Laptop PATA Bluray drives

[Kouryu]

I spent the past two hours looking (mostly searching on this forum) for a PATA laptop Bluray drive and seeing as there weren't many around, I guess it wasn't really discussed. I'm at a lost. So in desperation, I registered and posting this. So far, I see there's the Optiarc BC-5500A, BC-5600A, Matshita UJ-110, UJ-120 (crap), UJ-210, UJ-215, UJ-220, and UJ-225 from what I could find. None of these could be patched and that's really too bad.

My question is, are there any other PATA laptop (slim) BD drives? If so, any recommendations and any that could be patched? At this point, I'm swaying towards the BC-5500A and having to deal with AnyDVD. Optiarc's firmware naming scheme is also a mess, so for this one I'm looking at, I have no idea which OEM it's intended for. I guess I'll need to contact Liggy...

So again, any other PATA laptop BD drives other than those mentioned? I don't care if it's a combo drive or burn everything drive. I really have no need to burn BD-Rs on my laptop. My crossflashed to GGW-H20L does me fine on the desktop.

[g3monster]

Little OT but how open are you to using an external USB2 BD-R?

You can find em all over ebay for under au$80 + just about any laptop made in the last 5-7 years should be able to boot from it.

Here is the one I purchased for my laptop (I needed a cheap bd-rom drive but the burner was better value for only a few bucks more) rather than screw around with the internal Lite-on DVD burner.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/270904522049?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

The case is cheap as hell and feels like it too but the drive performs as advertised and is capable of burning bdxl disks.

I can’t say about the patchable thing because I haven’t even bothered to look into it as I have already got patched drives in my desktop.

[Kouryu]

naw, I don’t want external USB… too clumsy since space is precious when I travel… there’s tons of external drives I know, but I rather not use them

so any long time “cdfreaks” guys here who can give me an answer?

[Albert]

I’m not aware of any patches available for slim BD drives, but I think your decision to get an Optiarc drive is good. Hopefully someone with more knowledge can step in and say if any of the models you listed are good.

[Kouryu]

Albert, are you aware of any other slim PATA BD drives than the ones I listed?

[Liggy]

I just checked a price comparison site in Germany and the only drive listed with support for Blu-Ray and PATA interface was the BC-5500A.

No idea about other old models from different manufacturers.

[Kouryu]

Liggy, do you have a list of the latest firmwares for this drive? I know Sony OEM is 1.7f, Optiarc generic OEM is 1.05… what about the others? Seeing as the lack of responses, I think I will get this drive. I found one on ebay brand new for $40, the pics show 1.60 FW on the label, do you think it is a Sony OEM drive or something else? I definitely would want to put the latest firmware on whatever is sent to me!

[Liggy]

No. Don’t have an overview. I only have a couple of files (best check out www.firmwarehq.com)

There is currently no way to flash from one OEM firmware to the other.

And to answer the question from your PM: It is not possible to flash the unencrypted firmware so patching won’t help here

[Kouryu]

ok, thanks!

one last question: does the RPC2 reset tool work for this drive in the event that I accidentally go over the 5 setting counter? I’m guessing not?

[Liggy]

The region reset tool will probably not work (development stopped years ago), however chances should be quite good that the reset functionality in Binflash will work