The Firmware Page

http://www.firmwarehq.com/Optiarc/BC-5500S/files.html
The above link has one unlocked firmware which is 1.78 used for sony Vaio laptops. Using the extractable file EP0000211176.exe (using the program Uniextract found at http://legroom.net/software/uniextract) we can get the files used to update the oem BD rom drive to the latest firmare.

My question is can anyone remove the Sony Vaio check so that I can install this update to the HP optiarc BC-5500s having the firmware 1.83?

Thanks in advance.

And who says this firmware would work with your Drive/Laptop which requires a different OEM firmware??

Can you post a Discinfo output?

DISCINFO VERSION : 1.7.0 BETA.12
VENDOR : Optiarc
MODEL : BD ROM BC-5500S
REVISION : 1.83
VENDOR SPECIFIC : Ý

LOADING MECHANISM : Tray
SERIAL NUMBER : 8XR2S45E121
BUFFER SIZE : 2048KB
INTERFACE : ATAPI
RPC2 SCHEME : YES
STATUS : Set
USER CHANGES : 4
VENDOR CHANGES : 4
CURRENT REGION : 2
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 : 16
MAX CDR WRITE SPEED: 16

At the moment it is impossible to crossflash between different OEM firmwares simply because the drive refuses the new firmware and without an unencrypted firmware we also cannot find out why it is refused.

The file EP0000211176.exe is unencrypted firmware. It can be extracted with uniextract. I extracted it and I got many files: [0] .rdata CERTIFICATE .data .text and .rsrc

It is the only unencrypted firmware found.

Just becaused you managed to split the flasher executable into parts, this does not mean that the data inside is unencrypted. There must be a list with Mediacodes inside the firmware. Show me where in the firmware you can find the text "RITEKF1" for example.

Sorry I have no idea of firmware programming. I though the problem was the extraction. I am let down by HP who never released a firmware update unlike all other oem suppliers of this bd-rom drive. Anyway thanks for your reply. Now I know that I will never support this supplier never ever again.

There are some issues with this bd-rom such as decrease of buffer memory size which is only 2mb instead of 4.5mb and the lack of lightscribe functionality compared to the retail or other oem drives of bc-5500s. I am very disapointed.

I have just seen that HP has a firmware update for BC-5600s. Does it help at all? Thanks

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/soft ... =en&dlc=en
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib/software10 ... p41122.exe

Nope. It's for a different drive. While the BC-5500S and BC-5600S seem to be pretty similar, the firmwares are still different.

A couple of days ago, I received an unencrypted version of a BC-5500A firmware. Unfortunately I didn't have very much time for investigations. But in case I should manage to understand the firmware decryption routine, there is a slight chance to create patched firmwares and maybe I can even manage to crossflash between different OEM firmwares.

This should then be possible for BC-5500A, BC-5500S, BC-5600A and BC-5600S.

Hey Liggy,

I have an HP HDX 9350eb with an optiarc (sony/nec?) bc-5500a bluray drive in it. But it doesnt read bluray discs anymore.
When i put in CD's/DVD's everything is fine -> drive starts to spin up and a little later the disc is readable/available in windows.
It used to work like that for bluray discs also, but not anymore.
When i put in a BluRay disc -> drive just makes a verry short silent spin effort (to identify disc?), its VERRY short though drive doesnt even spin up, and no disc in windows.
When i double click my drive icon (in my computer) it pops up a window asking me to insert a disc.
This drive used to work, so its not because of unsopported movies or anything, because i know a few of my discs worked before.

Its been like this for months now, maybe even a year, i dont remember.
When i do a search on the net i read allot of ppl are having this problem with this drive.
Since CD/DVD's share the same lens but BluRay has its own, i thought i had to clean the lens, but that didnt help.

HP suppert just does its usual thing and ignores the complaints or keeps you bussy with useless suggestions like formatting your system and reinstalling everything.
Not much input from sony either.
When i lost my patience and started to get angry they just closed a thread of mine on the hp support forum, where i told never to buy hp again.

Many other forums seem to suggest it is an hardware problem, but i have some reasons to not be so sure about that. I rarely move the pc, so the hardware is pretty 'fixed'. I havent bumped it or anything, also overheating seems out of the question. Hardware just doesnt break like that (or its really shitty put togetter to say the least).

As i am a verry poor student, 'just' buying a new drive is really only a last resort option for me.

I was hoping to flash the drive as a last resort, but its an HP oem so the 1.05 from optiarc wont work (will it?)
I also noticed the last firmware on the optiarc site dates from 2008 and the firmware in my hp dates from 2007.
Eventhough the optiarc is version 1.05 and the hp says version 1.86... strange/misleading numbers.

Doing some googling i found out about binflash and with some more googling i read (here) you are/were working on support for crossflashing?
Which is exactly what i would need, right?

so i was wondering how the progress in that direction is going?


ty, and keep up the good work!
Allot of ppl are helped because of ppl like you!

What is easier than running a LIVE system or installuing a second OS to properly to test the drive capabilities??

1.0* is for retail drives, while 1.8* seems to be for HP OEM drives.

Doing some googling i found out about binflash and with some more googling i read (here) you are/were working on support for crossflashing?
Which is exactly what i would need, right?

so i was wondering how the progress in that direction is going?[/quote]
I don't think flashing a different firmware will fix your problem, so I highly doubt that this is what you need. I guess your laser for BluRay stopped working so it's likely that you'll either need to get it repaired or get the drive replaced if chef's suggestion doesn't help.

Regarding crossflashing, I now know which Bytes are checked for which values and it looks like every OEM has their own bootcode, expecting different values here. Unfortunately just changing these Bytes doesn't help right now because these values have to be repeated in the encrypted area and I have not yet figured out the algorithm for encryption/decryption.

Hi Liggy,

I hope I can shed some light on the "spin up and fail" issue mentioned by CHRiTTeR. I have a BC-5500S drive in an ASUS M70Vn-C1 laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium x64. The drive's firmware is revision 1.C0; ASUS' 1.E.1 firmware (apparently based on the last 2009 revision by Optiarc) fails to install for me and for other users on ASUS' forums. I have noticed that when attempting to read a dual-layer commercial film Blu-ray disc, the drive fails (several attempts at reading, but the disc is never mounted and the OS never recognizes it). Given a single-layer Blu-ray disc (or a DVD or CD), the drive does not have such problems. This is not an AACS problem between discs as the latest revisions of AnyDVD HD, PowerDVD 10, MakeMKV, etc. also fails to recognize the dual-layer disc only. I suspect therefore that this not a laser problem, particularly because the most recent changelog entries for Sony Optiarc's version of the firmware specifically mention Win7 compatibility and Sony Optiarc indicates that the drive can read dual-layer BD-ROM, BD-R, etc.

I'm grateful for all your hard work and will do anything I can to help diagnose problems with the BC-5500S and hopefully produce an unlocked (or at least fully functional) firmware.

A "functional firmware" must be provided by Optiarc and its OEM Asus in this case.

What do Optiarc and Asus support say about these big issues?

Hi [_chef_],

Sony has said that it is the responsibility of the OEMs to provide their own firmware for OEM versions of the drive and specifically warns against using the apparently Win 7 / BD-DL compatible firmware on OEM drives (it fails to install anyway when it finds that the firmware is not the original Sony Optiarc version). ASUS has said to others on the ASUS forums that it's Sony's responsibility. When I spoke to an ASUS tech rep on the phone, he tried to get me to install the 1.E1 firmware despite numerous reports (including from me) that it fails to install over the 1.C0 firmware that ASUS shipped from the drive. Then he suggested that I try to install firmware for a totally unrelated DVD Super Multi drive...Apparently ASUS considers its responsibility satisfied even though the "updated" firmware doesn't actually work for anybody. I'm still under warranty so I can always annoy them until they cross-ship me a working drive but since this seems to be a problem for at least every ASUS and HP BC-5500S user under Win7 I'd like to contribute whatever I can to getting things working again. To sum up, the latest Sony Optiarc firmware does appear to work but is limited to users of the original Sony Optiarc firmware, and the ASUS firmware might well work but cannot be installed to test this out. Thanks.

Ouch, thats a super sucker behaviour and sneak out from $ony, I'd say....
Sure, ASUS is OEM, but without pre-work from $ony they probably can do kinda nada in such a case.
It sounds really scary, they sell a computer with a drive which promises something which it cannot deliver - in the EU that's clearly a fake / cheating against the customer.

I hope there will be a conclusion soon.

I agree that it's bad behavior. Sony Optiarc does have a firmware that supposedly works released to users on their EU download site, and I can't imagine that it would cost them anything to share it with ASUS. On the other hand, it's equally likely that ASUS already has access to the working firmware (as it has released at least one updated version based on a firmware that would have come from Sony originally) and just won't take the time to make some minor edits and release it to users. I'm hopeful that the unencrypted firmware Liggy mentions will lead to a community fix for the problem. I think I can persuade ASUS to send me a working drive per my warranty if that doesn't happen, but I think I'm in the minority in having that option. I'm also going to take a look around the forums and see if there's any consensus on a decent slim SATA BD and DVD Combo drive that I could throw in here instead. Thanks.

In my opinion Asus would have to request that firmware update (and possibly also pay for it)


Don't expect too much from my findings. Without being able to check the bootcode, it might still be dangerous to apply a different OEM firmware - even if I can find ways to make it flash.

Any hope yet about the BC-5600S ?
I am still desperately looking for a slot-in RPC1 BD drive...

Not really looking good. I haven't managed to understand the encryption when I analysed the code a while back. From an examination on a different drive that I did yesterday I got a new idea on what to look for. But it's still not too likely that I can find a solution.

Anyone else with V850 assembler skills is highly welcome to help

OK, I've experienced the unreadable disk (no disk inserted) for blu-ray on my HP DV6T with the BC-5500s as well. Problem just started happening as I thought I was about to sit back and watch an episode of "V". I put the disk in and it stuttered twice then stopped.

I tried all the tricks suggested and actually got it to recognize my Muppet Blu-ray after uninstalling the device in device driver and rebooting with the disk in drive. (Once)

I started [*Profanity*] around with programs and tried some options in Any-DVD HD. SUCCESS! It seems that if you go in and check the "Disable BD-Live" option. As soon as I did this the drive spun up normally and Any-DVD started scanning the disk. Popped up my player and voila!

Hope this helps some of you.

Hi Liggy,

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread but I have looked elsewhere and have been unable to find anything.

I have a BC-5600s and I was wondering if you made any further progress in being able to hack the firmware to make it RPC1. I don't know anything about drive firmware but from reading through the forum it seems that you can make a drive rip faster or region free or both with hacked firmware. If you are unable to make this drive region free(RPC1) is there anyway you could possibly hack the firmware so that it at least rips faster? I have firmware 104b which is different from what other people with this drive have and I would be happy to dump it and upload it if you think it will help. Also not sure if this is relevant but I don't think mine is an OEM drive, I bought it on ebay and it doesn't have an eject button or even an information sticker on it. Below is my infotool readout.



Thanks very much for your help.

Eko

I did not make any progress and examining these drives is currently not in my scope.

Dumping the firmware seems to be impossible, at least I could not find any location in the firmware that looks like it would allow dumping.

The firmwares are encrypted and while I managed to get hold of an unencrypted firmware, I have not been able to figure out, how the decryption/encryption works. Unless this doesn't change - and this is very likely - there will be no patches available at all.

The only thing that might work, is resetting the drive's region code with Binflash, but it's better to use software like AnyDVD or DVD Fab Decrypter that can do rips even if the region code of drive and disc do not match.

Hi Liggy,

I'm currently looking at some other NEC chipsets and I have a decent knowledge of the V850 series. I'd like to have a look at this unencrypted FW you have to see if I can nut it out. Do you have the same FW in encrypted form as well for comparison?

NMI.

Please do such conversation by pm.