GHR7 new firmware for LTD-163D

[dimitri]

This is brand new, dating December 18.
Still not on the Jlms site. Got it from an owner who received it from Jlms support today.
thanks Elunic0!

I've put the Win32 exe on my 163-D page and a BIN version on my Binaries page.

Feel free to come and get it

[dimitri]

At my binaries page there are 3 different GHR7 bin's now:

GHR7 - original JLMS binary
GHR7JF - region free binary identified as JLMS
GHR7LF - region free binary identified as LiteOn
(thanks to SecretAgentMan for the last 2)

Not bad for a firmware that's not been officially published yet

[VEFF]

I just ran GHR7.exe on my new LTD-163D (just ins5talled it; bought 3 1/2 weeks ago) and it gives an error message "drive model doesn't match",
and won't let me update.

Both the drive and Device Manager report it to be 163D though.

Any ideas?

Happy holidays!

Thanks!

[dimitri]

Yea happy holliday to all

Veff, it will be much easier to help you if I knew what firmware version you have at the moment.

cheers

[VEFF]

Yea happy holliday to all

Veff, it will be much easier to help you if I knew what firmware version you have at the moment.

cheers

Hi dimitri,

I was out for Christmas dinner last night and will be out all day today,
but I may check the web from my girlfriend's house later when I install; the burner I got her.

I have GHR3.
I guess I can simply use the DOS based mtkflash and the binary...
I mean the drive is definitely a LiteOn...

[dimitri]

Stange! ghr3 should be accepted by the Windows ghr7 upgrader without any problems. I thought maybe you had an oem drive.

Of course you could use mtkflash+ghr7.bin, but if you prefer to do it in Windows, try again. Should it fail give me a sign and I'll send you a fixed ghr7.exe that will accept ANY drive.

[CignaXI]

Updated it without any problem under WinXP Pro and without the need of any compatibility mode.

The other 2 binaries are also working fine.

Hey dimitry do you have any info on what does this firmware does?
Thanks for the updates!

[dimitri]

CignaXI,
I don't know what the changes are, but I got couple of emails from owners saying their drive could not read normal cdrom anymore (dvd's were ok) and this firmware has fixed that. I therefore presume that there are improvements made in the laser/pickup head frequency control.

Also, they seem to have improved the flasher engine itself, resulting in a more stable Windows exe. There are (yet..) no reports of nasty crashes while upgrading in Windows. You can never eliminate this risk for 100% but any improvement is more than welcome

[VEFF]

Thanks dimitri.
Sorry I didn't realize that I didn't specify in my original post that I have a CenDyne.
However, the drive case has a sticker with LTD-163D and Device Manager
says LiteOn and has 163D as well.

Strange, since the firmware revision matches the official LiteOn one (GHR3), so I don't think it is customized...

Maybe it is because I have it hooked up to my Promise Ultra100 PCI card.
I mean, maybe the Windows flasher is seeing my other (Artec 16X DVD-ROM) and therefore issuing the "incorrect drive (model)" message.

[dimitri]

Maybe it is because I have it hooked up to my Promise Ultra100 PCI card

Absolutely. There's hardly any flasher for any atpi device that sees anything except the 4 main ide ports. Mtkflash will not see it either. You'll have to connect it on one of those. You can return it later to the Promise but imho it's best to leave it on the main ide.

[VEFF]

Maybe it is because I have it hooked up to my Promise Ultra100 PCI card

Absolutely. There's hardly any flasher for any atpi device that sees anything except the 4 main ide ports. Mtkflash will not see it either. You'll have to connect it on one of those. You can return it later to the Promise but imho it's best to leave it on the main ide.

Thanks for the feedback.
Well, I managed to flash my old Panasonic DVD-R and now my DRU-500A DVD burner, while each was hooked up to the Promise card...

But the LiteOn flasher is of course a different program, and not knowing the software code used to write it, who knows how smart it is for IDE channel and device detection.

I will hook it up to one of the motherboard's IDE channels for flashing purposes, and see what happens.

[VEFF]

Updated it by temporarily moving it to the secondary master on motherboard.

Then I noticed that the new name for LiteOn is JLMS.
I may use mtkflash and use GHR7lf.bin, so it shows LiteOn.\

Thanks for providing it.

[dimitri]

Ok, glad it's sorted out