Question About Flashing Firmware

[DivXExpert]

Is there a way to fix a drive if you flash the wronge firmware? Just wanting to know before I try something that can't be fixed.
BTW what exactly is firmware?

[Greg12]

firmware is the fundemental software in all drives.

it controls how the drives r run, it stores info like region coding and stuff like that.

i think the firmware translates the commands of windows programs into actions.

[tearex]

BTW what exactly is firmware?

All modern drives (single exception: Floppy drives) are so called "intelligent drives", where the computer just asks the drive, e.g. "give me the contents of sector nr. 31723" and then the drive is basically a specialized computer itself that then runs a program to carry out the request. That program will move the head, start and stop the motors, send current through the read/write heads, adjust the laser beam in optical drives, etc. Thus the main PC doesn't have to concern itself with those nitty-gritty details which can be a bit different for each drive type and model.

All the programs in the drive, taken together, are its "firmware". They're stored on an flash ROM chip (or something similar) within the drive. That's a chip that retains its data when power is switched off, but which can nevertheless be reprogrammed, when a new (bug fixed or otherwise improved) version is released by the maker. Now in an ideal world we wouldn't need firmware updates since the firmware would do what we want it to do 100% of the time. But bugs do in fact exist and, more rarely, features are added later which the electronics itself can do but for which there was no software to do it beforehand. E.g. firmware updates can sometimes add SVCD support to standalone DVD players that didn't have the necessary software, although the hardware was there.

However given the fact that companies would rather sell new hardware than provide free-of-charge firmware updates for models no longer being sold, and also given the fact that firmware updates can't add hardware components that weren't there before, it's not a cure-all. Mostly only obvious bugs, results of shipping not-so-thoroughly-tested products, are fixed.

The one danger in firmware updating is power cuts, which can leave you with a half-empty firmware chip that won't do anything, including accepting any further "firmware update" commands. If your power is pretty stable, there is little danger.

PS Obviously firmware is drive specific. However any non-crap drive will refuse to update itself with firmware not intended for it.

[Greg12]

an example of adding new features is the DRU500A and it's extternal counterpart

Out of box it's 2.4x DVD+R, but Sony patched it to 4x DVD+R, though it seems it should be 4.8X DVD+R.

Though this isn't suprising because sony is in the DVD+RW camp and new 4x drivers with -rw and +rw are being released.