Oddball SATA Optical issues

[ratdude747]

Recently I put a BD-ROM drive in my main workstation. The drive is a hp bddvdrw ch20l, which also has a model number on the label lge-ch10ls20, which leads me to believe it's a rebadged LG CH10LS20.

Here's the issues I'm having:

1. I tried to install CH10LS20 firmware to it... but due to the "special" hp firmware, the installer won't recognize any Ch10LS20 drives as present (not even grayed out). Is there a way to make the LG flasher force-flash the drive (as HP has no updated firmware available). Or should I let the old 2010 (or earlier) stock FW be?

2. I'm not sure if it's an issue with my mobo (tyan Thunder K8WE s2895) or what, but when I boot up, the drive hangs, flashing the status LED and the POST screen showing some nvidia boot sequence saying "detecting array...". I don't have the N-force professional 2000's raid enabled (it's explicitly disabled in the BIOS).

No other SATA optical drive of mine has done this on this board; with nothing connected (and the first time I installed the drive) the drive spins up fine. Likewise, if I hold the tray open during POST, the system boots up just fine.

Otherwise, the drive seems to work... I don't have any BD discs to try in it though.

Any serious (not "workstations suck") suggestions?

[shovenose]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

workstations suck...


Yes, I'm kidding. I don't think they do, and the only reason I posted that is because you told me not to say that.

On the other hand, I think LG makes most Blu-Ray drives. HPs, of course, and at work a customer wanted an IOMagic BD-RW drive installed. The software on the disc that came with it said IOMagic but had LG logos all over the place. Relevance? Absolutely none. But perhaps this information is helpful. It probably isn't!

[ratdude747]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

workstations suck...


Yes, I'm kidding. I don't think they do, and the only reason I posted that is because you told me not to say that

...mainly due to past threads turning into that. If the issue is indeed with the Nvidia N-force pro 2000 chip, then so be it (and do say so).. but don't tell me that the issue is that it's a workstation.

----

Some more info....

First, if left to hang, eventually it POSTs and boots up win7. But, the drive still blinks the LED and isn't detected by windows at all. However, I did try warm plugging it (booted with the drive blinking) and upon wakeup, the drive was detected and working. Like wise, as already stated, if the tray is held open during bootup, there is no hang issue and the drive works correctly.

BTW, here's the hang message:

[mariushm]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

I think it may have to do with the fact that your SATA controller is probably SATA1 or lacking some sata features like hot plug detection or AHCI or some other weird issue.

Did you connect the drive onto a separate sata raid card, or into the onboard (chipset provided) sata ports?

[Agent24]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

I think it may have to do with the fact that your SATA controller is probably SATA1 or lacking some sata features like hot plug detection or AHCI or some other weird issue.

If it is an LG CH10LS20 the datasheet says it uses SATA 1.5Gbps so it should probably work even on the oldest SATA1 controllers.

[kc8adu]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

looks to me like the system is just taking too long to detect that there is no disk and to move to the next boot device in the order.

[ratdude747]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

Did you connect the drive onto a separate sata raid card, or into the onboard (chipset provided) sata ports?

The onboard ports of course. I thought about using a dual port ide to SATA adapter I have but I'd rather not if possible

looks to me like the system is just taking too long to detect that there is no disk and to move to the next boot device in the order.

Even with it excluded from the boot order, the system would hang.

[mockingbird]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

Open it up and check if it is a Renesas chipset or Panasonic.

Yes, they can be crossflashed, just drag the flasher into MediaCodeSpeedEdit, and it modifies it so that it doesn't do the check.

Be careful, you can brick your drive.

[ratdude747]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

Open it up and check if it is a Renesas chipset or Panasonic.

Yes, they can be crossflashed, just drag the flasher into MediaCodeSpeedEdit, and it modifies it so that it doesn't do the check.

Be careful, you can brick your drive.

It's a Renesas chip.

[mockingbird]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

Here is the flasher:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/flas...urrent_stable/

Make sure to dump the old firmware before experimenting with the new one.

[ratdude747]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

Checked the dumps against the extract using a hex editor, they're listed as the same model (oddly, CH10NS20) in the first few lines.

flashing it now...

edit- flash successful. Suck it, HP. Suck it.

[ratdude747]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

Re-flashed it with LG's utility, which saw the drive this time... still works great.

Also, the other issue (boot hanging) isn't happening either... My guess would be loasy firmware that wasn't an issue in the HP systems this drive was intended for... so HP couldn't be bothered offering an update.

Thanks mockingbird for the suggestion.

[danoji]

Re: Oddball SATA Optical issues

Here is the flasher:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/flas...urrent_stable/

Make sure to dump the old firmware before experimenting with the new one.

New link as per mockingbird's original find: https://github.com/devilsclaw/flashe...urrent_Release