LH-18A1H and EEPROM Utility problems

#1

Mine stock firmware version was HL03 and I wanted to do upgrade to HL09 patched so I readed many posts and did EEPROM backup. After successful firmware upgrade I tryed to run SMARTBURN application but it couldnt recognize mine drive. So I did downgrade to HL03 stocked, did EEPROM restore and SMARTBURN still refused to recognize mine drive. So I tryed to crossflash mine drive to Benq DW1810 <- to use qSuite instead but EEPROM Utility after claiming that upgrade was successful actualy didnt do notting at all and I was unable to flash drive with Benq firmware.

So I concluded that in mine case EEPROM Utility doeasnt write anything to the drive including restore EEPROM - no matter it says it does.

I used latest software version 3.7.2, and I did computer restart after every single operation I did.

Any known bugs in this issue or any suggestions? Thanks.

#2

Welcome to cdfreaks. :slight_smile:

What motherboard chipset and what OS are you on.

Have you tried Flash Utility from codeguys. It accepts .exe files as well. :wink:

#3

The Eeprom Utility has nothing to do with your Smartburn and also with the flashing problem. Your Smartburn problem could be caused by a bad ASPI layer. Your flashing problem is probably caused by using the original flasher, which refuses to flash a Liteon drive with Benq firmware.
Post the text output of Nero Infotool as text file attachment using the Manage Attatchments button so we can have a look at your config.

#4

Trashcan configuration is as follows:

CPU: AthlonXP 2600+ Barton core
MB: ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe [nForce2 400 Ultra]
RAM: 2x 512MB 333MHz Kingstone VR
HDD: 1x SATA Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB, 1x IDE IBM Deskstar 40GB
GPU: nVidia GForceFX 5600XT 256MB
Optical Storage: CDRW LiteOn LTR-52246S, DVDRW LiteOn LH-18A1H
PSU: Chieftec 420W + SurgeArest

OSs:

  • SATA drive: WinXP Pro SP2, Debian Linux Etch
  • IDE drive: Win2000 Pro SP4

All systems are up to date. For this task I used WinXP and Win2K.

In the meanwhile I managed to crossflash LiteOn drive to Benq DW1810 and qSuite is working fine, however SmartWrite still refuse to recognize mine drive - but thats another story. Main question in this topic is EEPROM Utility possible bug with restoration of backup. And yes all utilities that I have used for this project are from codeguys website. Therefore I expect to see his opinion about this issue.

#5

“The Eeprom Utility has nothing to do with your Smartburn”

Yea I know and I never stated that it does. I tryed to explain whole problem from how it started - all I say about Utility is that it DOES NOT writes backups of EEPROM.

Picture is worth more than 1K words…

#6

And the requested logfile is even worth more :). A similar problem was solved here. So incase you use the NVidea IDE driver, remove it.

#7

Yea the problem was with nVidia IDE driver as you sugested! However SmartBurn was working with that same driver before first flashing.

Ok now that these problems are solved I have no further questions. Thanks for quicq support.

However now - with Benq firmware I have isues with low quality burning. Now back to the orginal LiteOn firmware…

I must leave note for all those who are willing to crossflash their LiteOn drives with Benq firmware.

  1. Now that SmartBurn test version is in the wild - you have all stuff that qSuite provides!
  2. I have searched whole Benq website network, their FTP servers and internet and found very few firmwares for their drives, so I concluded that they are rarely updated!
  3. Burning quality is very poor! [in mine case - but i readed before that someone asked about procedure on how to do crossflashing back to LiteOn - maybe the same reason]

Mine advice would be to stay with LiteOn since they have regular updates and great wrighting quality. For this experiment you can lose yours whole day and in very best case get only 2-3% in quality.