Saturday, March 2, 2019

[Panasonic DVD Drive RPC1 Patch] Make your Matshita (Matsushita/Panasonic) DVD Drive Region Free with MatshitaWinDump and MatshitaWinFlash on Windows

***Archived Content from RPC1.org Forum - This may be helpful for users still using old Apple computers with built-in Matshita DVD SuperDrive, or a Windows computer with a Matshita DVD drive. Only the links below have been updated to point to their new locations. ***

Original Poster: ala42 (March 14, 2010) on rpc1.org website forum.

Making your Matshita DVD-writer region free running Windows
As the firmware currently running on your drive is used, you do not have to worry about firmware compatibility issues and you do not need to search the Internet for firmwares.
The Windows based dump and flash tool released here allow you to apply an RPC1 patch to your Matshita drive, so it is region free when you also use a software solution handling the region counter.
The release consists of two parts. A firmware dump tool, that reads the firmware from your drive and generates one original and one RPC1 patched firmware file and a flash tool, that allows to flash these files to your drive.

Supported drives:
The tools work with Matshita UJ-84x, UJ-85x, UJ-86x, UJ-87x, UJ-88x, UJ-89x drives.
Matshita BD drives and the old UJ-81x, UJ-82x, UJ-83x drives are not supported yet.

Utility releases:
2010-03-14 MatshitaWinDump 1.01 - Windows based firmware dump and RPC1 patch tool
This release is an advanced version of the MacOS based dumper, as it can apply the RPC1 patch and write the package format that is needed for flashing.
2010-11-04 MatshitaWinDump 1.02 - added support for Matshita drives having a hp drive id.
2010-03-14 MatshitaWinFlash - Windows based firmware flash tool

Risks:
In the worst case your drive will be dead after upgrading to the patched firmware. The risk is quite low as the dumper, flasher and RPC1 patch are tested on several different drives and Windows 32- and 64-bit versions.

Windows dumping instructions:
- Download and unzip MatshitaWinDump.zip
- Make sure there is no disc in the drive
- Start MatshitaWinDump.bat and follow the instructions
The dump tools creates two files of ~800kb size, an original and an RPC1 patched firmware file that can be flashed with the flash tool.

A typical dump session looks like this:
Code:
Windows dumper for Matshita DVD drives V1.01 by ala42, based on ben11's dump_matshita

Enter the drive letter of the Matshita drive to backup the firmware: g:
You have selected the source drive g:

dump_matshita V 0.1
Appear to have a matshita device MATSHITADVD-RAM UJ-850S 1.05
dump 1
dump 2
dump 3
dump 4
Reading a portion of the memory of the drive, assuming 32 bit address space
Finished reading firmware dump from drive
converted firmware to flashable file MATSHITADVD-RAM_UJ-850S_1.05.dat
converted RPC1 firmware to flashable file MATSHITADVD-RAM_UJ-850S_1.05_RPC1.dat

Press any key to continue . . .


Windows flashing instructions:
- Download and unzip MatshitaWinFlash.zip
- Make sure there is no disc in the drive
- Drop the firmware .dat file you want to flash on the MatshitaWinFlash.bat batch file.
- Enter the drive letter of your Matshita drive.
- In case of drive/firmware mismatch or a corrupted firmware file the drive will not be flashed.

A typical flash session looks like this:
Code:
Windows flasher for Matshita DVD drives V1.01 by ala42, based on ben11's simple_flash

You have selected the file
   "E:\UJ-850S_1.05\UJ-850S_1.05_RPC1.dat"
to be flashed to your Matshita drive.

Enter the drive letter of the Matshita drive to be flashed: g
You have selected the target drive g


simple_flash V 1.01 compiled at Feb  6 2010 19:09:54
Selected firmware: MATSHITADVD-RAM UJ-850S 1.05
Selected device:   MATSHITADVD-RAM UJ-850S 1.05
Continue? y
Firmware update running, do not interrupt ...Finished

Press any key to continue . . .

Check RPC state:
Make sure the RPC region on your drive is already set. You can check that with DiscInfo.

Important RPC1 basics:
When your drive is running in RPC1 mode, you need a software tool to handle the region changes. Under Windows you could use DVD Region Killer. Without such a tool you still can not change the regions as you like.

Credits:
Credits go to ben11 for the simple_flash and matshita_memory (dump) tools, the obfuscate source code and the RPC1 patch.
Credits also go to all the volunteers who tested the tools on their drives.
Source: From the now-defunct rpc1.org website forum (Link [Internet Archive]).

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