/H12x series of writers. However, this applies ONLY to discs burned done with the H10x/H12x series of writers. Discs burned done with other models of LG writers when scanned with BenQ writers, produce scans which look normal. This does not mean that BenQ writers are not good scanning drives; it simply implies that BenQ scanners and LG H10x/H12x writers do not agree.

This issue is still somewhat controversial, since nobody can explain why the results differ so greatly between these two brands of scanning drives. However, for the moment, if you want to scan discs burned with a LG H10x/H12x series of writers, use a Lite-On writer.

(Thanks to C0deKing for testing H10N scans with BenQ/Lite-On scanners and with DVDScan.)

44.Where can I find firmware version JL04 for my H10A/JL11 for my H10N/LL11 for my H10L? It used to be available on LG's websites but I cannot seem to find it anymore?

These firmware releases were available on LG's website some time back but for some reason, LG removed them. However, they still seem to be available using LG's auto-update tool. The following page has links to these three firmware releases on LG's servers using the URL the auto-update tool uses :

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...8&postcount=23

The question of why the links were removed is a matter of some debate. Some people claim LG removed these firmware releases because they are defective in some way but this does not make much sense since the same firmware releases are still available using LG's auto-update tool. If something was really wrong with these firmware releases, there should be a lot more complaints about them. Yet many have used these very firmware updates when they were available on LG's web pages with few complaints. LG has also been known to be erratic about making firmware updates available on their webpages - some firmware releases are available only through their auto-update tool; one firmware release is available from only one of LG's service websites. Nobody knows exactly what LG is doing with their firmware releases.

(Thanks to dodecahedron for the links.)

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