For some of the experts here, I managed to find and purchase a refurbished LGWH16NS40, Svc Code NS50, rev. 1.00. It works fine for the purposes this thread is discussing. My question is whether there is any known benefit to flashing up to the LG official rev. 1.01 or 1.02 or should I just leave it alone? I realize I absolutely don't want to go past 1.20.
Don't flash or it won't read UHDs anymore
You're saying that if I flash to 1.01 or 1.02 the drive will stop reading UHDs? The previous 26 pages of this thread I read through appeared to indicate that wasn't an issue until 1.03. Did I miss something?
There will be probably no benefit, espc. rather disadvantage in case not knowing what doing.
It's described in this thread here rather more for the B/WH16NS
55 where 1.02 is the last UHD friendly one.
Afaik I'd (assume only), 1.02 for BH16NS40 (SVC 50) would still be UHD friendly, too. But maybe I'm wrong. Afaik for LG BU30N with 1.02 (external drive), 1.02 is no longer UHD friendly, if 1.02 is the last version.
For BH16NS40 (SVC 50) 1.03 is the last version for now, and probably there the AACS 2 loophole closed since manufacturer ealier had detected it)
If nosy in testing for an improvement, and noone knows for sure nor answers:
In any case, first make a backup dump of your original unit's firmware described in Teddy's post with FreeDOS + Dosflash
1.7 , attched at bottom of his #1 post!!.
When original firmware dump is stored + multiple copies, then just use EEPROM data mover, also attched at bottom of his #1 post, and let EEPROM data mover
import the laser calibration data + dv value of your unit's original dump into a B/WBH16NS40 (SVC 50) 1.02 clean firmware.
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Be careful to have always multiple copies of original dump, NOT to be edited at all !!
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Then you can test with an UHD-BD-disc with B/WH16NS40 (SVC 50)1.02 fw, if thar works, to answer the question by yourself.
Though it might take some effort, to quickly find an supported UHD-disc version already known to decryption software, as there might be severals out there of same movie tittle, just for quick test.
If B/WH16NS40 (SVC 50) 1.02 does
not work for sure (UHD disc is really supported by AnyDVD or other/ etc) just don't forget to have always enoeugh unmodified spare copies of your original dump, so just modifying 1.01 clean firmware with EEPROM data mover instead, or just flash back your original 1.00 dump which will work again for sure.
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Be sure to take attention with file naming, so later there's no confusion to avoid any accidently deletion of your original firmware file!!
Example for file naming:
Original firmware dump:
LG_WH16NS40_SVC50_SN_XXXXXXXXXXX_Original_FW_1.00_dumped_Dosflash_1.7.bin
FreeDOS/DOS and Dosflash only allows/displays short filename, so the dump file will probably be by a short file name
(After dumped with Dosflash 1.7+FreeDOS , copy it as soon as possible from USB flash drive to 2ndary HDD/SSDs data parttion or raid array, or another few backup flash drives, labeled not to mess around with etc, rename them accordingly (example see above)
Example for file naming for Modified firmware
(
At first a
copy of
Clean firmware file:
( "
flash_HL-DT-ST_BD-RE_BH16NS40_1.02_NS50 - copy .bin" )
renamed to:
LG_WH16NS40_SVC50_SN_XXXXXXXXXXX_Dump-to-Wh16NS40_SVC50-Clean-FW_1.02-modified.bin
Then use EEPROM data mover to actually modify the (renamed copy) of the 1.02 Clean firmware. When finished make copy of this. Then make another copy from this, rename, to eg. "16NS40M.BIN", put this on FreeDOS+Dosflash 1.7 drive to flash it.
When you recognize the newer date of
modified (Clean) firmware from e.g. 2018 and newer compared to your dump (eg. days/hours later time), listed with "dir" in FreeDOS, it helps, too.
The (un)edited Clean firmware is from 2017.
(Be sure date and time is and was set to present/current time in BIOS/UEFI-firmware)