Superdrive Firmware Update 2.1 hosed your DVD-RW? Here's howto restore it.

Question

I have successfully restored the firmware on a UJ-857 that was hosed following the infamous Apple Superdrive Firmware Update 2.1, thanks to the procedure & flashing utility posted by "ben11" on http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=42953&sid=7a19b1238543a5e4a43d12770bbd27c1
Please read the instructions carefully before proceeding.
Hello,
+After some private message exchanges it seems I was able to help some people in this situation (inclduing the original poster). I wrote a simple utility to perform a very basic flash to the drive - doing that may be able to recover the situation, but my flash utility performs almost no checks and is generally much more basic than the framework which, for example, the standard Apple Superdrive updaters have used.+
+So, if your drive is in a similar situation this may be able to help. But only try if you feel you've exhausted every other possibility, such as having the drive replaced. This flash process may not work for you, or in the worst case it could conceivably leave your drive is a worse state than before. It is of coursed not endorsed by anybody, in particular not Apple nor the drive manufacturer (or anybody at rpc1.org either).+
+As I wrote, compared to the standard updaters this utility makes few checks on the drive status - so unless your drive has really lost its standard operating firmware, often because of an interrupted flash, don't use this rather than a more featured updater.+
+Simple flash utility archive:+
+http://rapidshare.com/files/57312123/SimpleFlash.zip.html+
+There is the terminal based utility (and source code) - along with copies of the HAEA, HBEA, KBVB, KCVB (RPC1 patched) firmwares for the UJ-857 and UJ-857D.+
_+Basic Instructions+_
+You need to download the "SimpleFlash.zip" file, unpack it and then run it using the terminal. e.g. assuming you have downloaded the archive file to your desktop you can unpack like this:+
+ben11s-computer:~ ben11$ cd Desktop+
+ben11s-computer:~/Desktop ben11$ unzip SimpleFlash.zip+
+ben11s-computer:~/Desktop ben11$ cd SimpleFlash+
+to use the utility you start it using ONE of the following commands:+
+./simple_flash 0 UJ857-HAEA-MBP-rpc1.dat+
or
+./simple_flash 0 UJ857-HBEA-MB-rpc1.dat+
or
+./simple_flash 0 UJ857D-KBVB-MB-rpc1.dat+
or
+./simple_flash 0 UJ857D-KCVB-MBP-rpc1.dat+
+(choose according to the firmware you need, see below)+
+It will prompt you to answer if you want to continue - to which you can type 'yes' or 'y', if you want to go on. The flash should start and will take about 30 seconds after which the utility should say "Finished". At this point I recommended you restart your Mac. If all has gone well your drive should be responding again.+
_+Choosing the Firmware+_
+The firmware included are the ones that the "Apple Superdrive 2.1" update offered for Matshita drives - except the ones in this archive have RPC1 patches. If you don't want RPC1 you could go back to standard firmware using the updaters posted in other threads on this forum after your drive is responding again.+
+In principal the utility would also flash other matshita UJ-8xx drives, but suitable firmware data files are not included for them.+
+HAEA, HBEA are for UJ-857+
+KBVB, KCVB are for UJ-857D+
+If your drive previously had:+
+HAC1 or HAE4 use HAEA+
+HBE4 use HBEA+
+KBV9 use KBVB+
+KCV9 use KCVB+
+If you don't know the previous firmware revision you had then: As far as I know firmware revisions HAEA & KCVB are used in the Macbook Pro, HBEA & KBVB are used in the Macbook. Choose according to which model of mac and which model of drive you have.+
+The optical drive should not accept a firmware corresponding the wrong drive model, but for a given model the various revisions may have slight differences, perhaps because of different physical constraints on the hardware - so try to pick the appropriate revision.+
+Good luck.+

Answer 1

Hello.
I read a lot of stories on this issue, but no one was exactly like mine. However, since I bumped into your post yesterday I decided to give a try to the "ben11" flash solution.
I'm writing here so others can others can find the info (also I'm writing it here since I have an Apple ID but I'm not interested in subscribing to "The Firmware Page Forum", from "ben11" comes from).
So, here it is.
Of course in the beginning, that is June '07, It was the Firmware Update 2.1.
From there, I was capable to burn CD's at 24x even after the update, but suddenly, the week before the past one or so, I couldn't burn a couple of CD's and a DVD. In that moment I couldn't check the issue in detail. I just thought it could be that my Mac was too busy or something. All I was getting was a completed recording phase and then a failing verifying phase. Sometimes with a 80020063 error code.
The past week I successfully wrote a disc at 8x, but another one, and all the subsequent failed with the same conditions: recording succeeded, verification failed.
Then I read your post. I tried a couple of recordings more for control. I was able to record my iPhoto collection at 1x in a DVD with no problem. Then I tried writing data again in a CD at 24x and it failed, as I was expecting.
I applied the flash utility to the (MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-857D/KCVB) unit and voila! At 24x my data was recorded and verified successfully!
Thanks a lot and kind regards from Mexico.
Julián