A05 firmware experts, help

[nooner6]

Would one of the Pioneer A05 firmware experts please give me some help here. I downloaded the A05 firmwar 1.30 and also the RC1 and upgrade my A05 drive. After the upgrade, I checked with Nero and the firmware is at 1.30 However, where I try to rip a DVD, it goes to about 10% and the A05 stops reading and hangs the system. I down grade to the 1.21 and downgrade(upgdvd /f) back to 1.21. However, the drive still hangs the system after reading about 1% of the disk. Can anyone help me here?

[TeeeRex]

Does this happen on all DVD's you've tried - or only one or two ? Is it always the same place ? Have you turned off any scheduled software (disk clean up utilities, screen saver etc that might be causing it ?)

[amichael]

I thought with the Pioneer 105 once you upgraded you could not downgrade - ever !?

Well , anyway another piece of advice from my initial experiences of this drive is to re-install the drivers your motherboard came with.

[nooner6]

TeeRex,
I was very careful about inspecting the DVD make sure there's no scratch or anything like that. It's a new disc. In any case, I tried 2 other new DVD disc and the hanging(freezing) still there. It's not the disc. However, I was able to use Decrypter to write an image I had created earlier to a DVD blank through the A05 without hanging. I have to try backup a movie with RecordNow and see what happens when I have time today. But for now, I can not trust this drive any more.

From the firware page site, it said that this drive can be dowegraded by using the /F command.

[Barnabas]

Would one of the Pioneer A05 firmware experts please give me some help here. I downloaded the A05 firmwar 1.30 and also the RC1 and upgrade my A05 drive. After the upgrade, I checked with Nero and the firmware is at 1.30 However, where I try to rip a DVD, it goes to about 10% and the A05 stops reading and hangs the system. I down grade to the 1.21 and downgrade(upgdvd /f) back to 1.21. However, the drive still hangs the system after reading about 1% of the disk. Can anyone help me here?

That is HACKED firmware, so that's likely your problem. You should expect problems when using hacked firmware. They don't say to "use at your own risk" for nothing.

[nooner6]

Yes. But I was hoping one of the experts or someone who hacked the firmware can provide some pointers.

[jnk76]

How long have you left it?

My hangs for about 5mins. on a Athalon1200 and then continues.

Try leaving it longer.

My does not hang all the time though.....its seems random.

[TeeeRex]

jnk76,

Drives do not 'hang' when they feel like it ! - if a sector on the DVD cannot be read, then the DVD will lower it's speed in an attempt to re-read the sector. It will keep doing this until it gets to it;s slowest speed (could be 1x...) and then it will use this speed to read the rest of the DVD. This could be your problem - clean your DVDs !

nooner6 - If you are saying the DVD is brand new - then I don't see this as the problem anyway.

Have you tried the original 0.58 FW ? - If it still does it, then put an original Pioneer FW on the drive and send it back and get a new drive !

[Remco]

Have you tried your Pioneer A05 in a different computer??
Perhaps the burning problem isn't related to the firmware at all!!

...or you can try a clean WinXp install...

[jnk76]

TeeRex,

Drives do not 'hang' when they feel like it ! - if a sector on the DVD cannot be read, then the DVD will lower it's speed in an attempt to re-read the sector. It will keep doing this until it gets to it;s slowest speed (could be 1x...) and then it will use this speed to read the rest of the DVD. This could be your problem - clean your DVDs !

I am not sure hang is the best work to use but it seems like the only word that fits what happens. As far as I know if the writer is reading the disc or writing the LED light is on. Well sometimes.......the drive just stops. I have left it completely alone and it would start up again. I have tried to use my computer when it hangs and programs are "locked out" until the burner starts up again and then the programs engage again. I very computer literate but I am not sure what is happening when this is going on. Obviously the computer is being resorced by the drive but not sure what is happening in the backround. This happens once in 5 to 10 trys when running no other apps and happens just about everytime if I am running a app....even just on the net. Since the discs always work perfectly I never worried about it but I am curious if this happens to anyone else? The DVD's are all brand new and I do a quick check to make sure there surface is clean. The disks I am using are Riteks (G03) 1x but burn them at 2X. The problems is the same at 1X so I know it is not the speed. OS is Win2000.....AMD1200 with 512MB ram. I know I have enough juice to run.

[nooner6]

Jnk76,

I have to agree with TeeeRex. My DVD are new and I inspected them myself to make sure the back is not scratched or dirty. I never had the hang problem until I messed around with the hacked firmware. I build this system from ground up with all the right parts. Basically when a system hangs like this, something is hawking the system bus and nothing else can get on. The A05 LED would go off and the system stays that way. I have to hold the reset or power button down for a few seconds.

TeeeRex,
I was thinking exactly the same solution as you suggested. That's the last time I will upgrade something that's not official.

Everyone, thanks for all the suggestions. I have come to my own solution.

[jnk76]

nooner6,

I guess there are a few differences, my systems come back after a few mins. and yours seems like it doesn't. I do not want to say I know what's going on because I don't but I would not say it is the firmware right away. Many many people are using the hack ver. without any issues.....I have yet to confirm the system hang that I have is system or disk related but I do not believe it is firmware....my writer stopped before I loaded the hacked firmware as well so that is the only reason I am confident that firware may not be the issue unless of course you downloaded firmware that may not have been what you thought it was and it destroyed your drive.......but that worse case scenario and sounds like it belongs in a movie......what is puzzling is that your drive stops at same point every time.....mine varies if it does stop.

Well I think we have exhausted this topic.....

Goodluck

[nooner6]

Jnk76,

I thank you for your input. My drive does not stop at the same point. For the hacked firmware which will rip at 4x, it stops around 10% When I went back to the original firmware(1.00 and 0.58), it stops around 1%. However, I was able to backup(write) a movie image using decryter without problem to a blank DVD media. That just puzzles me.

[jnk76]

What software did you use when it was failing? Have you tried others like RecordNow Max, Nero or even MyDVD which should have come with your drive if you bought retail?

[nooner6]

Jnk76,

It's during ripping of the movie that the drive freezed, not during recording. I use Decrypter to rip movies from my collection.

[ronaldbob]

hello there

I have read your message about updating the firmware of your pioneer AO5 from 1.21 to 1.30. So did I for last week but now I cannot brurn any dvd-rw verion 1.1 any more so I like to downgrade the firmware to 1.21 again but don't know how to do that.
I am not very experienced in this.

So please help me

ronald

[nooner6]

Download the lower version of the firmware you would like to downgrade back to. Then run the batch file with the extension *.bat It basically has the upgrade command(*.exe) with the /f option. It forces the drive to upgrade what ever version you are trying to flash into the firmware. Good luck

[emats]

My CD writer used to hang in Nero a lot. I unchecked, "use DMA" in the Windows Device Manager and it worked to perfection. Only thing is that it was really slow for reading after that. I think I saw this fix on the Nero site, but not sure.

[SVCDummy]

A little Note on Upgrading/Downgrading Firmware...

Several Weeks Ago I read on one of the Hack 1.30 sites the notes of the original hacker. They have since disappeared but the message was clear.

If you need to down grade from 1.30 hacked versions to any other version you have to first downgrade to the 0.5x version of the firmware (presumabely the first public release), reboot the drive (in other words a system reboot) and then upgrade from that point to the version you want (either 1.00 or 1.21)

Something in the note indicated the 0.5x version did something else to the drive on reboot that is needed for the later upgrades to work properly again.

Again, I cannot find this lessage any longer but I remember reading it form the author of one of the hacks. It is certainly worth a try before giving up on the drive.

Good Luck