Question by rfaxman, Saturday 16th of August 2008 23:50
Hi,
Today after having continued trouble with frequent failed burns I decided to update my TS-H652M firmware from 0414 to S182M.SB05.patched-rpc1.
Could not get SFDNDOS to work so used SFDNWIN, the update stalled and wanted a reboot -- waited an hour after seeing post here to make sure it was done... on reboot, pop-up from taskbar said "updates successfully iunstalled", but the Drive LED is on permanently and the drive will not open.
The drive shows as TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H652M BOOT, is recognized in device manager and even in the Samsung live update utility, but will not open...
Any ideas on a fix?? Appreciate any guidance. Thanks!
Answer by Albert, Sunday 17th of August 2008 00:17
Re-flash with TS-H652M firmware using SFDNWIN, if possible.
Answer by rfaxman, Sunday 17th of August 2008 01:40
Thanks for your reply!
I tried re-flashing with the TS-H652M SC02 firmware and SFDNWIN3.25.4, but got a "Flash Failed" message. Then tried with SFDNWIN3.27.14 and said "Flash Successful", then asked for a restart.
After restart I have same situation as before, except Device manager now sees it as TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H652M ATA Device. SFDNWIN still sees it as TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H652MBOOT, and NERO info tool shows BOOT in the firmware version.
LED is still always on (but it went off during the firmware revision and then flashed during the actual firmware writing process, but came back on after completion of SFDNWIN and also after the system restart.
Have I ruined this drive? I saw a post here of a successful crossflash with the exact drive hardware and firmware that I had...
Answer by Albert, Sunday 17th of August 2008 02:03
What are your system specifications [motherboard --or-- system model, Operating System, etc]? It seems like something isn't allowing a proper flash.
Answer by rfaxman, Sunday 17th of August 2008 05:01
Compaq Presario desktop SR5010NX with 945GCT-HM motherboard and a 3.5GHz Celeron D 360, 1.5GB RAM running Vista Home Basic w/ SP1, and a dead Samsung TS-H652M optical drive...
Answer by rfaxman, Sunday 17th of August 2008 06:18
Very strange: After trying to re-flash with TS-H652M SC02 firmware and being unsuccessful, I figured I might as well try the KC03 FW. It hung on a failure message and I had to reboot, still same situation LED on, no tray eject, etc. System still saw as BOOT version.
Then I found a post that referenced the BOOT version being there, and so I kept digging. Anyway, finally I tried the same S182M.SB05.patched-rpc1 that originally disabled my drive, and this time the status bar actually updated and the result said "Successful!" and required a restart.
Now the LED is off except when reading/writing and the tray actually opens!! Tried burning an ISO image at 1x but failed with a 14848 error. But that was the same file and type of failure as happened just before I decided to crossflash the firmware, so I will try another file as soon as I post this.
This is all very illogical captain...
Answer by Albert, Sunday 17th of August 2008 06:30
What are you trying to burn to disc, with what software, and to what kind of disc?
Answer by soulsurvivor, Sunday 17th of August 2008 06:38
rfaxman, ironically burning @ too slow a speed can cause problems.
1x is far too slow for most burners/media.
Answer by rfaxman, Sunday 17th of August 2008 16:07
Hi Albert & soulsurvivor, thanks for your inputs!
I was burning a 3.6GB ISO file to an Office Depot brand 16x DVD-R using Active Iso-burner 1.1.0.7.
I had read on a post that burning at a slow speed for a bootable OS disc was best for ensuring data integrity but perhaps that is not correct? After my last post above, I was able to successfully burn the same file to the same brand DVD-R, but using NERO 7 at 4x write speed (the slowest NERO 7 will allow), and it appears that all is working now.
Would love to know what I did wrong in the firmware update process as I am still not sure, but lukily I did not kill my drive and I learned a good bit in the process...
Answer by Albert, Sunday 17th of August 2008 16:13
Get better media when you run out of Office Depot discs. Verbatim is a good brand.
Burning slower is not better, especially for discs designed for high-speed writing. You can cause more errors & issues that way. Burn at 8x or 12x for 16x-rated media.
A drive will only write as slow as it can. Since Nero offered 4x as the lowest, selecting 1x would give you 4x real time, no matter what.
If there was a problem with file integrity, it would have to be a problem with the disc itself degrading or a bad burn. If you get good media, you don't usually have to worry about this.
You didn't do anything wrong. Sometimes, Samsung drives are a bit finicky on some systems. These newer Samsungs always fall back into a safe mode [firmware version is BOOT] if there is something wrong with the flash process, so don't worry.
Answer by soulsurvivor, Sunday 17th of August 2008 16:16
rfaxman.
Yes unfortunately some folk (& some guides which need updating badly) are living in the past.
Probably when 8x was seen as living on the edge.
The more recent drives & media tend to do best at 4x + (unless you are referring to DL where 2.4x can be advisable).
Still one of the best ways to learn is by your mistakes. 
Glad you got it sorted anyway.
Answer by LesStrater, Sunday 17th of August 2008 18:40
Aren't you going in the wrong direction? It would seem to me that if you flash your drive with the SH-182M firmware, you've just installed the infamous "-R lead-in problem" in your drive. I'm considering doing just the opposite of what you're doing to eliminate that problem in my SH-182M.
Also, since you are cross-flashing, did you use the required "-nocheck" option when running SFDNWIN?
Take a look at this thread and see if the information posted proves helpful to you:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/f105/dvd-r-lead-fixed-samsung-sh-s182d-m-237514/
Answer by rfaxman, Sunday 17th of August 2008 23:35
Yes, I did use the -NOCHECK switch for SFDNWIN when I ran it.
"you've just installed the infamous "-R lead-in problem" in your drive"
If that is the case then indeed I misunderstood. By installing the patched firmware S182M.SB05.patched-rpc1.bin, the latest on the codeguys.rpc1.org firmware site, I thought I was curing the lead-in problem -- IS THIS INCORRECT? (Obviously I don't know a lot about the technical aspects of optical drive hardware/firmware...)
Looking at the link you provided, is the TS-H652M Firmware Update (KC03) firmware the best one to use for this drive?
If so, now that I have the SH-182M firmware installed, is it correct that to change firmware to the TS-H652M KC03 I would have to use the -NOCHECK switch since my system now sees the drive as a SH-182M?
Answer by Albert, Sunday 17th of August 2008 23:58
rfaxman said:
If that is the case then indeed I misunderstood. By installing the patched firmware S182M.SB05.patched-rpc1.bin, the latest on the codeguys.rpc1.org firmware site, I thought I was curing the lead-in problem -- IS THIS INCORRECT? (Obviously I don't know a lot about the technical aspects of optical drive hardware/firmware...)
Yes, that's incorrect. What you downloaded was nothing more than the original firmware, patched to make it RPC1 [don't worry about what that is].
Check the thread posted by Les above. The first post in it has links to the Samsung Mini-FAQ & the older DVD-R lead-in issue thread. These will tell you what firmwares will actually fix it [other than the select TS-H652 firmwares].
Looking at the link you provided, is the TS-H652M Firmware Update (KC03) firmware the best one to use for this drive?
Yep.If so, now that I have the SH-182M firmware installed, is it correct that to change firmware to the TS-H652M KC03 I would have to use the -NOCHECK switch since my system now sees the drive as a SH-182M?
Yep. -NOCHECK is required.
This time, you might want to try to flash in Windows Safe Mode.
You might also want to try to extract the firmware .BIN file from the all-in-one firmware flasher you downloaded [if you haven't already extracted the firmware, then install something like 7-Zip or Universal Extractor, right click on the all-in-one file, and extract the contents to a folder] and flash using TSDNWIN: http://club.cdfreaks.com/2062183-post55.html . It might be less troublesome than SFDNWIN [if that's what's packaged with KC03].
Answer by rfaxman, Monday 18th of August 2008 04:55
Thanks once again! Some great knowledge here, thanks so much for the willingness to help!!
I used TSDNWIN -NOCHECK to flash the KC03 firmware after booting in safe mode and it worked the first try. Nero Info Tool did not recognize the Lightscribe functionality right after the firmware was downloaded (still in safe mode), but did recognize it after rebooting Windows in normal startup mode.
Thanks again for the great help here; really appreciate it!
R Faxman
Question by return2forever, Thursday 14th of August 2008 15:56
Hey everyone! First off I would just like to apologize if my question is a bit noobish; this is my first post, and really I don't know what I'm doing... So if you could just bear with me, that would be really great!
So here's my problem : every time I try to burn a CD or DVD, my computer crashes and reboots! What happens is that I'll run Nero, add files to the compilation, etc., so when I'm finally ready, I click "Burn", and then it burns for a little bit. But all of a sudden, the screen goes black as if I had pressed the power button, then the computer reboots, and before the log-in screen appears, the screen turns blue, but there's no text or anything, it's just the cursor flashing on and off. Then the log in screen will appear, and I log in, and then a window pops up that says, "Windows has recovered from a serious error." I really have no idea why or how it happens... It just started happening one day; it used to work just fine. Furthermore, I think it should be stated that not only did I try burning it with Nero, but also with Windows Media Player.
Here's my information :
:: System ::
Microsoft Windows XP
Professional
Version 2002
Service Pack 2
:: Computer ::
Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
2.40 GHz, 1.00 of RAM
:: Software ::
Nero 7 Premium
:: Hardware ::
Samsung WriteMaster SH-S182M with LightScribe
If anyone could help me with this problem, that would be very appreciated!! Thank you!
Answer by Albert, Thursday 14th of August 2008 16:26
Welcome to CD Freaks. 
Did your system come prebuilt [as a Dell, HP, Compaq, etc], or did you build it yourself?
If the former, what computer make and model is it?
If the latter, what motherboard and power supply do you have?
Answer by t0nee1, Thursday 14th of August 2008 16:36
The first thing I would check is the inside of the case, is it full of krap that's maybe causing a heat issue, if so blow it out,especially around the PSU and fans..And yeah maybe the PSU is going bad, or maybe a bad RAM module...Anyhow it's hard to tell/diagnose from here..LOL, but just a few things to look for...
Question by return2forever, Thursday 14th of August 2008 05:51
Hey everyone! First off I would just like to apologize if my question is a bit noobish; this is my first post, and really I don't know what I'm doing... So if you could just bear with me, that would be really great!
So here's my problem : every time I try to burn a CD or DVD, my computer crashes and reboots! What happens is that I'll run Nero, add files to the compilation, etc., so when I'm finally ready, I click "Burn", and then it burns for a little bit. But all of a sudden, the screen goes black as if I had pressed the power button, then the computer reboots, and before the log-in screen appears, the screen turns blue, but there's no text or anything, it's just the cursor flashing on and off. Then the log in screen will appear, and I log in, and then a window pops up that says, "Windows has recovered from a serious error." I really have no idea why or how it happens... It just started happening one day; it used to work just fine. Furthermore, I think it should be stated that not only did I try burning it with Nero, but also with Windows Media Player.
Here's my information :
:: System ::
Microsoft Windows XP
Professional
Version 2002
Service Pack 2
:: Computer ::
Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
2.40 GHz, 1.00 of RAM
:: Software ::
Nero 7 Premium
:: Hardware ::
Samsung WriteMaster SH-S182M with LightScribe
If anyone could help me with this problem, that would be very appreciated!! Thank you!
Answer by Arachne, Thursday 14th of August 2008 16:03
Welcome to the forum
You also have a post in our Samsung forum on the same subject - please don't crosspost. It's against forum rules, and makes it difficult to co-ordinate replies and advice.
This thread will be closed, but if anyone has any advice or help for return2forever, please post in this thread. Thanks.
18x DVD burner
