The Firmware Page

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Here is the step by step process you need to follow in order to crossflash your GSA-T20L drive into a GSA-E50L:

WARNING: Like always, it is a good idea to dump the main and the core firmware of your drive before attempting any firmware update or crossflash. Details of how to do this can be found at STEP 5.


STEP 1. Download the latest Windows version of devilsclaw's Renesas flasher from http://sourceforge.net/projects/flasher/ and extract it in a folder such as 'C:\Flasher'.

Open a Command Prompt window and change the current directory to 'C:\Flasher'.


STEP 2. Download the GSA-E50L NE02 firmware from LG (or other reputable source). Save the file in the 'C:\Flasher' directory you've created before, and rename it as 'GSA-E50L_NE02.exe'.

Extract the main and core firmware from the GSA-E50L NE02 flasher, by running the following command:


Rename the two resulting *.hex files as 'E50L_main_fw.bin' and 'E50L_core_fw.bin' respectively.


STEP 3. Use a hex editor to modify the 'E50L_main_fw.bin' as indicated below.

The original GSA-E50L NE02 main firmware should look like this:


Change 'GSA-E50'L to 'GSA-T20L' so that the modified firmware looks like this:


Save the firmware as 'E50L_main_crossflash.bin'.


STEP 4. Fix the checksum of the modified file, by running the following command:


After the program has been successfully run, the 'E50L_main_crossflash.bin' file should now look like this:


The first two bytes (representing the checksum) have now been fixed, and you can now use this file to crossflash your GSA-T20L drive into a GSA-E50L drive.

NOTE: If you don't want to go through all this editing, then you can skip steps 2-4 completely, by simply using the 'E50L_main_crossflash.bin' file attached to this post.


STEP 5. Flash the 'E50L_main_crossflash.bin' main firmware using devilclaw's windows flasher.

First run the follwing command to find out your drive ID:


You'll get an output like this:


Now that you know what your drive ID is (i.e. 1 in this example - if in your case the drive ID is something else, just replace the 1 in the command line commands below with the actual drive ID reported by the previous command) you are ready to backup and then flash your GSA-T20L drive.

NOTE: You should always backup (dump) your existing firmware first, so you can undo any changes in case something goes wrong somewhere.

The commands to dump the main firmware and the core of your drive are:

Keep these two files safe, and if the firmware of your GSA-T20L drive is different than NC08, make sure you post a copy for us too!

You can now flash the crossflash-ready firmware by running the following command line:


Wait until the flasher finishes its job and then shut down your computer (on some computers a normal restart is not enough, so just to be safe please do a complete shut down, not just a normal restart/reboot).


STEP 6. Flash the original GSA-E50L core firmware extracted at step 1 ('E50L_core_firmware.bin') to make sure that your crossflashed drive has a genuine E50L core, without any GSA-T20L references left behind. For your convenience, the GSA-E50L core (as extracted during step 1 of the crossflashing process) is also provided attached to this thread.

To flash the core, run the following command:


When the flasher finishes, shut down your computer once more.

CONGRATULATIONS! You've now got a genuine GSA-E50L drive!


NOTE 1:

If you dump the main and core firmwares of your crossflashed drive and compare them to the original GSA-E50L versions you'll notice they are identical.

NOTE 2:

The GSA-T20L NC08 firmware is dated 14.02.2007 (in other words, a rather old HP OEM firmware!).
The GSA-E50L NE02 firmware is dated 04.11.2008 (much newer retail firmware).

NOTE 3:

If you're not 100% sure of what you're doing, then better not do it at all.
If you want to crossflash your drive, you do so at your own risk!

cvs,

did you try it yourself successfully?

YES, I've done it myself on two separate drives (on a faulty drive which doesn't read any discs first - just to make sure the method works, and then on a good drive).

I've attached a test burn for the crossflashed drive below. In fact I'm VERY surprised that the drive burns so well on this rather poor media (HP branded, 25pk spindle). I've got much worse results than this when I burned some of this media with BenQ 1650/Samsung S-202B desktop drives and Pioneer DVD-K16 slim drive (with the latest Sony OEM 1.10 firmware on board) in the past ...

Thanks,

I just wanted to be sure.

I updated the windows versions to support this now. I need to remember how to compile multiple distro compatible executables for linux and then it will be updated also.

Thanks devilsclaw! Much appreciated!

As now we have a 100% windows solution, I've updated step 4 to reflect this

My drive fails to be flashed.... any hints?
I'm using Windows 7 64bit on an Asus G1S, Command Prompt is opened as administrator.


D:\Flasher>flasher.exe -D
Devilsclaw's LG Renesas Drive Utility

AVAILABLE DRIVES AND IDs:
Drive ID: 1 Name: DVDRAM GSA-T20L
Drive ID: 2 Name: CLONEDRIVE
Drive ID: 3 Name: CLONEDRIVE
Drive ID: 4 Name: CLONEDRIVE
Drive ID: 5 Name: CLONEDRIVE

D:\Flasher>flasher -d 1 -m T20L_main.fw.bin
Devilsclaw's LG Renesas Drive Utility
cmd_drive: Opening Drive: 1.
cmd_dumpmain: Starting dumping process
cmd_dumpmain: Dump process finished

D:\Flasher>flasher -d 1 -c T20L_core_fw.bin
Devilsclaw's LG Renesas Drive Utility
cmd_drive: Opening Drive: 1.
cmd_dumpcore: Starting dumping process
cmd_dumpcore: Dump process finished

D:\Flasher>flasher -d -1 -f E50L_main_crossflash.bin
Error Bad Parameter: -1

D:\Flasher>flasher -d 1 -f E50L_main_crossflash.bin
Devilsclaw's LG Renesas Drive Utility
cmd_drive: Opening Drive: 1.
cmd_flashfirm: Flashing process started

firm_flasher: Drive should be flashing its light.
firm_flasher: This indicates its flashing its self.
firm_flasher: This can take a while, Please be patiant.
firm_flasher: Failed to write at 0x001A0000
firm_flasher: your drive should still be fine.
cmd_flashfirm: Flashing process failed

Tried in SAFE MODE yet?

there is no specific way for me to know what error causes that but the only one I can think of is either my flasher does not work on that drive, which I doubt or you forgot to fix the checksum on the firmware.

@_chef_

i'll try safe mode when I'm back from vacation..


@devilsclaw
I'm actually using the files attached to the post... so unless doing it late at night made me miss something, I would expect them to work..

Thanks for the replies so far... will post again soon

download the newest version there was a bug in the old one. if it still does not work then we might be able to see.

Thanks.
Great Post.
Now My old t20l is a E50L DVD drive and i use the new version of the firmware from LG and its from the year 2009, newest than the 2008 you have and it work perfect.
The link for the new firmware its...
http://www.lg.com/us/support-product/lg-GSA-E50L
This new version, correct some problems writing DVDs+R and the Dual Layer Disk at most, went you try to burn an image of disk (iso, etc)
Thanks Again.

moe3ius.

Thanks cvs and devilsclaw!

My HP Dragon came with a GSA-T20L drive. It always been a bit temperamental when it comes to playing DVD's, but recently it had gotten worse, refusing to play some of my recent purchases. The drive would ramp up and down, and then I'd hear the lens assembly stoke multiple times attempting to read the disk. The usual routine of cleaning the disc and lens offered no improvement

After some Googling I surmised that my firmware more than likely the issue, but no updates available. I decided to give the crossflashing procedure outlined in this post a try

The procedure went off without a hitch and I put in one of the discs that wouldn't play before. The drive sounded different, ramping smartly up to speed and quickly locking onto the disc. Within 5 secs my trusty VLC Media Player opened and it was time to get out the popcorn. Hurray, my drive has a new lease on life!!

Thanks again for putting together the nice, detailed instructions and continued support of the SourceForge files

MSUStevo