Craig Tucker 104 firmware to 1.41

[mks]

Craig,
In a 12/21/03 post you said you flashed your 104 to firmware version 1.41.

Does your 104 burn 4x media at 2x OK?
Does it burn and read DVD-RW discs OK?
Was it a good or bad move?

I bought an A04 but the CHKRW.EXE program says it is a DVR-104 and I flashed it to firmware version 1.32. I have not been able to burn Ritek or an unknown brand of bulk DVD-Rs rated at 4x, at 2x or 1x burn speed.

I need to upgrade my firmware but am totally confused from reading all of the posts I can find on this web site. I want to use the official 1.41 but seems others have had problems.

I need help,
Mike

[Craig Tucker]

I have only burned one disc since I upgraded the firmware. That was a Ritek G04 which I burned at 2x speed with no problems at all.

I used the official 1.41 which was simply an executable file which could be run from within windows.

[mks]

Hey, thanks Craig!

Anyone else have any input?
Thanks

[mks]

Craig (and other A04/104 owners),

I went ahead and flashed my A04 to the official 1.41. Burned a 4x DVD-R at 2x and it plays back fine in my settop player. Two previous attempts to burn 2 DVDs at 2x from the same batch failed with rev 1.32.

Able to read a DVD-RW disc that I burned at 1x while at rev 1.32. Not sure why others have had problems reading DVD-RW discs after updating to 1.41. Might be where they downloaded 1.41 from.

Thought this info might come in handy in case you have problems,
Mike

[Craig Tucker]

Glad everything went ok

[mks]

Nope, found that everything is not OK with the official Pioneer 1.41 upgrade. DVD-R discs seem to burn OK so far but I tried burning DVD-RW discs 3 times and none of the burns can be played back in my Pioneer DV-444 settop player. DVD-RW burns while at 1.32 played back OK in that player.

I tried the 1.40 to earlier version downgrade hack but it fails right away saying the firmware is at 1.41. Am I stuck (screwed) with 1.41 or is there a way to go back to a previous version?

Thanks,
Mike

[wulf109]

I had a very bad expierence flashing my 104 with 1.41 firmware. It killed my 104 as a DVD drive. It will not burn or even recognize a DVD disk. I flashed it back to 1.20 but no luck. I flashed with several other versions but it still won't recognize any DVD disk. It's now an expensive CDR drive.

[mks]

>> I had a very bad expierence flashing my 104 with 1.41 firmware. It killed my 104 as a DVD drive. It will not burn or even recognize a DVD disk. I flashed it back to 1.20 but no luck. I flashed with several other versions but it still won't recognize any DVD disk. It's now an expensive CDR drive.

You probably already know this but just in case not, I believe that there are 2 lasers in DVD burners. One for DVDs and one for CDs. Sounds like you might have burned out the laser for the DVDs. Maybe contact Pioneer and see if you can buy a replacement laser for the DVD side, though both might come on the same assembly. (Never looked inside mine.) Maybe open yours up and see how hard it is to replace the laser assembly first.

Mike