Flashing DVD-rom firmware w/out floopy drive: doable!

[joaomiguelxs]

Hello,
I recently acquired a DVDrom drive for my tp 600X. It's the older Panasonic Matshita SR8171. After searching in the forum

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=25121

there were a couple a posts pointing to a firmware and instructions that would make the drive DVD-r compatible.
I followed the instructions, but since I do not have an external floppy drive, I could not boot and run the batch file as the readme file suggested. I used Nero to create a bootable CD and copied the firmware file to that too.
I could boot, but when I tried to run the batch file or the command line executable I got an error:

"Not enough core"

Tried to run that from th XP secure mode command prompt, only to get this:
"Flash Write for MKEV2DVD 9711 20sec
sum:527F(4010-7FFF)
sum:0A7E(4000-1FFEF)
ProgramChangeCommand WaitSetDrq timeout:FF"


I double-checked the instructions onthe readme file, so I'm guessing this is because I'm not booting from the floppy drive. Is there any other way to do this?

Thanks guys for any advice you can give...

[joaomiguelxs]

V is for victory!

Flashing my dvd drive, without an external floppy drive, proved to be a challenge.


Finally did it, thanks to the people in this forum and a bit of resolve.

And let me add, it is now dvd-r and dvd+r capable!


Thanks to warwound's post on cd boot, floppy emulation
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 601#228601

This is the iso image with the cd boot and firmware install files
http://www.dvddoc.com.br/SR8171.iso

This is the original text with instrucions on the firmware flash
http://www.mazochungo.net/SR-8171.htm