Hi folks After having much fun printing off my discs and covers i decided to turn my attention to my burner. I did a quick drive check on dvdinfo and apparently its a dual layer burner- if someone can confirm this it would be good. You see as i was naeve when buying this computer almost exactly a year ago i did not pay much attention to what burner i bought- just kind of picked one at the price i wanted to pay and i had always assumed that it was a mere single layer job that did both + and - r. Any way as u know its a Sony DVD RW DW-Q28A. Now my question relates to firmware and 'flashing' of the drive. My current firmware for the drive is KYS2. I have not encountered any problems burning yet and i was wondering if i should update the firmware anyway? in other words is it good to constantly keep and apply the lateset firmware version or is it something you only do as a last resort? Also what is 'flashing' exactly and how can it damage your drive to the point of no return (as i have read at various sites)? cheers as always MalfunKtion
Hello Malfnkton, Your Sony drive is a rebadged SOHW-1693S drive. Here are some features. * Supported Recording Modes : Multisession, disc-at-once, track-at-once, packet writing, session-at-once, restricted overwrite, incremental recording, sequential write. * Supported Media Types : CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DL. * Write Speed : 48x (CD) / 16x (DVD±R) / 4x (DVD±R DL). * CD / DVD ReWrite Speed : 24x (CD) / 6x (DVD-RW) / 8x (DVD+RW). * Buffer Size : 2 MB * Access Time : 160ms (DVD); 160ms (CD) * Buffer Underrun Protection : SMART Burn * MTBF : 70,000 hours * Built-in Flash-ROM for online upgradability * Built-in buffer underrun protection Confirmed. Yes, update to the most recent firmware. Compatability issues are fixed with new firmware updates. Drive performance also can improve. Heres a link to your most recent firmware. http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_result.php?kaj=1&isces Yes, having the most recent firmware seems to be the best policy unless noted otherwise. Flashing is just "earasing" your drives firmware. Cross flashing is using unsupported or unauthorised firmware on your drive rather than the reccomended, supported firmware. An example would be if you used the Lite-On SOHW-1693s' firm ware instead of the Sony firmware. It is possible for you to use the Lite-On firmware since your Sony drive is in actaully a Lite-On drive, but it would not be roeccomended by sony and would void your warranty. As long as you use supported firmware you shouldn't worry about "bricking" your drive even though the possibility always exsists, it is only a possibility. I also have a Sony drive, DRU-800A rebadged Lite-On 1693 (same drive as you), I have updated my firmware recently with no problems and it performs just as well as it did before. Also, having a rebadged Lite-On means you can booktype DVD+Rs to DVD-ROM (a feature I recently found out about in these forums) for better compatability with DVD players and videogame systems. http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/367405
Cheers joshewah that was a perfect answer to my questions! i thank you for quick and articulate response! i am about to update the firmware as u advised - so fingers crossed it doesnt all go tits up! lol I too recently found out about booktyping here on AD but have not done it yet as i am currently using Verb 16x dvd-r and have no compatability problems with the standalone players that i use the disks on. right i have just realised that i havnt posted this yet so i will add my update now!! I have downloaded and installed firmware version KYS4 is this the latest? Also one other thing- as the drive is discontinued are firmware updates going to continue to be available or do they stop updating after a while? Thanks again for your help MalfunKtion
No problem malfnkton. KYS4 looks like the most recent firmware congrats. There may or there maynot be upgrades for your drive in the future. Don't worry though, if you feel the need to update your firmware again you can always crossflash to the most recent Lite-On firmware found here http://www.liteonit.com/DOWNLOADS/ODD/SOHW-1693S/firmware/DR16KS0B.zip Remember, when cross flashing there is a much greater risk at rendering your drive usless, "bricking" it. Once a brick always a brick. Your new firmware should be just fine though with the KYS4 firmware, happy burning.
ta for the link! What exactly is 'bricking' my drive? and why is this likely to happen if i download the lite-on firmware? surely if my burner is a re-branded lite-on drive wont the lite-on firmware be 100% compatible? sorry for all the questions! just trying to gt a grip of all this! MalfunKtion
"Bricking" means rendering your drive inoperable, and it can no longer function as it used to because the damage is irreversible. The Lite-On firmware should work, there is just a much larger chance of a bad flash as the outcome. I have never experience a cross flash first hand but if you read what DocTY told me it might clear some of your questions up. Read both posts by Kivory666 (DocTY) here: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/366606 Ask as many questions as you have to. I did and I received all the answers I needed without any kind of hastle. There are a lot of really great people here that are more than willing to help out.
Hi All, Jumping in late on this thread but was having problems with my same Sony burner DW-Q28A and wanted some help with getting new firmware installed. I downloaded the New KYR6 firmware from Sony, on link given and when I go to install I get error message "No Matched drive detected". I have a Sony Vaio and windows XP and Computer drive properties tells me it is in fact this drive. Called sony service and they say they don't support any new firmware upgrades for this drive, pretty much useless. Any Help is appreciated, thanks
..also, re the "No Matched drive detected" error. This is a common problem with Lite-on drives; the only way i could resolved this was to plug the burner into another PC where the drive was properly detected, flash the firmware then plug burber back into original PC.
Thanks guys for getting back on this. First Joshewah suggested KYS4 and went to link and got download of offsite.htm 105kb and then Critical error could not connect to the database. Dropped firewall and Norton antivirus, tried agin and still got same message, I am on slow Dial up in the boonies as well. Got the Sony KYS3 to download though. Don't know where to look to find out what firmware is now as it was not listed in drive properties, the only place I know to look. Should I just load Kys3 and see what happens and can you tell me how to find what firmware is there now? As for Creaky's suggestion of putting drive in other computer and try down load, Can try that with my old anchor. Any new suggestions are very much appreciated.
