Jump to content
OGXbox.com

[Help] EEprom Bios Firmware for LG-GDR-8163B


sweetdarkdestiny
 Share

Recommended Posts

I'm searching for a firmware dump of the original SST 39LF020A from the LG-GDR-8163B to get the drive back up and running. Some how the flash with the "8050L.dld" went wrong under DOS and now the drive didn't get recognized in Windows or DOS (And the drive LED is always on). 

How ever, if someone has a working flashable dump of the SST 39LF020A with the XBox firmware would also be ok (Not to sure if i could flash that 8050L.dld file to the SST so, yeah.....) . :)

Richt now I have desoldered that little b1tch and soldered it on the pcb for my flasher.....

And I also found this post : https://jestineyong.com/obtaining-eeprom-bios-firmware-for-deadflashed-lg-gdr8163b-dvd-rom-drive/ but sadly no firmware bin attached there. :/

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe the file for download here:

LG GDR-8163B OL23 Firmware Download - Firmware HQ

or from LG themselves:

New firmware (ver. 0L23) for only GDR-8163B(16X DVD-ROM Drive)
10/14/2009 | 199K

Source: https://www.lg.com/ae/support/product/lg-GDR-8163B

Reference Information from LG for this Firmware Release

[General Information]

※ New firmware (ver. 0L23) for only GDR-8163B(16X DVD-ROM Drive)

Model:GDR-8163B
Ver:0L23
Improvement Point:supports DVD+R Double Layer

Refer to the attached file


※ INSTRUCIONS

GDR-8163B Version 0L23 Firmware Update
To update the firmware of the GDR-8163B please refer to the following instructions:

Note: Not following the subsequent update instructions explicitly will result in
permanent damage to your drive, for which LG will not be responsible.

This firmware update is for drives with original firmware versions below 0L23.
The drives must be original LG branded drives with model number GDR-8163B(no OEM units).

If you have an OEM unit, branded with another manufacturers name,
please contact that manufacturer for support and firmware updates.

This firmware update is for use only on PC’s with Windows XP, Windows 2000,
Windows Millennium Edition (ME), or Windows 98SE.


,

[Critical Instructions: (to be followed carefully)

1. Connect the drive as “master”by it self, on the secondary IDE controller
with no other device on the same IDE cable, making note to set the jumper
on the back of the drive to the “master” position.

2. Download the file GDR-8163B0L23(EW).ZIP to a folder of your choice.
This download includes this “Readme”text file as well as the GDR-8163B0L23.EXE program,
which will auto-update your drive’s firmware.

3. Close all other programs including: screen saver, antivirus and/or power-down programs.
(If these programs are not closed, they will try to engage the PC, during the update process,
thus interrupting the update and damaging the drive).

4. Check the drive to ensure that there is no disk in the tray
before you start the update procedure.

5. Go into the folder with the update file and double click the GDR-8163B0L23.EXE program.

6. 'FwFlash' program will be displayed and choose the GDR-8163B.
: You can see the GDR-8163B and FW version.

If not GDR-8163B, you have to change as GDR-8163B
by use of clicking in avaiable devices tab.

7. And click 'FW Flashup' button
Then Firmware upgrade will be started automatically.

When the UPGRADE is complete the screen should indicate FIRMWARE UPDATE SUCCESSFUL.
And then Re-boot your PC.

The update will be complete, after you reboot your system.

WARNING:
Do not open any programs or start any system functions during the update,
as they will interfere with data transfer and damage the drive.
Do not cancel the operation once it has been started or the drive will
become permanently damaged, as a result.

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alright ladies and ppl. without boobies, call me a dirty lucker. :D;)

Little me dumped the SST of an OGXBox HL drive and flashed that dump to the dead 8163b. What can I say other then -> IT WöÖöRKED!

So until someone provides a clean 8183b dump of the firmware you can use the HL firmware to get your drive back to life in case you're stupid out of luck like me. 

OGXBox HL Drive Firmware : https://1fichier.com/dir/GKy4eD9l

Device ID of the SST 39LF020A is BF B6   ( This chip is 100% compatible with the non A version so you can use that flash profile). 

Btw. If someone have the original 8163b FW as .bin, please share it. :)

And here is the video as a little Proof YouTube Link

 

 

Edited by sweetdarkdestiny
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Btw. now I found the firmware of the drive as .bin file. I didn't was aware of that XBins has it. Sadly no original dump of 8163 drive there. Will see to buy another 8163 to dump the original rom (Will provide it here then if no one else is faster).

How ever, I just made it becasue I didn't had anything to loose. I wasn't able to flash the 8163 in Windows with the "hecked fixed" version (PM'ed Sir Kaos about that problem). I always got the error "no drive". Then in FreeDOS the drive flashed but ended up to be a dead flash. So I thought let's take a look at the pcb of the XBox HL and to my surprise they are almost the same with the same SST (The 8184, which I have also here has a MX chip). So I desoldered SST from the XBox HL drive, dumped the rom, flashed it to the 8163 and crossed fingers. And yeah, you see the rest in the bad video I made. 

  • MD5 of the HitachiLG8050.bin file from XBins: 4865723bf8474df5fbc8444737c7dc82
  • MD5 of the file I dumped from HL drive: f52e92082ab4bfa67e3b111053e1af22

Would be still interesing to know whats different between these two dumps. So if you know, let me and maybe others know. :)

One thing which seems not to work properly is the drive LED. The LED is almost anytime on but thats the only down side so far. How ever the drive reads anything I have thrown at it. 

Anyway, at the end I'm pretty happy that I don't need to toss the drive and being a drive killer. :D;)

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/11/2022 at 8:57 AM, sweetdarkdestiny said:

Thanks Koas but these files LG provides are useless.

There is no .bin file in it which can flashed with a programmer and the dvd drive didn't get recognized at all so the only option is a clean .bin dump from a "donor" 8163B's SST chip like written on the page I linked. 

 

I believe this file is the FW for the drive. I extracted it from the GDR-8163B0L23.exe file:

 

Edit: The GDR-8163B 0L23 FW.bin file has been REMOVED.  After a bit more research, I no longer believe that the content I extracted from the executable is the actual BINARY data to flash to DVD drive's SST39LF020A with an external programmer.  It was only a portion of the DLD file contained in the dot EXE file.

It is not a dump of an actual drive's flash memory chip.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, KaosEngineer said:

I believe this file's data to be the FW for the drive. I extracted it from the GDR-8163B0L23.exe

Thanks Kaos. :)

I better don't ask how you can do that. It probably will go over my head anyway. :D (But you're a little cheater providing the firmware.bin without dumping it :D *Just kidding* ;) )

I will give this a shoot when the other 8163 which I have bought hit up here (After dumping the original flash).

Anyway, one question though, whats the difference between the so called "hacked" and the untouched 8050 firmware since both seems to work.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, sweetdarkdestiny said:

Thanks Kaos. :)

I better don't ask how you can do that. It probably will go over my head anyway. :D (But you're a little cheater providing the firmware.bin without dumping it :D *Just kidding* ;) )

I will give this a shoot when the other 8163 which I have bought hit up here (After dumping the original flash).

Anyway, one question though, whats the difference between the so called "hacked" and the untouched 8050 firmware since both seems to work.  

I believe one can read original Xbox game discs (hacked) and the other (untouched) cannot.

Scratch that, the GDR-8050L is HL's Xbox DVD drive.  It can already read original game discs!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, KaosEngineer said:

I believe one can read original Xbox game discs (hacked) and the other (untouched) cannot.

Both can. The FW I dumped fromthe 8050 and flashed to the 8163 reads original Splinter Cell DVD without any problem. (Proof of that in the video).

1 minute ago, KaosEngineer said:

Wait, where did you find a hacked version of the 8050 firmware?

You know that "fixed" version. What ever it's called, it rendered my drive useless. DL: https://1fichier.com/?8vwz2vvemnpztoyjdhyv  (How ever it worked for so many others so I belive it was a PEBCAK error - MAYBE!).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, sweetdarkdestiny said:

Both can. The FW I dumped fromthe 8050 and flashed to the 8163 reads original Splinter Cell DVD without any problem. (Proof of that in the video).

You know that "fixed" version. What ever it's called, it rendered my drive useless. DL: https://1fichier.com/?8vwz2vvemnpztoyjdhyv  (How ever it worked for so many others so I belive it was a PEBCAK error - MAYBE!).

I found this tidbit of info about FW for the GDR-8050L drive. 

Visit: Hendi48/gdr-tools: Various resources for working with Hitachi/LG DVD-ROM drives (github.com) Take a look at the README.md in the Firmware subfolder there.

Pasted the bit about the 8050L firmware here.  There's info on other GDR model drives' firmware too at github:

        8050L_0012: 8050L firmware for cross-flashing an 8163B drive. 
                    Drives with this FW work with the original MS dashboard

8050L_0012_patched: Same as 8050L_0012 but patched in one place to allow 
                    reading all memory areas using the 0xE7 memdump command

------------------

I also found this statement at xboxdevwiki.net:

On 30 January 2006 TheSpecialist posted at xboxhacker.net that he successfully flashed a Hitachi 
drive to boot a copied game on an unmodded xbox: breakthrough: XBOX 1 firmware hacked !

 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, sweetdarkdestiny said:

Pretty interesting. Especially the part about the fact that you can play copied games on a unmodded console. I guess, I will test that just 4 fun.

The 8050L.DLD file has 64 extra bytes at the start of the file that should not be written to the flash memory chip and the file's size is 269,352 bytes.  The SST39LF020A is only 262,144 bytes in size.  Not sure what other data in the 8050L_FW_Flasher_FIXED archive's 8050L.DLD file are extraneous or their use as part of the DLD file format.

Note: I have not found any information documenting the format of Hitachi's DLD files.

Edit: 269,352 - 262,144 = 7,208 less the 64 byte header = 7,144 extra bytes in the DLD file.

The first 64 bytes of the DLD file are shown in this HexEdit screenshot:

1359522837_Fixed-8050L.DLDContent.png.1f9d31c69531c0eb77a3c0372f8b8005.png

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The github link you provided seems to have the firmware as .bin file which is 256kb (8050L_0012_patched.bin). 

I would guess the extra bytes screwed my drive but on the other hand, it woked for many others. I wonder why the drive returned an error in the first place. Even when I tried the /r switch which end up in "no drive". How ever the drive was woking in windows without any problem. I also flashed a 8164 wich went smooth (Still need one BC547 which I don't have oin hand atm so test the drive).

How ever, I would assume that the extra bytes just an information for the HL flasher which, I assume again, unpack the firmware before flashing (Like you did with your black magic vodoo skills ;) ). 

And the github page also offers a " 8163B_0M26.bin " dump which is nice. 

I think that I will buy 2-3 of the SST39LF020A chips just in case something will go wrong. #BetterSaveThanSorry #Call:555-KaosEngenier ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I need to do more research on DLD files. 

A tiny bit more information about the DLD file's content is mentioned in the gdr-tools github.com repository.

Quote

Firmware binaries

.bin files are plaintext firmware without header, while .dld files ("download") are what the official firmware flashing tools process. They have a 64 bytes header specifying a checksum, the drive they're intended for and some more info, followed by 256K encrypted firmware, followed by an unencrypted flasher stub that is uploaded into the drive cache to do the actual flashing (this is because the drive can't be executing from flash while flashing itself).

The GDR 8163B 0L23 FW.bin file that was attached above (I've removed it.) is not the correct data to flash to the SST39LF020A.

I need to read more of the documentation for the tools provided in the gdr-tools repository.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, KaosEngineer said:

I need to do more research on DLD files. 

The GDR 8163B 0L23 FW.bin file that was attached above (I've removed it.) is not the correct file to flash to the SST39LF020A.

I have checked the MD5 of the github .bin and yours and already thought something isn't right, nice that you confim that, I send my copy in the bits and bytes haven. :)

I think that these DLD files only needed for the "Flashup" software. It would be way more elegant to find a way to flash the .bin file without the need to use that tool and without the need to desolder the flash rom. 

How ever there is one version of the flashup tool for the 8164 which worked without problems. Link : https://www.xbox360-forum.de/lg-gdr-8164-b-firmware-flash-tool-8164b-firmware-6600.html

About the research..... Well.... I have that feeling you have something like "prsim" or "heartbeat" for XBox. So, no challange for you. ;) Maybe we should consider making a "Kaos Headroom" thing. Do you think you could fit in an old CRT? :D;)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, sweetdarkdestiny said:

I think that these DLD files only needed for the "Flashup" software. It would be way more elegant to find a way to flash the .bin file without the need to use that tool and without the need to desolder the flash rom. 

There does seem to be an application in the gdr-tools github repo I mentioned before:

----------------Excerpt from the FlasherKernel's documentation---------------------

FlasherKernel

This is a tiny 64-bit OS kernel (based on a student operating system) that has been adapted for talking to MN103-based Hitachi drives via a PCI/PCI-E IDE controller.

It is especially suited for recovering drives after a bad flash (or if, like me, you wrote to flash and forgot about the checksum). It also contains some Xbox-related functions if you have a drive with the 8050L firmware.

It has been tested with LG GDR-8163B and LG GDR-8164B drives on Marvell controllers.

For a drive in recovery mode, it can take 1 to 10 minutes for your IDE controller to give up detecting the drive when booting, depending on how much the controller sucks. Once you've booted this kernel, it will be able to talk to the seemingly dead drive just fine.

----------------

However, I don't find a compiled executable just the sourcecode for it.

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Just want to share the OFW from the LG-8163b I dumped today.


Drive: LG 8163B
Drive MFD: Nov. 2004
OFW: 0M23 
TSOP: SST39SF020A
MD5: a332ffa9a4e42906d8dd6c99936d6860
Date of dump : 6 Sep 2022

Download : https://1fichier.com/?asdaqwka68occh5w36cm

Screens: https://imgur.com/a/ySD5jk0

And a little note. The one on github is 0M26. 

Edited by sweetdarkdestiny
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

The 8163B needs 4 x 1k ohm resistors and a little bit of wiring. Before that, you flash the 8050L firmware.

The 8164B needs some 1k ohm resistors, 2 x 4148 diodes and 1 x 857c transistor and  a little bit of wiring. And before that, you flash the 8050L firmware.

The 8050L is the original XBox HL drive which is used in some 1.6/1.6b. 

How ever, I don't know how to mod the Samsung 616. Mostly because I don't own one. But I would bet that @KaosEngineer know how that one woks. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

Board Life Status


Board startup date: April 23, 2017 12:45:48
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.