Lg Rh1777/1888/1999

[andrew96]

Does anyone have a firmware flasher that will work on the H55N drive that has had the checking disabled and will flash firmware regardless?

have tried...

HBloader, version will not flash drive

FWloader, not a suported model

SmartFlash, not a suported model

LG's own flasher, checksum failed

I have currently modified a firmware file for the H55N but cannot find how to get checksums, and so far have been unable to find a flasher that will flash regardless

Without a flasher i have now come to a halt on development of making the H55N work smoother on the RH unit

[nicodocet]

Without a flasher i have now come to a halt on development of making the H55N work smoother on the RH unit

Ummm, what are you trying to do? SL40 on gsaH55N or what else?

[andrew96]

Ummm, what are you trying to do? SL40 on gsaH55N or what else?

yes thats it exactly! the bootloader part of the code is identical so i cannot see why it wont work on the H55N, the advantage would be a modern drive (the H55N) that does not spin up to a high speed and so is less noisy, also as the code is more compact, it should make copying from HDD to DVD hopefully go smoother without spinning down causing a delay and errors to occur, worth a try i thought!

i just cant find out how to calculate the checksum, and cant find a flasher to work on the H55N

[FERNSEHTECHNIKER]

Replacement of an LG RH DVD drive by a PC DVD drive

Hello andrew96!

Here my special thanks to you for your highly valuable results!

I have an actual problem with a dieing/dead DVD drive in one of my LG RH1000 series recorders.

First, I do not like to send it to an LG service, possibly for weeks.

Second, I like to service all my electronic equipment by myself.

Then, my drive problem and your results provoke me to enhance my experiences.

I replaced the original LG RH DVD drive by an LG GSA-H55N FW 1.03, connected IDE/P-ATA and DC power electrically only,

without making any mechanical changes on drive GSA-H55N, it remained unchanged. This setup is for testing purposes only.

You may watch a photograph at

http://www.dvdboard.de/forum/showthread.php?t=126489

#4.

And I made my experiences! Please read:

Please forget all what I wrote about my first quick tests, yesterday!

I made a severe operating fault: Anytime once during my very quick tests I erranously pressed the Eject button on the drive itself instead Eject of the recorder.

So, all went out of control ...

Today, I very carefully repeated tests, and all is working well!

I checked DVD-RW VR and VM, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM and DVD+R DL, with direct recording and copying (Fast) from and to HDD, I renamed titles and initialized/formatted all above mentioned kinds of DVDs.

I even made cross checks with DVDs on an LG RH2000 series recorder.

Only one DVD-RW VR (Platinum) caused some trouble, but this DVD is known to me as weak and critical from earlier experiments. It is good to scrap!

Recorder RH1000 was Region Free before (FW Downgrade / Reupgrade method) and it remained Region Free after DVD drive change.

SORRY for my misinformation from yesterday ...

My next huge job will be to shift the contents of the GSA-H55N into the metal enclosure of the LG RH1000 recorder original drive,

according to your description "HowTo" and your photographs.

I think, nicodocet will publish this complete illustrated guide soon on his LG RH homepage http://ifndef.altervista.org/index_eng.html

For proper operation the jumper of GSA-H5xN must be set as Master.

Again and again many thanks to you!

G´Day,

FFERNSEHTECHNIKER

Edited April 14, 2008 by FERNSEHTECHNIKER

[chou_gibson]

Replacement of an LG RH DVD drive by a PC DVD drive

Hello andrew96!

Here my special thanks to you for your highly valuable results!

I have an actual problem with a dieing/dead DVD drive in one of my LG RH1000 series recorders.

First, I do not like to send it to an LG service, possibly for weeks.

Second, I like to service all my electronic equipment by myself.

Then, my drive problem and your results provoke me to enhance my experiences.

I replaced the original LG RH DVD drive by an LG GSA-H55N FW 1.03, electrically only,

without making any mechanical changes.

And I made my experiences! Please read:

Please forget all what I wrote about my first quick tests, yesterday!

I made a severe operating fault: Anytime once during my very quick tests I erranously pressed the Eject button on the drive itself instead Eject of the recorder.

So, all went out of control ...

Today, I very carefully repeated tests, and all is working well!

I checked DVD-RW VR and VM, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM and DVD+R DL, with direct recording and copying (Fast) from and to HDD, I renamed titles and initialized/formatted all above mentioned kinds of DVDs.

I even made cross checks with DVDs on an LG RH2000 series recorder.

Only one DVD-RW VR (Platinum) caused some trouble, but this DVD is known to me as weak and critical from earlier experiments. It is good to scrap!

Recorder RH1000 was Region Free before (FW Downgrade / Reupgrade method) and it remained Region Free after DVD drive change.

SORRY for my misinformation from yesterday ...

My next huge job will be to shift the contents of the GSA-H55N into the metal enclosure of the LG RH1000 recorder original drive,

according to your description "HowTo" and your photographs.

I think, nicodocet will publish this complete illustrated guide soon on his LG RH homepage http://ifndef.altervista.org/index_eng.html

For proper operation the jumper of GSA-H5xN must be set as Master.

Again and again many thanks to you!

G´Day,

FFERNSEHTECHNIKER

Hi FFERNSEHTECHNIKER,

{ replaced the original LG RH DVD drive by an LG GSA-H55N FW 1.03, electrically only,

without making any mechanical changes.}

From the above quote,what do you means?

Is it faulty DVD drives PCBA exchange to H55N ?That mean the latest DVD drives H55N using the original faulty DVD drives PCBA.

Edited April 14, 2008 by chou_gibson

[nicodocet]

i just cant find out how to calculate the checksum, and cant find a flasher to work on the H55N

You can send a msg for help to ala42 here.

Did you try his tool on such SL40 fw? And for crossflashing? May be it works.

I think, nicodocet will publish this complete illustrated guide soon on his LG RH homepage http://ifndef.altervista.org/index_eng.html

Last week was busy... I hope I'll publish andrews96's excellent guide this week.

Edited April 14, 2008 by nicodocet

[FERNSEHTECHNIKER]

Hi FFERNSEHTECHNIKER,

From the above quote,what do you means?

Is it faulty DVD drives PCBA exchange to H55N ?That mean the latest DVD drives H55N using the original faulty DVD drives PCBA.

I replaced the original LG RH DVD drive by an LG GSA-H55N FW 1.03, connected IDE/P-ATA and DC power electrically only,

without making any mechanical changes on drive GSA-H55N, it remained unchanged. This setup is for testing purposes only.

You may watch a photograph at

http://www.dvdboard.de/forum/showthread.php?t=126489

#4.

[chou_gibson]

I replaced the original LG RH DVD drive by an LG GSA-H55N FW 1.03, connected IDE/P-ATA and DC power electrically only,

without making any mechanical changes on drive GSA-H55N, it remained unchanged. This setup is for testing purposes only.

You may watch a photograph at

http://www.dvdboard.de/forum/showthread.php?t=126489

#4.

Hi FFERNSEHTECHNIKER,

I've have tried your methods(mentioned in my previous post),recorder can bootup,able to play DVD but when burning of contents from HDD to DVD media,the burning status shown the burning progress from 1% to 100% ( but the writer LED did not blink ),after the progress status shown completed,when playback the disc,it play only 1 to 2 seconds of video content,then the recorder hang .Dont know what went wrong during my experiments.

[FERNSEHTECHNIKER]

Hi FFERNSEHTECHNIKER,

I've have tried your methods (mentioned in my previous post), recorder can bootup, able to play DVD but when burning of contents from HDD to DVD media, the burning status shown the burning progress from 1% to 100% ( but the writer LED did not blink ), after the progress status shown completed, when playback the disc, it play only 1 to 2 seconds of video content, then the recorder hang. Dont know what went wrong during my experiments.

Did you set the DVD jumper to MASTER?

Avoid electrical shorts between DVD metal enclosure and printed circuit boards and components.

And never press EJECT on the DVD drive!, only on the recorder.

FERNSEHTECHNIKER

[chou_gibson]

Did you set the DVD jumper to MASTER?

Avoid electrical shorts between DVD metal enclosure and printed circuit boards and components.

And never press EJECT on the DVD drive!, only on the recorder.

FERNSEHTECHNIKER

Yap, I do jumper the drive to master.

[andrew96]

Hi FFERNSEHTECHNIKER,

I've have tried your methods(mentioned in my previous post),recorder can bootup,able to play DVD but when burning of contents from HDD to DVD media,the burning status shown the burning progress from 1% to 100% ( but the writer LED did not blink ),after the progress status shown completed,when playback the disc,it play only 1 to 2 seconds of video content,then the recorder hang .Dont know what went wrong during my experiments.

Hi

is the drive your trying new? if its been used in a pc and used alot the laser might be worn and not pick up discs properly

I had this on my origonal drive, but it was not the laser, i believe it was a chip on the electronics that had failed (the AN22113A) it went really suddenly, it is a suspect in the service manual as well in the fault guides.

so if your drive is not new then it could be suspect, try putting it in a pc and see if it will write discs correctly perhaps

i myself had this problem just once with a H55N drive fitted but put it down to a doggy disk , i have read the 1.03 and 1.05 firmware can be 'unstable' and version 1.02 is better with less noise from the drive, perhaps this is worth a try?

do you know what the code is for the media your using?

another thing is if its been used in a pc then after 5 different regions drive locks itsself to the 5th try, so if the drive is locked this could affect it as well, my H55N was brand new and had not had a disk in it to was not 'locked' to a region, perhaps its this?

thats all i can think of for now

Andrew

Edited April 15, 2008 by andrew96

[andrew96]

You can send a msg for help to ala42 here.

Did you try his tool on such SL40 fw? And for crossflashing? May be it works.

Last week was busy... I hope I'll publish andrews96's excellent guide this week.

thanks for the info nicodocet, i will compose a nice outline of the problem and hopefully ala42 can help as he does seem to be a brill guru on alot of different drives!

Thanks also for sorting the guide out for me, lets hope some will find it usefull, its good of you to find the space for it

Andrew

[FERNSEHTECHNIKER]

Well nicodocet, andrew96, t0nito & all the other people working and testing on LG RH1000 mainboard ... A GREAT THANK!!! ...

For my own overview after reading many articles I started a list of original LG RH DVD drives and replacement candidates from PC world.

Especially with andrew96´s help this list became rather informative and complete.

(Speaker "I" in the list = andrew96)

Everybody is welcome who can add more information ...

Unfortunately, the table like layout gets lost when inserting the list into DTV Forum.

Perhaps I can motivate DTV Forum to create a possibility for file attachments to forum articles ...

Would make many things easier!

FERNSEHTECHNIKER

And now the list:

2008-04-15 R01.06

Original DVD Drive:

Drive | FW (Loader) | Part Number | Recorder

RL-01A | R84, R83 | | RH48xx

RL-02A ?? DR6000

RL-05S W.36 RH7xxx

RS-01A (DR-09 2) | SL40, SL39 | LG 6721RFN021A | RH1000

GDA-4164L SL40, SL39 LG 6721RFN021A RH1000

RS-02A (DR-10) SD19, SD10 RH2000

Chipset Panasonic MN103 and AN22113A RH1000, RH2000

RS-03 RH3000 ?

RS-06A (DR-11H) S625, S617 RH3000

Replacement DVD Drive (for RH1000, RH2000 series recorders):

Drive | FW (Loader) | Upgrade to

GSA-4163B | ??

GSA-4164B | 1.01 | GDA-4164L SL40.bin

Dell JW3 (is a GSA-4164B) | E112 | GDA-4164L SL40.bin

HP-740B (is a GSA-4164B) ?? GDA-4164L SL40.bin

HP-840B (is a GSA-4164B) HJ86 GDA-4164L SL40.bin

GSA-4165B DL04 NO SL40, Renesus chipset,

earlier version of GSA-4167B

GSA-4166B 1.00 / 1.01 GDA-4164L SL40.bin

GSA-4167B DL12 NO SL40, Renesus chipset

GSA-H10N ?? Reports from the internet say it works but I cannot confirm!

GSA-H12L VL02 Might take SL40 but unsure on chipset at the moment

GSA-H22N ??

GSA-H42N ??

GSA-H44N ??

GSA-H55N 1.03 Update to 1.05 RPC1 if required, no SL40

Jumper = Master

GSA-H58N 1.03 Update to 1.03 RPC1 if required, no SL40

Jumper = Master

Sony DRU-120C ??

Pioneer DVR-105 Cannot record onto disc, plays only

Liteon DRW-6S160P PSG7 NO CHANCE / NO WAY

Definitions:

GDA is LG RH series

GSA is LG manufacturer

GWA is OEM like Dell, Compac,

All are cross flashable as they are really the same type of drive, you just need a patched flasher.

The H**N are normal drives

The H**L are lightscribe compatible

I believe the 'L' (lightscribe) versions 'MIGHT' be able to be upgraded to SL40,

but I have no drive to test.

The 'N' versions are NOT upgradable to SL40 as they have a different chipset.

LG RH1000 series recorders = RH177, 178, 188, 199, 200,

Aldi/Medion/Tevion MD81335,

Hofer GPX HDR (Austria), RH1xxxx (AUS),

Russian HDR and other OEM and internat. type designations

LG RH2000 series recorders = RH255, 265, 266, 277, 278, 298, 299,

Aldi/Medion/Tevion MD81733,

Russian HDR and other OEM and internat. type designations

LG RH3000 series recorders = RH387, 388, 399,

HDR878, HDRK888, HDR899 (RUS)

[andrew96]

For my own overview after reading many articles I started a list of original LG RH DVD drives and replacement candidates from PC world.

Especially with andrew96´s help this list became rather informative and complete.

(Speaker "I" in the list = andrew96)

Everybody is welcome who can add more information ...

Unfortunately, the table like layout gets lost when inserting the list into DTV Forum.

Perhaps I can motivate DTV Forum to create a possibility for file attachments to forum articles ...

Would make many things easier!

FERNSEHTECHNIKER

thanks FERNSEHTECHNIKER for sorting the list

i think all the drives need to be jumpered as master, its just the origional drive that has no jumpers on it as it has a built in 10K resistor to ground which activates it as a master drive as if there was a jumper on the back for 'master', but it still allows a jumper to be put on 'secondary' without any ill affects as Secondary jumper justs add a +3.3 volts to the select pin of the processor in the drive insted of 0V , thats how it works.........

Edited April 15, 2008 by andrew96

[chou_gibson]

Hi

is the drive your trying new? if its been used in a pc and used alot the laser might be worn and not pick up discs properly

I had this on my origonal drive, but it was not the laser, i believe it was a chip on the electronics that had failed (the AN22113A) it went really suddenly, it is a suspect in the service manual as well in the fault guides.

so if your drive is not new then it could be suspect, try putting it in a pc and see if it will write discs correctly perhaps

i myself had this problem just once with a H55N drive fitted but put it down to a doggy disk , i have read the 1.03 and 1.05 firmware can be 'unstable' and version 1.02 is better with less noise from the drive, perhaps this is worth a try?

do you know what the code is for the media your using?

another thing is if its been used in a pc then after 5 different regions drive locks itsself to the 5th try, so if the drive is locked this could affect it as well, my H55N was brand new and had not had a disk in it to was not 'locked' to a region, perhaps its this?

thats all i can think of for now

Andrew

Hi ,

The drive that I used is brand new,have not use in the PC. As for the media code,I'm also not sure,the media brand that I used is TDK -R , BengQ -R , Imation -R and Verbatim -R , all is 1 to 16X .

FYI ,I've also bought LG SATA writer GH20,using a IDE to SATA Adapter,reocrder can boot up but intermitently unable to play and open the tray .

SATA HDD drives can be us in the recorder with the IDE to SATA adapter.Recorder able to record from HDD to media and playback.My intention to try on SATA drives/writer is because the drives interface is in the transition to SATA interface,if down the road say about 2 to 3 years time,if manufacture not going to produce IDE drives,our recorder will become antique just because of the HDD/writer broke down.

[Illuzive]

g'day guys - unfortunately i own a RH1999H as well - i've had issues with it in the past (not reading discs, fan too loud) and have had it away at LG for over 3 months whilst getting repaired, and now again the unit is malfunctioning.

now its refusing to play certain discs that even $49 dvd players will play (even after having the units deck replaced last year) the fan is usually much too loud when in operation, and now when watching digital cable through the AV1 composite inputs, the screen flickers every few seconds (on average) with a white or black flash.

LG won't replace the unit and still want to fix it (under warranty of course)

what a piece of junk - i'll never purchase LG again!

[nicodocet]

Thanks also for sorting the guide out for me, lets hope some will find it usefull, its good of you to find the space for it

Andrew

The guide has been published for mutual benefit! Thanks to you.

Can you explain me how works pin 39 of IDE connector? When I added, inside the recorder, an USB/IDE adapter I manage a lot to solve conflits on 30th pin, without success....

Fernsehtechniker's list will be published soon (may be today...): many thanks also to him for the work done!

Edited April 16, 2008 by nicodocet

[dalla]

hello,

I am new, and a french man, so my english is bad. Sorry. I read your exchanges in this forum and I decided to contribute.

About replacement of dvd recorders for LG RH 1xx series, I found on cd freak 's forum a list of chipset used by LG recorders

here :

http://club.cdfreaks.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=108766.

If it's can be a help for you.

I also want to replace the recorder in my LG RH 188H. But I am not sure about the good model... the good firmware.

[chou_gibson]

hello,

I am new, and a french man, so my english is bad. Sorry. I read your exchanges in this forum and I decided to contribute.

About replacement of dvd recorders for LG RH 1xx series, I found on cd freak 's forum a list of chipset used by LG recorders

here :

http://club.cdfreaks.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=108766.

If it's can be a help for you.

I also want to replace the recorder in my LG RH 188H. But I am not sure about the good model... the good firmware.

Hi Guy,

From the list of chipset used by LG recorders ,it seem like those writer using the Renesas chipset is able to work in the recorder as a replacement .

Those older writer (H10N.H12N,H42N) I've tested is able to use in the recorder,the latest I've try is H55N(Panasonic Chipset) which is unsuccess .

Anyonje can comment or confirm it?

[nicodocet]

Anyonje can comment or confirm it?

If I'm not wrong, the original drive GDA4164L has Panasonic chipset...

@dalla

hello french man, for your problem see some posts up the Fernsehtechniker's list.

Give my greetings to hardware.fr forum!

Edited April 16, 2008 by nicodocet

[andrew96]

Hi Guy,

From the list of chipset used by LG recorders ,it seem like those writer using the Renesas chipset is able to work in the recorder as a replacement .

Those older writer (H10N.H12N,H42N) I've tested is able to use in the recorder,the latest I've try is H55N(Panasonic Chipset) which is unsuccess .

Anyonje can comment or confirm it?

Hi Chou

the H55N worked fine for me with both 1.03 and 1.05 firmware, no problems at all apart from its more noisy, and being a pc drive it spins down when its not in use so takes a good time to spin back up and can cause recording to a dvd to be slower, where the origional drive stays spinning all the time there is a disk in it, its done by the firmware

regards

Andrew

[andrew96]

If I'm not wrong, the original drive GDA4164L has Panasonic chipset...

@dalla

hello french man, for your problem see some posts up the Fernsehtechniker's list.

Give my greetings to hardware.fr forum!

yep it does,GDA4164L has MN103SA6G and AN22113A, i believe some of the H**N range use the Renesus panasonic chipset, but the H55N seems to have a MN103SC7GRT1 and AN22117A and the firmware apears to have the same boot code, so hoping to get the SL40 firmware from the GDA4164L into a H55N, but so far i can't find a flasher

Andrew

[andrew96]

Can you explain me how works pin 39 of IDE connector? When I added, inside the recorder, an USB/IDE adapter I manage a lot to solve conflits on 30th pin, without success....

!

Hi nicodocet

this is the first i have heard about this pin 39 on the ide cable, its designated DASP inside the GDA4164L and is connected direct to pin 117 of the MN103 and has a 10k to ground on it

whats the conflict problem???

[nicodocet]

whats the conflict problem???

I referred to the HDD IDE connector (not to the loader one).

Connecting the usb/ide adaptor in parallel with the recorder hdd controller (whit the recorder switched on and the adaptor off, or with the recorder on and the adaptor off or with both switched to on), the hdd doesn't work. I solved only cutting the 39th pin on the adaptor... but this causes some (boring) difficults to use the hdd with the usb/ide adaptor (while the recorder is switched off) : the hdd isn't sometimes recognized (the motor doesn't spin up) forcing me to repeatly conect/disconnect the ide pc plug until the motor spins up and the hdd is recognized.

I tried to ground or power supply with a 10k resistor pin 39, without success.

Any idea?

Edited April 17, 2008 by nicodocet

[andrew96]

I referred to the HDD IDE connector (not to the loader one).

Connecting the usb/ide adaptor in parallel with the recorder hdd controller (whit the recorder switched on and the adaptor off, or with the recorder on and the adaptor off or with both switched to on), the hdd doesn't work. I solved only cutting the 39th pin on the adaptor... but this causes some (boring) difficults to use the hdd with the usb/ide adaptor (while the recorder is switched off) : the hdd isn't sometimes recognized (the motor doesn't spin up) forcing me to repeatly conect/disconnect the ide pc plug until the motor spins up and the hdd is recognized.

I tried to ground or power supply with a 10k resistor pin 39, without success.

Any idea?

the only thing i can see is it could be the supply turning on and off when the unit turns on/off, sounds like the usb adapter could do with power supplied to it all the time so its ready when the unit needs it to be??

i have not really found a answer and i dont have a usb to ide adapter so cant really be of anymore help

sorry

Andrew