LG 16X SuperMulti - Runtime error 7 on firmware update prob

I had an LG 4X burner. Worked fine with both +/-R DVDs burning movies, burning audio CDs, etc. (Using Nero) I upgraded to the 16X LG SuperMulti drive (GSA-4167B) back in Nov/05. It has problems reading some -R (I haven't tried +R) DVD movies that I've burnt in some DVD players (even the new LG DivX DVD player). It will play fine but every once in awhile (more often sometimes) it will pause for a second, then continue. And it will NOT burn audio CDs at all that play in my car (Sony XPlode deck) - yet my girlfriend's CD player plays them.

The movies play FINE in my Panasonic DVD Recorder, and my one LG DVD player, but not on others.

But I NEVER had this problem with my LG 4X burner. Yes, I tried burning movies right down to 4X and down to 2X with audio CDs. It writes fine, just doesn't play well after on some players. I'm using the same media with both (TDK for the audio CDs and Maxell -R 8X DVDs for DVDs).

I finally decided to put in the CD that came with the unit to see if there was a firmware update or maybe using the version of Nero *it* came with) - to my suprise there *is* a firmware update, but it doesn't work!

When run the firmware update from the CD (Windows XP Pro) I always get a Runtime error 7 - Out of memory error.

I running only half a GIG of ram but still, I closed up everything not needed to make more memory, and still always get this error.

1: any idea how to actually get the latest firmware update for the GSA-4167B LG DVD Supermulti drive that WORKS?
2: any ideas on why using the exact same burning programs, exact same media, works on my LG 4X drive but not on my LG 16X Supermulti drive? (and as I said, I've tried lowering the burning speeds down to 4X using the new drive, to no avail)

Everything I burn on this new drive, even at 8X, plays fine on my Panasonic DVD player (the one with the 80GB hard drive in it), so I never noticed it until now, when I burnt my girlfriend about 10 movies, brought them to her place (3hrs away) thinking she'd love them, only to have them pause on her DVD player every so often, then continue. So, the poor girl went and bought a new LG DivX DVD player thinking this would solve the problem - nope. But the older movies I gave her that I burnt on my 4X work fine on her new player and her ancient weird-name player.

Please help! I'm HOPING the firmware update would solve this but it just keeps giving the Runtime error 7 when I try to update it using the CD it came with. Grrr!

Thanks SO much in advance!