Pioneer 106...did I kill it with the firmware flash?

[Ogami]

Hi People

I have just made I believe a massive mistake with my DVD writer! I bought this recently and was having no problems at all burning on Datawrite yellow classic 4x!
A couple of days ago it stopped writing completely on these discs. So I stupidly decided I should try and upgrade the firmware (It was v1.05 and newest is 1.07).

It was then I discovered that this drive was a DVR-106RD which won't take the official pioneer firmware as it's technically an Acer drive!
I discovered on the SVP communications helpdesk a firmware for the DVR-106RD to take it to v1.07....excellent I thought and proceeded to flash the drive! All seemed to go well, it said it had successfully upgraded the firmware! except....now my DVD writer will not recognise any DVDs...at all, not blank media no backups and no official discs of any kind!?

So, in for a penny and all that I discovered that you can change it by flashing to an official DVR-106D (which is what I thought I'd bought in the first place) and therefore use official pioneer firmware! I did exactly that, reflashed the drive with the firmware from this site http://flashman.rpc1.org/ now windows recognises it as a Pioneer DVR-106D v1.07 but I still have the same problem, it doesn't recognise DVDs at all, I appear to have turned it into a rather expensive CD writer

Has anybody ever had this problem before and is my drive at all recoverable? Any help/suggestions gratefully received as clearly the place I bought it from isn't going to change it coz some muppet (ie. me) has done something very stupid

Thanks in advance
Ogami

[curryman]

ooooh!!

[Ogami]

lol....ooooh is right m8

[Duchess]

I wouldn't guarantee that it's your fault. I purchased a 106 from SVP, which according to various posts on other forums has an Acer firmware. I reflashed the firmware to ver 1.07 rpc1 (not being aware of the Acer firmware) and it's working fine, so it's probable that you have a genuinely faulty drive.

[Ogami]

Thanks m8, I'm now hopeful. I've been onto SVP about it and they're going to collect it for testing. I'm just hopeful that the fact I flashed it with the pioneer firmware isn't going to give them an excuse to not exchange it. He did seem confused by the result the flash has had and I must say I've been scouring the net for anything similar and can't find a thing!

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

[Duchess]

Good luck hon'.

[Wetmonkey]

Here is a good source of firmware info, and or people that might have similar situations
http://forum.firmware-flash.com/

[Duchess]

Went there and if you look at http://forum.firmware-flash.com/viewtopic.php?t=19003 they have a fix for the Acer drives that turns it into a 106D rather than a 106RD. Very useful site, thanks for the URL.