104 or 105 (Pioneer)

[md_mushroom]

Hi just looking for some advice please, have a Pioneer 104/a04, have the chance to upgrade to a 105/a05, could somebody tell me which is the best drive ???

Many Thanx

Max

[Raen]

105 is better. It's basically the same as 104 except it can burn up to 4x where 104 only does 2x max.

[md_mushroom]

Yes, but wat about reliability, have had no problems with my 104/a04 so far, is the 105 as reliable ???

[birdygal]

Just do like I did wait till your 104 dies if you use ritek go3 the 105 only burns them at 1x anyway.

[md_mushroom]

Another question, i notice a few people here r talking about the hacked f/ware they have updated their drives with, enabling the 104/105 to burn 1x write dvdr's at 2x, if n e thing happened to the drive, and it had to b downgraded, if it had to b sent back to pioneer if still under warranty, would pioneer b able to trace that the drive has had hacked firmware flashed through it at n e time ???
Max

[John]

I am happy with my a04, its hard enough at the moment to get 2x media without 4x , keep the price of media in mind and think about is it worth the extra 15 minutes.

[birdygal]

I upgraded my 104 to the hacked and I got coasters on anything over 4g
though my drive could have been failing already, I do believe the warrenty will be void if you do. I have seen posts where the hack has killed their drive not everyone is succesful doing it.

[John]

if you upgrade your firmware it invalidatets your warinty, do so at your own risk

[txpharoah]

105 is more reliable than both my 103 and my friend's 103 and 104.

[thxkid]

want to be problem free buy or upgrade to the sony 500ax, they are just as cheap as the 105/a05.

[drewson99]

really can't go wrong with either the 104 or 105, just stay away from HP drives, a true POS.

Andy :)

[lagerlout]

I upgraded my 104 to the hacked and I got coasters on anything over 4g......

Anyone else know anything about this? I've just flashed my 105 firmware to the new hacked 1.30, but have killed 3 disks since. All 3 were over 4Gb, yet I've burnt a few 3.5Gb ones fine. Never actually thought about the size of them til I read this, but on checking it seems consistent

Can you go back once you've flashed it? I know you can't with the official Pioneer one, but what about with the hacked one?

[jacknjt]

dont try to hack ur drive so it can burn at 2x the speed is not worth it. if the media is not rated at 2x then dont try to burn faster than its rating that gona ruin ur video datas. get the a05, a04 only burn 1x (stable speed).

[lagerlout]

I only hacked it for the extra ripping speed. Otherwise I need to keep the DVD-ROM in my system, and that means taking out the 52x CDRW

[txpharoah]

I only hacked it for the extra ripping speed. Otherwise I need to keep the DVD-ROM in my system, and that means taking out the 52x CDRW

Get an expansion card and add yourself 4 more IDE devices. The PROMISE card works well.

[lagerlout]

You know, I never thought of that!

Cheers mate!

[gotodvdr]

I use 105 and upgraded firmware to 1.3 last couple weeks and it's been workinh fine, even with Ritek v2 at 2x.

[lagerlout]

Can the 105 be reverted back to pioneers own 1.30 firmware? My drive is still killing all large disks, did a direct copy of a DVD5 last night and both times it was screwed. Works in my DVD_ROM but no actual players. My cyberhome says its the wrong region!?!?

If anyone can point me to a guide it'd be much appreciated.

[lagerlout]

Can no-one help here? the drive is shite since the flash

Talk about learning from your mistakes

[falberni]

See this link on another forum for downgrading.

http://forum.firmware-flash.com/viewtopic.php?t=12265&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=100

[txpharoah]

Can no-one help here? the drive is shite since the flash Talk about learning from your mistakes

Hate to say this, but odds are the drive is now hosed. Maybe you'll get lucky, but my 103 drive suffered badly from a 2x4all "upgrade". It barely burns 1x nowadays, and has lost ALL other functions (reading, -RW, 2x, CD, etc).

[AarontheRipper]

I can only speak from personal experience, but I hacked my 105 to the 2x4all firmware and haven't had any problems with any disks, even those over 4gb. I did it right when it came out and love burning the G03s at 2x.

[Doggiedaddy]

AarontheRipper same here no problems,

DITTO x 3ea DVR-105s with No Problems at all NONE. You must be doing something wrong if you are having problems with the 2x4all firmware. I have 100% reliability with Ritek A-03s and the 2x4all firmware @x2 burns. Maybe I just got lucky x3?

Hack from here
http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=12632

Media from shop4tech.com work very well for me
http://www.shop4tech.com/user.htm?go=view_item&id=1436&cata=&s_cata=

Dd

[belvedere16]

ive burned 200 vivistars(1x dvd-r very cheap) at 2x and not one has failed all around 4.38 gig dont see the problem

drive a05

[txpharoah]

You must be doing something wrong if you are having problems with the 2x4all firmware.

No, it's just that different systems react differently. And not all burners are made 100% identical. Any variance can cause problems. That's likely to be what happened to my 103. There is still a LARGE number of folks having issue with the upgrades, so it truly is AT YOUR OWN RISK to upgrade. Unfortunate, and I wish that wasn't the case, but it is.

[KTH]

Lagerlout,
Try the link listed below. They have hacked and un-hacked firmware updates for Pioneer A05 drives. They even have a utility which will allow you to go back to an older firmware version. Of course the Utility & hacked firmware are use at your own risk, but considering your drive is not working properly now I don't think you have much to lose. In fact if you can get your A05 flashed back to it's original firmware you should then be able to send it back to Pioneer for service. GOOD LUCK!!!


http://www.dvd-recordable.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=vie...download&sid=2

[lagerlout]

Cheers KTH, off to have a look!

And the firmware was flashed for me, by another 105 owner whose works perfectly. He did do it on my system, but he used the same utility in the same way as he did on his own.

[lagerlout]

Erm, which do you recommend? Is 1.3 the best? Sure I heard someone going on about reverting to v1.2 or something, allthough that could've been an old thread?

[KTH]

I would recommend reverting back to the original firmware version that came installed on your drive. Apparently this worked fine until you tried updating it with the hacked firmware. If you still have problems after installing the original firmware I would have to agree with Txpharoah and say that the drive is probably fried.

[lagerlout]

Reverted to 1.30 but still the same, no joy

I gave one of the dead disks to my uncle when he was over, simply cos he needed a case and that was in it. He took it home, and it plays fine on his home system and DVD-ROM but not his writer. Tried it on 3 home players myself and got nowt

Now the interesting bit, I have burnt a few fine DVD's lately, and killed others. The compilations are fine (Jackass, Bumfight - basically anything I actually author) but copies die. I'm using Ulead MovieFactory at the min for compilations, and I've just realised that since that was installed it's the only prog that has burnt a disk correctly! Nero and all the others say they work but don't, MF works fine.

About to reinstall anyway, make a fresh start, but this time I aint installing MF for a bit. Will see how it goes, wish me luck!

And thanks again KTH for the firmware page, I'd have still been thinking it was that otherwise! May still be goosed, but the Ulead connection seems too plausable not to try.