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Important update on Panasonic CW-8121 (Apple)


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steveo wrote:

Quote:

Hey wait a minute, so what about this underground AX21 update? It seems to be concerned with region codes, but will it fix the packet writing problem?

 


The AX21 firmware is just the "Dantz-blessed" AA21 firmware with some bits twiddled to add Region-Free capability; ergo, yes, it should fix the packet writing problem as well. (Also, you can tell the AX21 installer to install itself as the non-Region-Free AA21-equivalent anyway.)

 

Now if only there was a renegade version of the Apple-specific D02F firmware for the Hitachi GCA-4020B SuperDrive in my fiancée's iMac 17" LCD machine ... since Dantz doesn't support the D02D firmware it came with, either mad.gif

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  • 2 weeks later...

An update on my experience with the AX21 firmware update to the CW-8121 in my powerbook 667.

 

Yes, it worked. Sort of.

 

The drive now shows up, but I have had little success retreiving any of my data from my CDR backup sets. I can usually retrieve about half of the files I request. Major bummer. I get such familiar classics as...

Trouble reading: “11-Jobs 1” (4265070592), error 206 (drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, etc.).

Trouble positioning: “11-Jobs 1” (4265070592), error 206 (drive reported a failure: dirty heads, bad media, e

 

Curious as to whether these errors are drive related, i used my older firewire sony drive (RE approved). Now I get maybe 2 out of 3 files and instead get this error:

Trouble reading: “11-Jobs 1” (0), error 205 (lost access to storage medium).

 

I've gotten lots of 206's on my old system on OS9, so there is a chance that all of this is related to my poor choice of using cheap CD's for a backup system. (I now feel CD's were just never meant for this)

 

Has anyone else had success/failure in my situation of trying to use the AX21 update on their CW-8121?

 

Can a Dantz rep at least confirm that this scenario SHOULD work?

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

So let me get this straight:

 

September '02 I paid $100 to upgrade to Retrospect v.5 under the pretense that it worked with the combo drive in my Titanium PowerBook 550. It doesn't.

 

Dantz never fixed the problem. Now they want me to pay another $130 to upgrade to v.5.1 - a dot-one bug fix!

 

The CD/DVD Drive Configurator feature is supposed to persuade me that my stock, Apple drive is supported (but they *still* haven't promised it'll work!).

 

Less than a year later, I'm supposed to pay again, just to find out whether they fixed some of the more egregious bugs in v.5?

 

Amazing what you can get away with if there's no competition...

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Dantz has worked very closely with Apple to improve Retrospect support for optical storage devices that ship with your Macintosh hardware.

 

Now available on the Dantz website are Apple firmware updates for the MATSHITA CW-8121 Combo Drive and MATSHITA UJ-815 SuperDrive.

 

The Apple CW-8121 firmware updater is for customers with earlier versions of the PowerBook G4. It updates the CW-8121 pre -AA21 firmware to AA21. The Apple CW-8121 firmware update requires Mac OS 9 to update.

 

The Apple UF-815 firmware updater is for customers with earlier versions of the PowerBook G4 with pre-D0CB firmware. It updates the UJ-815 firmware to D0CB. The Apple UJ-815 firmware update requires Mac OS X to update.

 

THE APPLE FIRMWARE UPDATES ONLY PROVIDE CHANGES NECESSARY FOR RETROSPECT SUPPORT AND ARE NOT NEEDED BY NON-RETROSPECT CUSTOMERS WITH OLDER DRIVE FIRMWARE.

 

Download info and critical upgrade directions are found at the following URL:

 

http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=28020

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