Lite-ON LTD-165H - Testing Different Firmware

Now in HTML format - no more non-word-wrapped text flying off the screen in Firefox! - this is an old documentation from 2005 (or 2006? I forget) of my attempts to improve the GD-ROM reading performance of the aforementioned Lite-ON DVD-ROM drive. Sadly, it all came to nothing, but this painstakingly-boring stuff has to be done at least once, doesn't it? :P

• Test games: ChuChu Rocket! (CCR), Metropolis Street Racer (MSR)
• Trap disc: the one made by DrinkTeam
• Firmware flashing programs: MtkWinFlash 1.5.3.6, MtkFlash 1.83c
• Existing firmware: JLMS-branded, revision CH0U f (region-free mod). All firmwares after revision CH0J are branded as JLMS (JVC LITE-ON Manufacturing & Sales Ltd.) instead of LITE-ON
• Problems: MSR can only be ripped to 94%, while with CCR it is only possible to dump 89% of the 2nd data track. Neither issue is related to physical damage, i.e. scratches.

Note: With regards to the trap disc not working sometimes - this is sadly an inherent problem with the drive. Sometimes it works first time, sometimes it doesn't and I try running a laser lens cleaner disc through it, which often works, but sometimes doesn't, in which case I just try it over and over again. It is quite annoying to say the least.

Tested Firmware Revisions:

• 165P (CH06) - PC crashed after flash process completed. Fine after a reboot, but couldn't read the trap disc despite many repeated attempts.
• CH0E - PC crashed after flash process completed, but appeared to have killed the drive after a reboot. However, it started working mysteriously after turning the power off & on again. Could read the trap disc, but couldn't fix either of the problems as described above. Switched to using MtkFlash for all firmware flashes thereafter because it is much more stable than MtkWinFlash.
• CH0H - After applying this one, I am now able to fully dump MSR. However, it is still not possible to dump all of CCR.
• CH0J - No improvements on either game.
• CH0N - As with CH0J.
• CH0Q - Will not read trap disc or laser lens cleaner disc (makes ticking + buzzing noises sometimes when the latter is put in).
• CH0U - As with CH0J.
• CH0Z - As with CH0J.
• CH11 - As with CH0J.
• CH12 - Last one tested, and... same result As with CH0J.

Note: When I say "only 89% of ChuChu Rocket can be extracted", I mean this in the sense that no errors occured. You can, of course, extract all the way to 100% but only once you hit the 89% mark in CDRWIN, and only if you set the "Error Recovery" option to "Ignore" or "Replace", both of which fill in the unreadable data with... more unreadable data. This is, however, a necessity if you want to know the exact capacity of the CCR disc's data sector.

Which brings me to another point; in his guide, Yursoft says you should extract data + audio at 4x, but does not say that you can't extract at higher speeds. Notably, my LITE-ON drive can extract perfectly well at 16x (the highest selectable speed in CDRWIN). So, don't be afraid to experiment with faster extraction speeds.

Lastly, for reference, here's a few snippets from the CDRWIN help file explaining what each Error Recovery option does:

• "Abort - The copy operation will be aborted if any unreadable sector is found."

(Sometimes the above can occur even with a perfectly good disc - if you get this option, just try extracting again. If it comes up more than about 5 times, then your drive is probably not capable of extracting it fully, at least not without trying out a new firmware. And maybe not even after that.)

• "Ignore - Replace any unreadable sector with another unreadable sector and continue reading the disc. This option is only applicable to raw data sectors (for audio or non-raw data sectors, this option is identical to "Replace"). Note: Some recorders do not support the writing of unreadable data sectors."
• "Replace - Replace any unreadable sector with a readable one (the sector will contain all zeros) and continue reading the disc."

Copyright Information

Unless otherwise stated, all of this information was written by myself (RobbyW / STC-Fan / zedeckseightyone) ©2004-2008 or adapted from sources who have helpfully contributed information to this document. You may NOT use any information from this document unless you ask nicely beforehand, or something like that.