Hacked Firmware

- for PC DVD Drives -

Hacked Firmware is legal !! 

For most DVD drives, someone, somewhere, has coded new firmware that gets around some of the limitations.  Go to The Firmware Page and do a search for your model.

Region-free - the most popular, since the drive can then play any DVD from anywhere in the world.  

To do this, you need to patch the firmware of the DVD player.  You may also need to remove the Windows Regions Protection – go to:

1)  RegionFree Firmware - http://pioneerdvd.rpc1.org/

2)  RegionFree Windows utilities –

DVD Region Killer (http://www.elby.org/RegionKiller/english/index.htm )

DVD Genie (http://www.inmatrix.com/ )

Burn speed limitation removal - will allow the drive to at least attempt to burn at a faster rate.  Many drives detect the media's rated speed and will not try to burn any faster than that.  If you can burn at 2x using 1x media, it will save you money.  Of course - you "may" get errors.

Macrovision Removal - deletes that eveil signal that corrupts the signal of copied movies

 

Firmware Flashing FAQ for the Pioneer DVR-A05 (same as DVR-105)


Since a lot of people are having trouble flashing their Pioneer drives, it seemed handy to create a little FAQ.

Of course this FAQ will probably not answer ALL your questions, but if it doesn't, just open a topic here.

Q:This hacked firmware stuff, what is that about?
A:Well, as you might have noticed, burning-speed to a DVD-r media is limited by the drive. Because of this, you can only write at higher speeds to certain media, if this media is certified by Pioneer. Because some media which aren't certified by Pioneer, allow faster burning then 1x (for example : in a different DVD-Recorder), we also should be able to burn them faster.

To accomplish this either Pioneer itself or some 3rd party should add MediaID's (read below) to the media-table in the firmware of the drive. Ofcourse Pioneer isn't doing this, so programmers here try to do this.

Q:So, a hacked firmware actually enables me to burn faster to slow media?
A:In short, YES.

Q:OK, that sounds pretty cool. Where can I get those nice firmwares ?
A:Right here ! :

WARNING : Usage of ALL firmwares is at your own risk, never come crying to us, complaining that your drive was killed.

*Pioneer A05/105 v1.30 - RPC-1 + 2x4all AND 12xRIP Final : Credit goes to >NIL: & zaitec2



Q:OK, I want to downgrade again to an original firmware after I used a hacked one, can I do this?
A:Yes you can, all you have to do is download an original firmware and upgrade your drive again using the '/F' option.  When you try to downgrade, the firmware flashing software will tell you that your firmware is already up to date and that it cant be changed.

By FORCING it to flash the drive, it does flash your drive.

When you start the upgrade.bat, it executes the UPGDVD.exe with the /F parameter. So no need to specify it.

Q:Where can I get the original firmwares?
A:Well, you can get the original ones here, I also put some packages together which might help you down- or upgrade easier.

*Pioneer A05/105 v0.58 - Thanks to Gradius!
*Pioneer A05/105 v1.00
*Pioneer A05/105 v1.21
*Pioneer A05/105 v1.30



Q:How do I flash my drive then?
A:Flashing almost always just works through Windows, so lets first handle that:

1) First decide which firmware you want to install, download that package to your computer.
2) Once it is on your computer, you need to 'EXTRACT' the file to a folder on your harddrive, I created self-extracting files so you only need to run them and select a location to extract them to. A folder is then automaticly created for you, with the firmware files in it.
3) Remove any disk in the DVD-R drive, this will might cause an error when trying to flash.
4) In the packages mentioned above there is a file called UPGRADE.BAT. If you double click this, it will start the flashing procedure. If you have downloaded one of the original firmwares, you will need to execute the UPGDVD.EXE.
5) It will ask you if you really want to flash your DVD drive.. You need to click 'Yes' to start flashing *sigh*.
6) If it says it is done flashing, you're done.



Q:flashing under Windows didn't work, some weird error or something?!
A:Ok, well there are some reports that flashing under Windows doesn't work, therefor you can also flash your drive under DOS.

1) First you will need a bootdisk, you can make a bootdisk under Windows. If you don't know how this works, your an idiot icon_wink.gif(and you shouldn't try flashing your firmware).
2) Put the firmware files on your bootdisk or in a directory on your HD which will be reachable under DOS. (Do not put the files on a NTFS formated drive, because those drives can't be read under DOS).
3) Boot your computer with the bootdisk.
4) Go to the directory which contains the firmware files, if you have put them on the bootdisk also then you don't need to this.
5) Execute UPGRADE.BAT (if you have downloaded the files from the locations mentioned above) or UPGDVD.EXE (if you downloaded them from the Pioneer site).
6) After flashing, remove the bootdisk from your diskdrive and reboot your computer.



Note : I have seen some posts from people that had to reinstall their burning software to get a newly flashed drive to work. So if you still got any problems, try that first, before reverting back to the old FW.