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Publisher11.8 Updating CD Writer Firmware
For most PC firmware, the
cardinal rule is "if it ain't
broke, don't fix it." It seldom
makes sense, for example, to update your main PC BIOS unless you
experience a BIOS-related problem or add new hardware that requires
the BIOS update. But with CD writers, the rule is different: always
install the latest available firmware for your CD writer.Fortunately, updating CD writer firmware is usually remarkably
trouble-free. If you screw up while updating your main system BIOS,
you can render the system unusable. If you screw up while updating
the firmware of your CD writer, you can simply run the firmware
installation program again. We've updated many
drives through many firmware revisions and have had very few problems
doing so. There are two things to keep in mind, though:
Relatively few companies actually manufacture CD writers. Most
companies, including some surprisingly large ones such as
Hewlett-Packard, simply buy mechanisms from the actual maker and
attach their name plates to the drives. Sometimes, companies sell
different drives under the same model number. So if your friend has a
Kamazuma CD-R523252 CD writer "just
like" your Kamazuma CD-R523252,
don't assume that you can use the same firmware
update he did. Your drive may require a completely different firmware
update file. Sometimes the only way to tell which firmware update you
need is by comparing the serial number of your drive against the
table posted by the manufacturer.
In general, that's a safe assumption, but not
always. We have (infrequently) encountered firmware updates that add
functionality (such as support for 80-minute blanks) and fix some
problems, but cause other problems. For example, in one case (we
won't mention names because things like this happen
to even the best manufacturersand, no, it
wasn't Plextor) we found that a CD writer with the
new firmware would no longer use a particular type of blank that it
had happily used before the update. Since we had a spindle of 100 of
those blanks, we reverted to the older firmware version. So, when you
visit the manufacturer's web site to download the
latest firmware version for your CD writer, also download the earlier
versions. They leave them posted there for a reason.
11.8.1 Determining the Firmware Revision of Your CD Writer
Before you update your CD writer
firmware, it's a good idea to find out which version
is already installed. That way, if you have problems under the new
firmware, you can revert to a known configuration by reinstalling the
older version. Most mainstream CD writer software can display
detailed information about installed CD writers, including firmware
revision level. If you run Windows, download a free copy of Nero
InfoTool from http://www.nero.com. This utility, shown in
Figure 11-1, is the best we've seen
for viewing firmware level and other characteristics of a CD writer,
and you can use it even if you don't have Nero
Burning ROM.
Figure 11-1. Nero InfoTool displaying the characteristics of this CD writer, showing the current firmware revision as 1.02
You can also get some of this information directly from Windows, as
described in the following sections.
11.8.1.1 Determining the firmware revision of your CD writer with Windows 9X
To determine
which firmware revision your CD writer is using under Windows 9X,
right-click My Computer and choose Properties to display the System
Properties dialog. On the Device Manager page, locate the entry for
CD-ROM and expand that entry to show installed CD-ROM devices.
Double-click the entry for your CD writer to display Device
Properties, and display the Settings page, shown in Figure 11-2.
Figure 11-2. The Windows 98SE device Properties dialog, which shows that firmware revision 1.40 is installed on this CD writer
11.8.1.2 Determining the firmware revision of your CD writer with Windows 2000
To determine
which firmware revision your CD writer is using under Windows 2000,
open the Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, then
double-click Computer Management. Expand the tree to display the
Storage
Removable Storage Physical Locations branch, shown in Figure 11-3.
Figure 11-3. Using Windows 2000 Computer Management to view properties for the CD writer
Locate the CD writer in the listing in the left pane. Right-click the
name of the writer, choose Properties, and view the Device Info page,
which includes the firmware revision number.
11.8.1.3 Determining the firmware revision of your CD writer with Windows XP
To determine
which firmware revision your CD writer is using under Windows XP,
open the Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, then
double-click Computer Management. Expand the tree to display the
Storage
Removable Storage Libraries branch, shown in Figure 11-4.
Figure 11-4. Using Windows XP Computer Management to view properties for the CD writer
Locate the CD writer in the listing in the left pane. Right-click the
name of the writer, choose Properties, and view the Device
Information page, which includes the firmware revision number.
11.8.2 Installing a Firmware Update
For Windows users, updating the
firmware of a CD writer is normally just a matter of running a
self-contained executable file or perhaps running an installer
executable against a binary datafile. But read the directions before
you proceed. For example, all firmware updates we've
done require removing any disc from the drive before running the
update. Also, firmware updates often specify that packet-writing
software must not be running while the update is taking place. For
safety's sake, we always disable all nonessential
resident software and reboot the system before and after running the
update.For Linux users, updating firmware may be problematic. The firmware
binaries themselves are almost never OS-specific, but the updater
utility needed to flash them to the drive is. Most CD writer makers
assume you run Windows or Mac OS and provide updater utilities only
for those platforms. People who run Linux are out of luck, unless the
system dual-boots Windows. Fortunately, there's more
than one way to skin a cat. In decreasing order of ease and
desirability, here are several ways to update your drive firmware
under Linux:
- Ideally, choose a CD writer with Linux-friendly firmware updates
available. If you must select among Linux-hostile drives, determine
if one of those drives allows firmware updates via a DOS boot floppy
or bootable CD.Search the Internet to find a Linux updater for your drive model. For
example, the PXUpdate utility allows updating the firmware of some
Plextor models using the binary firmware files supplied by Plextor
for use with its Windows updater.If you have a spare drive or partition, install Windows long enough
to update the firmware.Although we have not tried doing so, you may be able to run a DOS or
Windows firmware updater under an emulator or virtual environment
such as VMware (http://www.vmware.com/), Bochs (http://bochs.sourceforge.net/), or DOSEMU
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/dosemu/). One
of our editors notes, "Because most of the hardware
is virtualized, this probably won't work. USB
devices are a possible exception. I'm not certain
that writers are even supported under VMWare; they may appear as
regular CD-ROM drives."As a last resort, pull the drive from the Linux box and install it
temporarily in a Windows system. Update the firmware and then move
the drive back to the Linux system. This is one reason some people
favor external CD writers for Linux systems.As a really last resort, allow yourself to be reassimilated by the
borg. Strip your Linux box down to bare metal, install the latest
version of Windows, and swear off using communistic free software.
(No, we didn't choose this option, either...)
Although we update firmware regularly on Windows systems, we confess
that we follow the "if it ain't
broke, don't fix it" rule on Linux
boxes. Perhaps hardware makers will eventually stop treating Linux
users as second-class citizens, but until that day arrives
we'll have to keep doing things the hard way. If you
do buy a drive from a manufacturer that is clueless about Linux, it
certainly can't hurt to complain to the company
about its lack of Linux support.
11.8.3 Updating Drives with Foreign Firmware
Don't assume that you have to update your drive with
firmware supplied by the drive maker. We know that sounds very
strange. After all, installing, say, ASUS firmware on an ABIT
motherboard is a fast way to render the motherboard useless. So who
in his right mind would install, say, a Sony firmware update on an HP
CD writer? Well, there are times when it may make sense to do exactly
that.For example, HP decided at one point not to issue updated firmware
for its 8100i CD writer to support 80-minute CDs. As it happens, the
HP-8100i drive is made by Sony, and is nearly identical to the Sony
CRX100E drive. One of our readers decided to try updating his HP
8100i drive with the Sony CRX100E firmware, which did support
80-minute CDs. He ran the update. Sure enough, his drive accepted it
and he was able to use 80-minute blanks. He now has a drive which is
for all intents and purposes a Sony. The operating system says so,
the CD writer software says so. The only thing HP about that drive
now is the name on the bezel.Such shenanigans are useful only for relabeled drives. For example,
your new Brand-X CD-R522452 CD writer may actually be a relabeled
Sony CRX220A1. But Brand-X may decide next month that Sony charges
too much for its mechanisms and start buying Yamaha mechanisms
instead. Most companies that sell relabeled drives are not very good
about providing firmware updates for older models. When you visit the
Brand-X web site, you may find that there are no firmware updates
available, or that the most recent is a year or more old, which
effectively means that your drive is orphaned. Don't
despair, though. If you can find out who actually made the underlying
mechanism, you may be able to get a recent
firmware update for the drive under its real name (or from another
OEM who uses the same mechanism).For example, we own an antique Smart and Friendly SAF798 CD-R4224A CD
Speedwriter Plus, which was the first CD writer we ever bought. That
drive uses a JVC XR-W4080 mechanism, which is also used by the
Creative Labs CD-R4224 drive. As an experiment, we downloaded the
Creative Labs firmware update and installed it on the Smart and
Friendly drive. That drive continued to work normally, although it
reported itself as a Creative Labs drive until we reinstalled the
Smart and Friendly firmware.
