Help with Liteon 163 please!

[vsvsvs]

Been trying to make my drive region free without much success so far... it's a Liteon 163 GDHA... so i believe it's a Dell drive (?), well it came with a Dell computer anyway... it's currently set to Region 2 btw

basically the Rpcde doesn't work, ie. when I click "Disable" it says it's disabled but driveinfo says differently! would I need to flash the drive to allow this to work? plus I am slightly scared to try that incase it buggers up my drive! what firmwares would DEFINITELY work? and is there any other ways to region free it?

it's kinda confusing, so apologies if that makes no sense... but any help would be appreciated

[TheWizard]

Have you checked Dimitri's site yet? He has quite a few tools there, including region-free goodies.

http://digitri.tk

[vsvsvs]

i have yeah... I've gone through the region free page a few times, but Rpcde just won't work, the program runs and everything, but after trying it it doesn't make any difference to the drive itself ... just wondering whether my final chance is changing the firmware (which I must admit kinda intimidates me )

Thanks though

[dimitri]

GDHA is indeed a Dell, they are currently on GDHG. You don't need to upgrade for the purpose of making the drive region free, but if you used the 5 zone changes the drive is locked and you might have to flash the firmware before Rpcde can do its job.

You say it came in a Dell machine, but is it still in that system?

Please give some details about your Windows version, how the drive is connected on the IDE controller, What exactly does DriveInfo say about it, whether you have RegionKiller installed or not...

Also, did you download Rpcde in the last 2 days? because it's a new improved version.

If you decide to upgrade the firmware you can download the latest original Dell stuff here:
ftp://ftp.us.dell.com/rmsd/BR53103.exe
Don't be afraid of it, it will make a boot diskette for you which will take care of everything nearly by itself.

[vsvsvs]

Nah, the drive isn't locked... I still had 3 changes left when I first tried Rpcde... I still have 1 left now (since I was fiddling about a bit)... The Drive is still indeed in the original machine, and it's running WinXP Home Edition... on the System screen it just says "Version 2002", so whatever that means Not sure how it is connected, however Dell do it I suppose I purchased the computer last January!

Driveinfo just says "THIS DRIVE HAS REGION PROTECTION", then just tells me that it's set to region 2 and how many changes I have left... it also says (now) that it is set permanently eventhough I have one change left... but when I first tried Rpcde it was not permanent, so I don't think that's the problem... besides CDVDinfo says it's not permanent... how confusing

and the Rpcde is the newest one, I downloaded it today! oh and RegionKiller isn't installed or running

I just don't want to do the firmware thing unless it's absolutely necessary you see!

Thanks for everything though, you are a kind bunch for us newbies to the art

[dimitri]

Looks to me you'll have to do the firmware upgrade after all. Since this is still under warranty you should stick to an original Dell release, which is the link I gave you. It's probably not a bad idea even if you didn't need the region freedom, they came up with a couple of upgrades after your version, and they must have had reasons for it.

There's really nothing to it: You run the exe, it asks for 1 floppy and when it's ready you reboot with the floppy in the drive and it starts the upgrade by itself. When it's done you take the floppy out of the drive and reboot.

You'll have then a fresh firmware with region not set and 5 changes left. I'm quite sure that when you run Rpcde after that it will work.

[vsvsvs]

Thanks mate!

I am also in the UK, so does this make any difference by any chance to what firmware I should use?

[dimitri]

No, it makes no difference at all.

[vsvsvs]

Thank you very much for your kind help! I'll report back to see whether anything happened

[vsvsvs]

worked perfectly!

Thanks again dimitri! muchly appreciated!

[dimitri]

Geez, that was fast!

No problems mate and you can't call yourself a newbie anymore!

Enjoy your drive and the freedom