The Firmware Page

Flashing guide for Ricoh 5125A/based DVD+RW drives with an other brand firmware (incl. RPC1 patchs)


Probably applies to the following models :

Aopen DVD+RW DVRW-2412PRO
HP DVD Writer dvd200i/e
Memorex DVD Recorder DVD 100
Philips DVDRW228
Philips DVDRWD28
Philips DVDRW6002
Ricoh DVD+RW MP-5125A
Ricoh DVD+RW RW-5125A
Sony DRU-120A


PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE !
The flashing operation is risky. A power outage, a boot, during flashing, a wrong firmware, can make your drive inoperant. I don't accept any responsibility if the described procedure fails and destroy your disk.

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1. Copy the Rflash program and a branded firmware update in a directory, for instance "regular". Rename the firmare to a simpler name, for instance brand.ric.

2. Copy the patched update in a second directory (for instance "patch" and rename it with the same mane than the original one, here brand.ric.

3. Open Windows Explorer so you can easily make LATER a copy of patch\brand.ric to replace regular\brand.ric. Reduce the size of this explorer window and place it to an edge of your screen.

4. Execute the Rflash program in the "regular" directory. It will display your drive and the brand firmware (with your drive denomination). Place the window to allow you to see also the explorer window we have seen in 3. concurrently with the Rflash window.

5. In RFlash, press the "Start" button to begin flashing. If the firmare has the right code, the program will begin to save your drive's firmware to the disk. Once the backup is in progress, as quickly you can, copy NOW the
patch\brand.ric to replace regular\brand.ric. If you succeed, the RFLash program will update the drive with the patched firmware you have replaced the genuine firmware you have replaced with.

5. You will probably see the RFlash program is frozen. Don't worry, it is still properly working. If all is OK, it wiill tell you at the end of operation (several minutes, be patient !) the upgrade is done.

6. Simply reboot your computer and now, you will have a new drive drive which is RPC1 enabled (without region protection, thanks to Dean's patchs).

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IMPORTANT NOTES.
1. Program (and setup panel) reports drive as "Ricoh Program loader" after an upgrade (even unsuccessful)...
It is normal, the drive is ready for a firmware update and can do nothing else. Make the update or reboot, The drive will remain ins usual mode.


2. Don't delete the backup of your drive's original firmware. You will need it to RFlash the genuine firmware if you have to call the manufacturer warranty.


3. If you cannot find a proper firmware with a proper type code, you must first find the correct code of your drive.

Here are the codes used at address 0x8004 (32772) in the firmware :

MMP520RICOH - Ricoh RW5125a
MMP521RICOH - Ricoh MP5125a
MMP521AOPEN - Aopen 2412Pro
MMP522HP - HP 200i
MMP524PHILIPS - Philips 228
MMP525PHILIPS - Philips D28
MMP526SONY - Sony DRU120
MMP529IDE-DVD - Philips 6002
MMP539Memorex - Memorex 100

You must change the code with an hexa editor to the proper one. Note the program will not accept flashing this code as it will later discover the code is corrupted. But as you will replace it by an acceptable firmware before it can discover it, all will be OK.

3. Before changing the brand of your drive, take care some variant can differ. For instance, Ricoh and Dell OEM drive have only one LED, Philips brand drives has two LED (DVD and CD burning) If you flash a "one LED" drive With a "two LED" firmware, the firmware lignt the LED only when you burn a DVD, and not when you burn a CD.
So


BB

thanks a lot for this guide. i'm just having one problem with rflash.exe. it only shows my scsi hard drive, but all my cd / dvd roms & burner are IDE. i can't select them.

Tried to unplug your SCSI-Controller with the Harddrive and flash then? Maybe with a bootdisc, if you haven't any other Harddisk in your pc.

Hello,

It seems there are ASPI layer conflicts when SCSI and IDE drives are both present on a machine. The best way, if you can, is to temporarily install the DVD writer in a machine without SCSI (spare, friend machine, etc).

BB

Just wanna thanks bb for the guide, and Dean for the region-patch. I just successfully flashed my Ricoh mp5125a with firmware-patch 1.51. Somehow it did not work the first time. It just updated to 1.51 successfully, I rebooted, but DVDInfo revealed it to be still region-protected. But I did a second time(exactly same procedure) and now it is region-free. I was also surprised it did not take several minutes to flash, but only about 10 seconds both times.

my flash success seems to be shortlived. I watched a few movies on WINDVD, played around with DVD-Genie, now suddenly my Ricoh mp5125a does not recognize any disks anymore I put in, not even data-disks. All disks I put in are shown to be empty("0 byte used, 0 byte total space").I ran DVDInfo, it shows nothing anymore. I pushed button RPC in DVD-Genie, does not show anymore Rpc1. I even uninstalled DVD-Genie. Anybody got suggestions?? Can I, or do I have to reflash?

Hi, I tried to change brand using the technique above. I used rflash 6.0.2 and the latest firmware available from Ricoh, v1.51.
I patched the firmware file with correct code for my DVDRW6002 drive.
The firmware upgrade process stops with an error during the checksum phase. This should be OK according to the guide but for me this means the steps, erase flash and program flash aren't executed.
Am I using the wrong version of rflash or can anyone tell how to make the checksum phase work.

Well by System Crashed while updateing my firmware and my DVD drive iwill not show up on my cd drive list.....I noticed that someone found a fix for this problem on a different type drive....Is there a fix for my Ricoh?????????????????? HELP

You only can try to flash again.
Even the RICOH drives have a Failsafe mode when the flashing goes wrong.
Follow the instructions given here in post #1.

Well I cant get into Dos mode and I have no boot up disk, I am using microsoft XP and Every bootup disk that I own has problems seeing my hard drives and USB and my DVD is a USB conversion Ikebana MP5125a kit How can I got to DOS from XP? ////////////////////// PS. There is no more Ricoh in my CD Device folder system cant see it?/////////////////

What do you want on C: ???

Put flasher & firmware on the disk, boot & flash from it!

OK ........ How do I get a disk? How do I make a disk ? I have windows XP

I have neen looking on the internet for 16 hours and have not found system disk files yet..

And why do i need 10secs to find a site with that info?

I just used a searchengine..............


http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/imakebootdisk.htm

ty

Well I appreciate your help but Like as usual it came up short on everything I have been doing for the last few day....I need a boot disk that can see usb drives so I am still comming up short but thanks anyway

The easiest way would be to remove the drive from the external case, connect it to an internal IDE channel, flash, an put it back into the case.

The idea ist fine.

But: does anybody know, how i can get the described firmware?
A download-link, maybe?

Thanx

What is your drive, which firmware?

I have a Ricoh 5125A.

@ ragoutc,

Unfortunately you only replied to one of the two questions Forum Administrator [_chef_] asked you.

It would be helpful if you stated exactly what Ricoh 5125A Firmware you are seeking.

Regards,
Coaster