The Firmware Page

Hi,

I'm glad the HAEA firmware was helpful for FeXiXiX and impulsive (and I
hope anyone else who changed their firmware) and thanks to FeXiXiX for
the extra feedback for the forum.

The Apple Superdrive update 2.1 had firmware for:

AE39 "LG HL-DT-ST GWA4080MA" (candidate revisions
for upgrade: AE38)
BE39 "LG HL-DT-ST GWA4080MB" (for BE38)
HAEA "Matshita UJ-857" (for HAE4 or HAC1)
HBEA "Matshita UJ-857" (for HBE4)
KBVB "Matshita UJ-857D" (for KBV9)
KCVB "Matshita UJ-857D" (for KCV9)

this is a little different from grumio's post on Jun 28 - which I think
had a couple of details wrong.

I believe that the Matshita revisions are normally associated with the
following models of Macs (when they have the Matshita drive installed):

HAEA MacBook Pro Core Duo (15")
HBEA MacBook Core Duo (13")
KBVB MacBook Core 2 Duo (13")
KCVB MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo (15")

but that is just what I've gathered from looking at the details posted
in various places. Check your own optical drive "firmware revision" if
you want to make sure.

So in answer to ch-vox's question, I got the original HAEA version
from the update - no mystery there. The superdrive update had updated my own MacBook Pro Core Duo 15" (mid 2006 model) from HAE4 to HAEA.

I'll try to make a single update for HAEA, HBEA, KBVB, KCVB that provides appropriate RPC-1 (region free) versions. I'd intend to check for
exactly those versions and only proceed if you already have one of those. (i.e. in the same way the HAEA RPC1 version I posted checks for HAEA, not HAE4 or HAC1). In other words if you have one of the older
revisions that superdrive update 2.1 was targeting you'd need to get
the original Apple updater. I'll add news here if I have progress for
the other firmware revisions.

Ben, thank you for your quick response. It's amazing that you are willing to put in some effort to help people like me who are kind of stuck... Whether or not this will work finally, thank you already (of course, I hope it will work!).

I'll be the first to test KCVB and I promise to post feedback.

Pit

thank you for this answer ben11.


great news !

somebody said the firmwares are digitally signed. the signature is only checked in the flasher-program, e.g. that is running on the MBP-CPU?

Wow, it's great to finally see some progress here! From my side, I can confirm that the Macbook Core Duo (13") has a UJ-857 with Firmware Revision HBEA after all updates. Waiting patiently for the updater for it!

BTW, is there any speculation what effect applying the firmware will have if and when another update comes from Apple?

I did the flash. The drive can read dvdr alright but cannot recognise any DVD movie disc.

The drive can detect discs in Winxp alright.

Any idea how to go about this issue? Is the drive damaged by the firmware upgrade?

before flashing, you need to chose a region. unless your drive won't be fullish efficient.
have you played any DVD on your MacBook till you've bought it ?

A VideoDVD is also just an usual DataDVD with a VIDEO_TS folder and the necessary video files in it.

If your drive is set to a wrong region code osx-dvd-player won't play your disc.
You need "Region X" to set the region-code in osx - this is described in the README!

DVDinfo X show that the drive is set to region 1 with 4 change and 4 reset.

I did not play any disc after i did the apple superdrive update 2.1, does it affect?

It can read dvd writable disc but not dvd rom discs. The rom disc does not mount.

any help appreciated.

Hi Ben11,

as you've noticed a lot of users are interested in the firmware thingie.
So please share with us your knowledge: explain how you did it, all the steps, all the tools, all the hardware used so you'll not be alone doing the dirty job and that can speed up the process while giving more improvement in the future and bringing more joy to hackers.

I've a macbook (not pro) using the matshita uj-857D and a non supported version of firmware and I can't dezone it at present. Also the link don't work (I've downloaded from another site), so please provide more links from different free hosts + info so we can help.

Thanks again for all your effort.

Hello shadowless09,

Can I confirm what I understood of your DVD problem and ask
some questions?

What version of Mac OS X do you use? Is your Mac is a
MacBook Pro Core Duo 15"?

In the past have you been able to watch DVD movies (e.g. movies you
have purchased) on your Mac, perhaps with the "DVD Player" app?

You applied the Apple superdrive update 2.1. Did you do that manually
by downloading the updater and launching it? Or was it downloaded and
run by "Software Update" at some point? Did it seem to you that it
was successful? e.g. did it show a message that the superdrive update
had completed, with a button to restart the mac?

You didn't try playing any DVD movies for a while.

At a later time you used the "Update HAEA to region free" updater.
Did the update appear to be successful?

You find you can't play DVD movies.

You said that "the drive can detect discs in Winxp alright"; Do you
mean that if you run windows XP on your Mac you can watch your movie(s)?
How do you run Windows XP, with bootcamp, Parallels or something else?

You also said that DVD Info X says your drive is set to region 1; When did
DVD Info X say that, before or after you ran the "region free" updater?

What exactly happens when you put a DVD Movie in your mac when running OS X?
Does anything happen on screen, does the drive make some noises, is
the DVD ejected?

Hi emmap,

I suppose I will publish the obfuscation scheme,
and notes on the firmware itself. It will take some
time, there is a certain amount that I've
not got written down anywhere yet. And I'll need
to tidy some of my C codes, remove the parts
that were used during analysis. It would be
easier to give them as an example rather than
documenting everything in words or taking the
time to make diagrams.

However, I guess this will make it rather likely
the manufacturer will completely change the firmware
obfuscation in the future. As far as I know xvi did not
publish the details he had and they've remained
largely unchanged for 3 years. (Although that wasn't
a lot of help in the meantime for people looking
to make their drives usable for themselves).

The HBEA, KBVB, KCVB kits are nearly ready to go.
While I

hi ben11,
I've sent a PM to you few days ago, you haven't read it till today.
regards

i'm running on a black macbook 2.0 core duo first generation, i have a UJ-857 drive with revision HBEA, i've been looking for something like this for some while now so this is great keep up the good work!

It is possible to simply dlsym the Encrypt3 routine, but I cannot get the structure of the firmware, except the obvious first 0x28 bytes of the raw and "encrypted" block.

Offset 28: is this the delta-size of zip/unzipped ?
Offset 2C: the salt for Encrypt3 ?
Offset 30: start of Encrypt3(deflate(data)) ?

I cannot get that "CommonFwHeader01" decrypted. What is the salt??

The drive spin and then stop. Nothing happens, the disc stay in the drive.

Hope you can help. I can still write DVDs with the drive after the update.

Wonder if it is a Mac OS problem. Also was not sure what software to set the region code in Winxp so only been able to play using VLC. The Vista disc also mounted in Winxp under Parallels.

Thanks in advance

Hello shadowless09,

I don't know exactly what is causing your DVD trouble. But it
does seem to me that it is likely it is related to the OS
rather than a problem with the drive hardware or firmware.

There have been reports of similar problems on the mac discussion
boards. You can find the "optical drive" section here:

http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa ... 54&start=0

Recently some posters suspected some problems were related
to the superdrive update. But for any given problem where the drive
is not completely dead just after the update it is not easy to be
certain what is related to what just by reading the posts.

I'd try the following and see if any of these help. After each
test to see if the Mac will mount an inserted DVD.

1) In "System Preferences"->"CDs & DVDs" change the "When you insert a video DVD" to "Ignore" and close the panel. Then repeat and reset the
option to "Open DVD Player".

2) Create a new user account. Login with that account and see
if the response to DVDs is better. (In case it does help, the problem
may be some corrupted preferences files in your original account.
e.g. in your home directory in Library/Preferences)

3) Reset PRAM and NVRAM: See
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238

3) Repair disk permissions with "Disk Utility". See
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751

4) Reset the PMU. See
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449

5) You could restore the standard (RPC-2) HAEA firmware
with the "Update HAEA to standard" utility. However
the RPC-1 changes are very localized and specific and
I think it is unlikely they could change the way the OS
immediately responds to a disc when it is inserted.

Does your mac mount the MacBook Pro install disc?
Whether it does or not, if you reboot and put the disc in
the drive and hold down

1. About one mounth ago a tried to update firmware using OSX Software Update. Software Updater asked me to download firmware update TWICE!
One day later I tried to put a dvd into a slot, but my drive didn't pull it.
System profiler shows me firmware 0009. My Macbook Pro is CoreDuo.
I tied to use apple's firmware, and now I tried to use "mod" firmware region free. All of them tells me that are unneeded. Is it posible to prepare firmware that will not check firmware revision?

2. If it is impossible to recover my broken firmware?
IF NOT Is it possible to put the drive taken from Macbook (not PRO)?

Cheers

Lu

Ben11,
I would like to add another drive the wish list - Matsushita UJ-857E, revision zboe.

This is a fairly new drive that comes with MacBook 2.16GHz computers.

It seems like a never ending story. Please let me know if I can help.

Thanks a milion!

Shimonv

Hi ben11,

Any chance of patched firmwares for earlier drives like the UJ-835C, 825, 845 etc.? As far as I remember there was a firmware update from Apple for them as well.

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ ... tev20.html
that was effectively for GAND, GEND, GFND & GGND firmwares update.
(UJ-835E & UJ-835F drives)

Hello,

Here are the HBEA, KBVB, KCVB "betas" (for region free). If you decide to try please do read the "README!"

http://rapidshare.com/files/49183102/UJ ... A.zip.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/49183983/UJ ... B.zip.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/49185713/UJ ... B.zip.html

please post your experience with these firmwares also, for the RPC1 community, all we can say at the moment is use at your own risk, and we cannot recommend them

The firmware update appears to have worked in my MBP, though I can't find DVDInfoX to verify it.

Also, Region X 1.1.1 does NOT work in the MBP. What are you using to reset the region code and from where can you download it?