Thinkpads Forum

Just picked up a 770Z for basically pocket change. This is a VERY nice notebook and works perfectly with XP home... except... the DVD drive does not play DVD-R's.

The current version of the firmware I have is 076B and from what I understand it needs 079G to read DVD-R's... of which I have thousands of.

Can anyone provide a working link to the latest firmware for the DVD-ROM drive for Thinkpad 770Z? I've seen other posts but they are dated and the link doesn't work. Someone had compiled an ISO image that can be burnt to CD which apparently fixes this entire problem with this particular drive.

-Atreyu-

Try sending a PM to a member here (moderator) called pkiff. He might have what you need.

Welcome to the Forum, Atreyu!

Well, I was about to post a note saying that, no, I did not have this firmware update, but when I looked through my files, I see that in fact I do have some kind of files that claim to be a firmware update for the SR-8171 CD/DVD drive, manufactured by Matshita (or M a t s u s h i t a or Panasonic). I don't remember actually using these files to update the firmware on any of my Thinkpad DVD drives myself, so maybe I just downloaded them when I saw them posted, and then never did anything with them. I am therefore hesitant to send them along as a recommended solution. But if you don't get a response from anyone else, then I'm happy to share the files I have.

There are three files. One is an HTML page describing how to use the other two files. The other two files are:
Cdfwjan.exe (614 KB)
Dvd079g.exe (150 KB)

The Cdfwjan file must be the same as the one available from Lenovo here:
CD-ROM firmware update utility diskette - ThinkPad General

The Dvd079g may be the same as the one offered from Gateway for the Solo 2500 laptop here:
dvd079g.exe

On the surface, neither of these seems like it would fix a problem with an SR-8171 Panasonic/M a t s u s h i t a CD/DVD drive. But as I say, I don't think I've actually used this firmware patch myself.

If you PM me with your email address, I'll send along the files I have and you can compare them to the ones available above...or elsewhere.

Oh and, I'm in Toronto, too, by the way, and I probably have a spare Panasonic SR-8171 I can give you if you wreck the one you have trying to update the firmware. The Panasonic drives are really not very good in my experience. I had better success with the Toshiba drives that came with some 770Z's. And eventually I upgraded one machine to a newer Toshiba CDRW/DVD drive that reads DVD-R/RW's great.

Phil.