The Firmware Page

i have bought LG combo CDRW/DVD drive
GCC-4521B ? does anyone can tell me is there some way to make my dvd drive to be region free?

is there firmware for this drive ?

also I have GCE-8520B , can i make it GCE-8525B i dl firmware of 8525b so i wonder shuld i try toflash my 8520b with the firmware of 8525b?

Not a this time.

No.

Cross flashing this drive is not recommended.

Brother Vlad

do you plan to make firmware for this drive

I also bought one

(LG GCC 4521B)

Finishing up some testing should be available shortly.

Brother Vlad

With this CDRW Combo I have a lot of problems reading CDRW written with other CDRW writers and some Princo CD-R. I hope that the new firmware will solve this problems (realy slow reading for 1 CD 180 min)

This drive acts really weird on me. It just randomly stops detecting discs when inserted. The led flashes rapidly for a few seconds and then stops. It reports that there is no disc inserted.

Sometimes this lasts a few hours, sometimes a few days. It all of a sudden seems to start working again, with the same discs, and works for a while until the strange pattern starts again.

Any clue?

Its connected a secondary slave to my NEC ND-2500A as a master.

I flashed with TDB region free firmware to no avail. I have a feeling that perhaps there is an issue with the ide cable. But my NEC works just perfectly.

Any suggestions?

Is this firmware stable??? I found it here:
http://tdb.rpc1.org/#GCC4521B

Sorry,
BETA isn't stable.....

Let me do the question again:

How long can take to this firmware become stable? I just want to know how long tests to a certain firmware(not necessary gcc 4521b) are?

Thanks

When we first posted to this thread we hadn't posted the firmware to our page. Things stay in Beta until we hear enough clear and consistent reports, some drives will stay there for a long time because the volume is so low. The people we built the firmwares for initially have been successful. Nothing gets posted unless it's has a high probability of working, and if there are specific problems they will be pulled for review.

Brother Vlad

Nobody complain about anything??

questions:

After rewriting the firmware:

1. This device was capable to read and write CDs at 52x?
2. Could it rewrite at 32x?
3. Could it read DVD at 16x?

* I ask this 3 questions because I saw people in this forum that said that after they rewrite the firmware the CDRW or DVD wasn't capable to operate like they were before they rewrite the firmware.

** I saw this problems, but they were about others devices (not gcc 4521b).

So, if those questions are ok (if it works perfect for those people how tested), do you think I should try??
->I bought it yesterday (07/04/2004) DD/MM/YYYY

Thanks

Another thing:

Those drives from LG stay long times in BETA stage?

Thanks again

The drive should behave exactly as it did before the flashing, the RPC1 patch touches very little, and nothing in the read/write paths. The only change is from RPC2 to RPC1.

Save a backup copy of your original firmware, that way if there is anything unique about your drive you'll be able to go back to exactly what you started with.

If you need RPC1 firmware, there aren't many choices. You should be able to use your drive until you have used all your region changes and then apply the patched firmware. We don't post things we wouldn't have confidence to try ourselves, but we don't own this drive or many on our patch list.

Some people find LG drives to be very quirky, LG also releases dozens of OEM sub versions of things, then you have idiots like Mandrake who do stupid things that damage LG drives.

We hear computer gear is expensive in Brazil, so we understand your concern.

Unless you have some pressing need to get to RPC1 right now you might as well wait a while.

Brother Vlad

not only. when I bought my drive, it was the only combo I could find.

as a DVD reader, I must confess it's a good one. some people say it's noisy, but it's far less than my 120mm fan... but as a CD burner, it's ridiculous... too slow and too picky...

what do u think about crossflashing a 4520B to 4521B?

Anyone have the original firmware for LG gcc 4521b .
I tried the RPC1 firmware by the dangerous brothers and my combo drive now only works as a dvd rom(regions free), but wont read or write cd, cdr, cdrw. it is conected as secondary master.

Hello Vlad,

I bought a HL-DT-ST GCC-4521B Combo. I want to make it region free, but i saw in the firmware download this firmware is BETA and HIGH RISK.
I live in Brazil and you know computer gear is expensive in Brazil. So i need to know some aspects before procedded the firmware flash:

*How i save the original firmware backup(the firmware flasher have this option)??

*I saw too your firmware RPC-1 just works with 2003/12/08 release of "1.00", not the 2003/11/18. My drive have the 1.00 firmware version, but i dont know the firmwae's date how can i know the date??

*Do you know any problemas with your firmware for this combo?? Is it working good, without any problems?? You recommend to me to flash firmware??

Thank you very much

George

Please check the README.TXT file, this is covered there.


Please try the DiscInfo suggestion, should be in the vendor specific area. http://hijacker.rpc1.org/discinfo/


Yes, there seem to be at least two versions, and they are not compatible. Please email us a copy of your firmware that you download during the backup process. You don't have to flash the drive just get the backup.

Not wise to flash it right now, we have someone testing an alternate version of the firmware.

Brother Vlad

HI Dangerous Brothers and everybody else !
Please someone send me the original firmware for the GCC-4521b ?
or even a alternate version of the patched rpc1 firmware ?
I'll try anything to make my combo drive work again...
How about downgrading the firmware to GCC-4520b, anyone tried that already ?
I flash Upgraded my combo drive with the GCC-4521b patched rpc1 firmware by TDB and now it only works as a dvd-rom.
Dangerous Brothers, I'm not blaming anyone for what happend. I'm totally aware that it is my own risk to something like flashing upgrade a device. And I also know that I was very stupid not making a back-up b4 upgrading. In fact I'd like to thank you guys for your hard work on making available so many usefull goods. I had other dvd-rom drive in the past and I upgraded it with a firmware by TDB and it worked just fine.

Please email us directly for the 2003/11/18 version which was pulled from another drive in Brazil. If possible could you also include a scan of the label on the drive (or type in the info if that is easier).

Brother Vlad

Thanks a lot Brother Vlad.
I will scan the label and email it to you when i get home.

The firmware works ok for me. The earlier problem vanished when I moved the drive from Secondary slave to master and moved my DVD-Burner to secondary slave.

Overall though, I don't like this drive. The dvd read is slower than a lot of other drives and the cd writing is very very average. If it wasnt free I would have returned it.

LG blows, imo.

Anyone tried to flash :
===============

LG GCC-4480B -> GCC-4521B
or
LG GCC-4480B -> GCC-4520B -> GCC-4521B

(I know GCC-4480B -> GCC-4520B working fine but seems to have some speed calibration problems)


Thanks.

Hey guys, I got a brand new LG GCC-45121B with firmware dated 2004/02/28. I already saved a copy of the firmware using mtktool.
Is it of any help for Vlad & Igor?

When the region change counter reaches zero, flashing it back will set the counter to the original number?

Is there a tutorial or book where I can find more info about these firmwares? I know some mips/x86 assembly, but I have no idea how to hack these firmwares...

Yes, please email it to us. (see button below)

The region might reset if reflashed, the drive doesn't have a separate EEPROM to store that in. Reset tools for the 4320B and 4480B should also work on the 4521B.

The MTK uses an 8051, memory is banked in 64K sections. The 8051 is pretty well documented and given your previous assembler background a raw disassembly should make some sense. No public documentation has surfaced for the MTK chips.

Brother Vlad

hi,

i'm newbie in this and i would like to know if i upgrade the firmware of my lg 4521b, this would read cd again.

i mean, my combo stoped reading cd (read only dvd) after a "burn failed" with Nero.

my lg combo is H.L.D.S.2003/11/18

thx a lot

Hmmm, i see that the 4521 are even more unreliable that the 4520 i owned... Weird stuff. I tough that I blamed LG enought to not make similar mistakes again, but...

I suppose that the drive also lack the speed control over software (= useless for DVD playback, unless you did not care about audio at all...) and their activity cause flicking with HDD led as well...

Oh, yea, come on, LG...

I recommend to NOT buy any LG drives - they aren't good...

BTW....

Heheh, could I ask what the hell he did? I dubt that is possibly with software damage the drive - at least not easily... Maybe changes in firmware... So, can you ask, what...?

...it could be warning for others too