Sony OEM Pioneer DVR-104

hey guys, ive searched the forums and have found similar problems, but did not find any situation similar to mine...
I have a Pioneer DVR-104 DVDRW drive that was pulled from a Sony desktop computer that is no longer functional.. so its an OEM drive from Pioneer for Sony.
I bought Memorex 4X DVD-R's for this drive and ran into some problems. For one, the DVR-104 cant burn to higher speed media at 2X. and two, i cant seem to upgrade the firmware for this drive because the Sony firmware upgrade software looks for the actual Sony desktop computer model information whenever i try to run it. Since this computer is custom built and isnt sony, it rejects the upgrade...
also, i have tried various firmware upgrades that were so called "universal" and other stand alone's between versions 1.31 and 1.40.. whenever i run the UPGDVD.EXE program to upgrade, it comes back with an error saying "Model name of kernel part is not matched."

can anyone help or have any ideas?

 

Hmmm, im not sure how to help you, but one thing you should know- Putting 4x media in that drive before you upgrade the firmware could ruin the drive...so be careful!

 

well... as a work around to this problem, i bought some TDK 2x DVD-R's.. they seem to burn fine at 2x and dont give me any problems(so far)
but im still stuck at firmware 1.30

unless someone somewhere knows where i can get a firmware updater for a DVR-104 OEM made for Sony... ive tried looking but still have found nothing that works

 

Firmware and a Flasher for your Pioneer drive may be here: http://www.chrismccann.co.uk/pioneer_firmware_upgrades.htm

Good Luck mate

 

yea i tried all those
they all give me the same exact error
"Model name of kernel part is not matched"
followed by a 2nd popup window
"Upgrade program is terminated by occuring an error."
ive tried all of them, all give me the same error

 

Looks like your Firmware is corrupt within your drive.

Better get a shiny new one.