Region Locked

[B-boy]

Hi guys, my A03 has been locked on region 1 , i am in region 4. we installed the new firmware but this didn't change it back to the original default. Can anyone please help. i am still fairly new so i am looking for the easy options if possible,
thanks in advance

[B-boy]

Can anyone please help?
whats does it take to get a reply in this forum? i have already looked through the guides nothing there, can some one please give me some info on where to find out how to change region lock? or is it simply no one knows?

[Petree]

have you tried changing the region with dvd genie after installing the new firmware?

[B-boy]

so i just install DVD Genie and that should do the trick? thanks for the reply!
now also it is showing me this error when i try to back up my ps2 games

Image job Untitled 1 terminal with errors

Error-10 at sector 32-command 2 A sense:05 ASC : 30 ASCQ:05

whats does this mean?

[yg1968]

You need to install a region-free firmware for your burner and then install Region Killer (it is a better program to use under Windows XP). Athough DVD Genie is also useful for other purposes (for example to reset the region counter to 0 for certain software programs). There is some risks in changing the firmware of your burner. See the following links:

http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/
http://forum.firmware-flash.com/

[B-boy]

yeh i changed the firmware ,I also tried DVD Genie!
The firmware was the official firmware from Pioneer for my A03 but it didn't change the region lock, i thought i was doomed, so i took it back today they are going to send it off to pioneer in asia i think, i hope they will put the original firmware back in and the region unlocked.

i just said look it won't burn and won't play dvd's so i hope it works, but i have to wait 4 weeks, that sucks.

can they reinstall the originall firmware? i mean it's still under warrantee, but i bought the burner off a friend.
i just want to say thanks to everyone for helping me out i am still a newbie but i am trying to learn from all of you talented peeps out there! in the words of Ali-G "Respeck"

i will read up on those links, cheers.

[yg1968]

The region-free firmware is not the default firmware. To make your drive region-free, you have to change the firmware yourself. It doesn't matter whether your DVD is locked or not. You can still change it to a region-free drive by changing the firmware to a region-free (patched) firmware. Once that you change it to a region-free firmware, the drive becomes unlocked. Pioneer will not provide you with a patched region-free firmware as they support region protection. You have to download (from the website that I gave you above) and install the region free firmware. There is some risks to your drive in doing this.

However, there is also a software region protection in Windows and most DVD software players programs. Regionkiller (or DVD Genie) takes care of the software region protection and the patched firmware takes care of the hardware region protection. Region Killer is a better program to use as it is easier to use and works well under Windows XP.

[Greg12]

Pioneer can easly change the settings by using the "vendor change" ability

[yg1968]

True but he will run into the same problem again if he continues to use DVDs from different regions without changing to a region-free patched firmware (and installing Region Killer).

So you have three choices when you get your pioneer drive back:

1- always use DVDs from your region
2- change to a region-free firmware and install Region Killer
3- use DVD decripter (or Smartripper) to copy the DVD to your hard disk and also to remove the region protection from your DVD and burn them back to a DVD-R/RW (or, if you prefer, play your DVD from your harddrive).

As I mentioned above, Windows and your software DVD player also have region protection. So after you get your drive back, you may have to unlock the region protection on Windows and on your software by resetting the region counter to 0 with DVD genie.

Incidentally, you are allowed to change the region of a computer DVD player five times before it becomes region locked (unless you have a installed a patched region-free firmware and have installed region killer).

[B-boy]

Thanks "yg1968" for your info, i will definetly take all this into consideration when i get my drive back. I am no comp tech so i didn't try and do the firmware myself, got a friend to and hoped that it worked fine. I wasn't aware they had a region free firmware untill after i sent it off otherwise i would have definetly tried that. i was told by others that DVD Genie would do the job.

ok now another question where will i find the region lock in Win XP? and do i just install into that folder with that region killer? will this perminently make all my DVD's region free? i mean i think i will 99% of the time use DVD's from my region anyway so option 1 could just make life easy i guess.

still feeling my way around XP.
Thanks again - much appreciated