Something I just found out about 08K9868 Combo drives

[rkawakami]

I recently purchased nine 08K9868 Combo IV drives off of several different eBay sellers. During checkout I found something interesting. Several of them would not read my DVD+RW test disk. (As part of my "incoming QA" procedure I run the PC Doctor CD/DVD drive checks with completely full CDR, CDRW and DVD+RW disks). I had checked the specifications for the HLDS GCC-4240N drive (click Combination Drive and GCC-4240N) and it indicates that the drive supports DVD+RW and in fact, several of the 08K9868 drives I just bought do read that type of disk. The IBM support page for this drive does not list DVD+ as being a supported format.

Figuring that I probably had some sort of firmware issue, I downloaded DVDInfoPro and was surprised to find out that those drives did NOT indicate support for DVD+R or DVD+RW. Drives that recognized DVD+ media and passed all of the PC Doctor tests did indicate support for DVD+ formats in DVDInfoPro. I contacted one of the eBay sellers and asked if it was possible to exchange the two drives I bought from him for a newer firmware version and was told that, "The auction ad specifies what these drives read. The DVD+RW and DVD+R are not listed in the ad." and therefore falls under their "no return for compatibility issues". Never mind that the auction description ALSO does not explicitly mention DVD-R or DVD-RW as being supported. So I suppose if I had a problem with those types of disks, I would also be out of luck for a return/exchange.

At any rate, I will document the revision levels and label markings on the drives to determine if there's a fool-proof way of knowing which drives can read DVD+ media. At the moment I think IMB0 and IMC0 can be used as a guide, but I need to test all of the drives I have to be sure. More to follow...

(ref: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0136964046)

[gator]

Thanks for posting this Ray, should be very useful for future purchasers from ebay. Request for sticky in genral h/w section after you complete your testing and documentation.

[rkawakami]

Okay, here's the result of multiple swapping in-and-out of nine 08K9868 Combo drives and running DVDInfoPro on them:

If the HLDS label has "TYPE IMC0" and "E-H022-03-0568(B)", then it would appear that it supports DVD+R and DVD+RW media.

If the HLDS label has "TYPE IMB0" and "E-H022-02-0964(B)", then it appears that it does not support either DVD+ media.
(unless somebody has upgraded the firmware to 0214)

Admittedly my sample size is kind of small (4 IMB0 and 5 IMC0 drives), but that's what I'm working with. If anybody else can confirm these findings on their 08K9868 (GCC-4240N) drives, please post here. You can download a free, time-limited copy of the DVDInfoPro program from here:

http://www.dvdinfopro.com/

The author says that it does not download any ads or track/send any info from your computer, but that it will timeout to force an upgrade to the latest version. It will cycle through some built-in ads in the program but with a donation of $20, you are supposed to get a registered version which will never expire nor display ads. I've just sent my $20 in so we'll see how it works.

(Note: I am not affiliated with dvdinfopro.com or its owners. I merely found them by doing a web search.)

edit: BTW, the firmware version I saw were these:

0211 and 0213 on IMB0 drives
1203 on IMC0 drives

Me edit: Moved from Off Topic to here as it does make more sense to be in General HW/SW... thanks gator!

edit2: Added note about IMB0 drives being upgraded to 0214.

[rkawakami]

And hopefully a final post by me on this subject...

I poked around the archives here and found these threads about "GCC-4240N":

Cannot read DVD+R
Unable to read burned DVD's

So this problem isn't new. But it's not all that well documented. The second thread I listed had a recommendation to upgrade the firmware so I grabbed the Drive Firmware Update Utility and went about upgrading the four 0211 and 0213 firmware version drives to rev 0214....

All four drives now recognize and read DVD+R and DVD+RW disks .

Curiously, DVDInfoPro still does not list those media types as being supported, even though those disks are read by PC Doctor and Windows. Maybe I sent my $20 in too fast....

[Terrahawk]

I can confirm that my GCC-4240N IMB0 drive with the 0214 firmware can read DVD+R discs. DVDInfo also shows my drive as not supporting any DVD+ media either.

[automobus]

Thank you, Ray, for the announcement. I do not think I would ever have found the page about firmware updates, if not for this thread. I provide another report of success. My drive is a type IMBO, had firmware 0213, now updated to 0214. I can now read a DVD+RW disc. The drive still does not report the ability to read DVD+ formats, and when I had a DVD+RW loaded, the drive reported it as a DVD-ROM. But disregarding its reported capabilities, it works.

The underside HLDS label says Rev. A1 from July 2003.
The topside IBM part label says Rev. 102.

[AMATX]

Might be handy to list dates of manufacture on the good/bad drives, in addition to the firmware levels. As I recall, there's usually a sticker on these drives somewhere with a manufacturing date. Easy way to check, and easy thing to query against a seller, before you buy.

[Majestic]

Many thanks to Ray for his contributions in this thread and to Automobus for resurrecting it. I had picked up a used T23 on Craigslist and found the optical drive had difficulty reading some burnt utility CDs I use on my ThinkPads. A firmware update was the first thing that came to mind, but I was unsuccessful in finding anything on Leveno's website. Ray's link was actually what I was looking for. Thanks to all!

[frankiepankie]

I had something exactly like that with my T40 back in the days.

It had a GDR-8083 drive, which couldn't read burned DVD+R and DVD+RW.

I downloaded the firmware update utility from Lenovo and *BOOM* it read any disk i gave him to eat ( ) without any problem.