The Firmware Page

Hi Everyone!

I recently installed 802tf32 onto my Toshiba TS-L802A HD-DVD rom/DVRRW drive. Process seems to work ok and said it was successful at the end on the update, i rebooted the machine and noticed that the drive was no longer detected in windows.
I have looked in the bios and and it tells me that there is no optical drive installed, but in the boot order list it still lists the Toshiba drive in there. boot from cd does not seem to work either.

I have tried re flashing but i am just told "Target drive not found"

I posted on another forum and someone said the drive might have gone into safe mode and master/slave/cable select settings might have been disabled?

Is there anyway i can force my computer to "see" the drive so it can be re flashed? maybe shorting of some jumpers or different software?

I have tried discinfo also, but am told there is no drive installed


Thanks for any help!!

sounds like you have the wrong firmware to it, and bricked it. what firmware did you use? and is this drive, in a specific brand system?

Uhm, from where did you get "802tf32"?

Which firmware did you used to have on the drive before flashing to the TF32 (which is a Toshiba OEM firmware by the way, and the latest available is TF37)?

The TF3x firmwares are CSEL HIGH (master), which might well be the reason for which your drive is not seen now... if your drive used to have a CSEL LOW (slave) firmware on board, then by flashing the TF32 firmware you might now have an IDE conflict ...

Depending on the computer you've got there might be ways around this if it turns out it is really a CSEL issue ...

Also, to make sure that the drive is still OK, you could try connecting the drive to a desktop machine via an USB adapter or perhaps via an IDE adapter.

Hi Everyone thanks for your replies!


My Laptop is a Toshiba Satellite A200 (PSAF6A-06S01N)


I did a search and came across another site like this one as i could not find it on the Toshiba website


Im not 100% sure what it was, i did back it up though, but does not tell me what firmware it was, but from memory it was older then the one i tried to put on it now maybe it was something like TF31?


any idea on how to revert to old firmware? i have backup of original still!

Oh and the reason i flashed the drive is because i went to burn an ISO and the drive just made high pitched sounds as it was trying to read the blank media, I cleaned the laser lens too, no diff there. So i thought perhaps i should update firmware to update list of media the drive recognizes


I will see if i can try this out. I do see on boot the drive does try to access the drive but then because of the possible incorrect CSEL settings must just ignore the drive.


Iv flashed heaps of drive before, don't know how i stuffed this up so bad thanks for helping me out though, hopefully it can be fixed!

If you can upload a copy of your backup file, I'll have a look at it and tell you which one it is.

How did you managed to make the backup? Did the TF32 flasher offered to back up the current firmware from your drive before flashing the new version?

Yeah it gave me the option to make a backup!
I wont be home from work for another 6 or 7 hours but will upload it then!

thank you

Seems that cvs & Puma are right on track.
Must be a master/slave issue because of the use of an incompatible (wrong OEM) firmware on your drive.

I hope it is fixable

Im heading home in another hour so ill be uploading my backed up firmware

I cant find where the program stored the backup file!
So there goes that idea

Is there a way to force a reflash?

Ok this is wierd, i tried booting from ubuntu cd again and it worked

bios still says "no optical drive" but in boot order its in there,

I put my old hard drive into the computer and it starts reinstalling the hddvd drive when i log in!

but my new hard drive install wont see the drive, even though it did before!
very strange

so looks like a windows problem now :S

Seems to me like the usual master/slave/CSEL firmware thing.

You would need a slimtype adapter (2."<>3.5") and the appropriate firmware to flash it back.
Did you have a look at the sticker on top of the drive?
The firmware it came with must be mentioned there...

Would the firmware still be a problem if i can get it to work in my old windows install?
iv tried reg fixes, no diff

drive reads fine in old windows install though!

Does Discinfo find the drive, is it recognized in the BIOS after a cold start (not reboot!!)?

Hey, Old windows install the drive works fine, well detects fine and seems to read cds i put in it


Here is Disc info output:

DISCINFO VERSION : 1.6.1.6
VENDOR : TOSHIBA
MODEL : DVDW/HD TS-L802A
REVISION : TF32
VENDOR SPECIFIC : 12/11/06E64220
LOADING MECHANISM : Tray
SERIAL NUMBER : 78U7079125
NUMBER VOL. LEVELS : 16
BUFFER SIZE : 8192KB
TOSHIBA CODE : RA
TOSHIBA MODEL : Unknown model
INTERFACE : ATAPI
RPC2 SCHEME : YES
STATUS : Set
USER CHANGES : 4
VENDOR CHANGES : 4
CURRENT REGION : 4
ANALOG AUDIO PLAY : NO
COMPOSITE OUTPUT : NO
DIGITAL PORT-PORT1 : NO
DIGITAL PORT-PORT2 : NO
READ UPC CODE : YES
MULTISESSION READ : YES
MODE 2 FORM 1 : YES
MODE 2 FORM 2 : YES
READ ISRC CODE : YES
READ BAD CODE : NO
BUFFER UNDER-RUN : YES
MT. RAINIER : NO
CAN READ CDR : YES
CAN READ CDRW : YES
CAN READ CDRM2 : YES
CAN WRITE CDR : YES
CAN WRITE CDRW : YES
CAN TEST WRITE : YES
CAN READ DVD-ROM : YES
CAN READ DVD-R : YES
CAN READ DVD-RW : YES
CAN READ DVD-RAM : YES
CAN READ DVD+R : YES
CAN READ DVD+RW : YES
CAN WRITE DVD-R : YES
CAN WRITE DVD-RW : YES
CAN WRITE DVD-RAM : YES
CAN WRITE DVD+R : YES
CAN WRITE DVD+RW : YES
MAX CDR READ SPEED : 26
MAX CDR WRITE SPEED: 26

No surprise because of the wrong firmware you flashed on it...

You need the ide adapter and the correct firmware, then use the tds(win) flasher with the -NOCHECK option.

So you are saying it is the wrong firmware according to disc info?
I just played a HD DVD movie in it just b4 in my old windows install, worked fine.

What firmware should i be using?

The firmware which is noted on the sticker on top of the drive.

Look on the sticker on the drive in the section which says "ROM Ver. XXXX". That XXXX will tell you which firmware you originally had on the drive. If it was a TFxx version, then the TF32 you've got now is the correct firmware for your drive and you can update to TF37 which is much newer (see the screenshot below).

Given that your laptop is a Toshiba, the TFxx firmwares (which are Toshiba OEM) should be the correct ones to use.

It is quite curious that your laptop works OK with one HDD but not the other ... there might be some incompatibility between the new HDD and the Toshiba drive with the current firmware on board (slim chance but you never know) ... in this case updating to TF37 might well cure the problem.

Furthermore, I presume the HDDs you use are IDE ones. If that's the case, have a look at the two HDDs you've got and see if by any chance they've got any jumpers on them which might set them up as master or slave. If one has a jumper and the other not, that could explain why one works and the other doesn't.

This might be a way of sorting your problem out. I've done this on an Acer laptop to sort out a master/slave issue. I flashed a slave optical drive with a Toshiba master firmware because it was much newer than the other firmware I had and then to avoid an IDE conflict I set up the IDE HDD as slave using a jumper, and everything worked like a charm! This sort of thing might not work on all laptops though, but its worth a try ...

Ok I might Pull the drive out and see what rom version is says was on there originally.

The laptop has 2 hard drives in there, one that is boots from and one that can be used for storage
The new drive was working with the new hard drive up until i flashed the firmware.

And nope the hard drives are SATA ones, so no jumpers to set on them!

I will see how i go opening this beast up hopefully fingers crossed i can upgrade to TF37, like i said before i only updated because i tried some blank media in it and it did not recognize it, usually means the drives firmware doesn't know about that particular media until it has been updated to know about it?


Thanks for all your help guys!
at least Its sorrta working atm!

When you look at the device list in the main part of BIOS, not the boot order, in what ide location does it say the drives name or unknown device? If it says it location is slave then you know you should try a master setting.

There are also ways to force the hardware to a setting ie soldering or removing a pin. In the case that you feel you really need to use a certain firmware that might have the wrong cable select settings.

Most USB adapters I have used did work for flashing mainly only on a 32-bit xp sp3 machine setup with no extra software for the sole purpose of flashing drives. I have had mixed results on 64 bit windows 7 and vista flashing with USB sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. The good thing about USB is that IDE location settings do not matter so its plug and play. But 50 PIN JAE -> 40 PIN IDE adapters are pretty easy to setup to flash laptop IDE drive on a desktop.

Also if the firmware is made for the drive I don't think it is technically the "wrong" firmware. The firmware is just not setup for you system.

Hey Guys!

Ok so I have updated to tf37 now
works on my old windows install, so im guessing its just a windows issue now.

Bios says "no optical drive"
i never looked before i did the update, so im guessing that it never appeared in there before, and must get picked up later on in post?

can boot from live cds fine

Hmm
I just installed windows 7 on my computer, read the dvd fine and once it booted into windows the drive was no longer detected in windows!

man this is strange, like i said before i updated the firmware and it was working fine in that install of windows!