Firmware ID string

[JerC]

Hello fellows,

Someone has sent me an auto run CD setup to run pxfix.exe . The program alters the firmware string in ANY Plextor drives and morph it into Plextor 1210A. I have a 1610A and now its seen as 1210A. I found a text file saying in disc in question, but damage was already done by the time I realized it.

The text said:

"Congrats! your CD burner is now ruined! pxfix.exe converts ANY Plextor drives into a 1210.

HAHAH you are [F'ed]" sorry I had to modify it. The original text quote caused the anandtech to give me "Forbidden word" error.


Any programmers whose willing to be so kind and reprogram this beast to convert ANY Plextor(or PX-W1210A for that matter) into PX-W1610A and send it back to me by email so I don't have to send my drive back to Plextor for repair? I really can't afford the price Plextor is going to charge me.


Any helps are appreciated,

Jer

 

[bacillus]

hmm, have you tried reflashing your drive with the latest x16 firmware??

 

[Jiggz]

Have you reported this incident to Plextor Customer Service? You must before it ruins the rest of us. At least, Plextor with all their resources can do something to either prevent this by informing people or use a certain program to prevent the malicious program to even accessing the firmware. Anyway, thanks for posting this here at AT and goodluck. Hopefully, it can be corrected with just a reflash of the firmware.

 

[JerC]

Hello Jiggy Boy,

Yes I did report the incident to Plextor. From my previous experience Plextor support was a joke and I'm not hoping much from them and I'm afraid they'll tell me "please send it to us and we'll repair it for flat fee of god knows how much and it only takes a few weeks". After doing a bit of searching on this piece of software it looks to me that it was programmed by someone on AnandTech forum. It was actually a software for converting Plextor OEM Iomega drives into Plextor badge so softwares can see the drive as Plextor. I found the software package that contained "Iomega to Plex12x", "Plex 12x to Iomega" and "Plex any to Plex 12x". I suppose it can be useful, but it can be disasterous if it gets in the hands of wrong people.:disgust:

 

[JerC]

Refresh is out of question. The refresh program looks for the string "Plextor CD-R PX-W1610A" before it does anything and since this program altered that to "Plextor CD-R PX-W1210A" I get "no devices found" error.

 

[Harvey]

I just checked Plextor's site (English). There's a link on that page entitled, "Enhance the write performance of your PlexWriter 16/10/40A and upgrade to firmware 1.03, released on July 5th, 2001."

You may be able to use it to re-flash your unit's bios and even improve it while you're at it.

Good luck.