Flash Failure Recovery problem with Emprex

CD, DVD and (Ultra HD) Blu-ray Writers
#1

Hi, I’m new here, and I’m hoping I can get some help with my problem here more immediately than the help I’m still waiting for from Emprex and drvupdate.com. I’m sorry if the solution to this problem is somewhere in the forum. I couldn’t find an exact match to my particular problem, so I just wanted to make sure by asking.

I just bought and installed an Emprex DVD Dual 16x Internal Drive on a Windows ME computer. It worked fine when I turned on the computer afterwards, but when I used LiveUpdate on the disc provided to update to the latest firmware for the drive, the computer froze midway through updating. I couldn’t move the cursor so I rebooted the computer, and that’s when the problems occurred.

After the reboot, the green light on the drive is always on, the disc tray will not open, and the computer no longer detects the dvd drive. So I went to the drvupdate.com website and found the flash failure recovery procedure. Thinking that would get the drive working again, I followed the instructions. However, the bootdisk they provided somehow disabled my C: drive in DOS. I couldn’t get to it to continue the procedure. So, I decided to create my own bootdisk with the Create Startup Disk option on Windows ME. With that, I was able to get to my C: drive to continue. Next, I didn’t get Step 2, “Unzip the firmware to hard disk (when you have a NTFS partition download NTFSDOS) unzip the ntfsdos file to the bootdisk, if there is not enough space take a new one.” I downloaded the DOS version firmware for my drive model and unzipped it to my C: drive. But I don’t understand what this NTFS partition is? None of the following steps refer to this NTFSDOS file. So I continue anyway, and made sure I had my IDE cable unplugged when I booted to DOS, then plugged it back after. The instruction says to type in “C:\FW> F” if the drive is connect to the Secondary Master IDE Channel, which mine is. I type in the “F” but I get this error. It says “ERR: fail to initial IDE port, please reboot PC.”

And that’s where I’m stuck. I don’t know what else to do? I’m not computer savvy, so I’m just following instructions. Did I do something wrong somewhere in those steps? Is there another way to correctly do this flash failure recovery? Thank you for any help anyone can provide.

#2

Hello and welcome to the forums,

it should work if you follow the instructions which you have described.

NTFS DOS is required to access your partition in case that it is formatted in NTFS format. If you don’t know, then just goto “my computer”, select the c: partition, right-click and select properties. In case you have to run NTFSDOS then please note that your C: partition will be recognised as d: in DOS.

If you don’t like to run NTFSDOS then just unzip the firmware file and mtkflash with its files to a second floppy.

you can also check out the following threads for more information:

How to connect the drives
Guide to flash the drive in DOS
Firmware download

#3

Thank you for those links. I’ll read up and try following those procedures.

One more thing, I just checked my c: partition and it says FAT32 under file system. It doesn’t say NTFS anywhere. Does this mean I don’t have to run that NTFSDOS file to flash the drive? Also, the DOS firmware I downloaded and unzipped to my C: drive from drvupdate.com, there is an .exe file called “MTK180” on it. Am I supposed to type that in instead of “F” which is a .bat file?

#4

correct

Also, the DOS firmware I downloaded and unzipped to my C: drive from drvupdate.com, there is an .exe file called “MTK180” on it. Am I supposed to type that in instead of “F” which is a .bat file?

MTK180.exe is the flash-tool, F.bat is the command file which includes the complete, for the flash of your drive requried command string. the command MTK180.exe alone wouldn’t have any effect.

#5

Does anyone know if there is a way to go back to an older firmware version I upgraded my burner to A190 and now I have 15 f-in coaster’s :{ talk about peeeeeeeeeeed off

#6

Just flash with an older version, A089for example

#7

Thanks i did that and i guess my burner has died because the flash didnt fix it i’ve tried to clean it and use a different brand of disc so the only thing left is to go buy a new one oh well :sad: