As I write this review, Amazon is currently not offering this drive for sale themselves and only has it available via resellers.
If your only question is "Is this drive reliable for writing to CD/DVD/BD/BD-XL discs?" then the answer is "Yes". If your question is "Can this drive have the firmware downgraded to UHD friendly firmware for ripping?" then the answer is also "Yes", but you're not going to like what I had to do to accomplish this.
This drive shipped to me with firmware version 1.05, which is encrypted and is not considered to be "UHD friendly" for ripping UHD discs. Please note that I can't guarantee you that if you buy this drive and follow my directions that you will have success downgrading the firmware. I have over 30 years of IT work experience and I still had problems downgrading the firmware.
First I tried using the SDFtool program that MakeMKV recommended. It failed. It did start up, but it displayed weirdly, not looking much like it was supposed to, although it did try to patch the LG drive. It failed with some kind of weird 5-6 digit hex error code. I didn't write down the code because there is no way to look up the code and see what it means. Not sure what the writer of SDFtool was thinking of in having it display this kind of error code. Then I did some internet searching and one guy swore that you couldn't use the graphical SDFTool but if you did command line patching instead, it would work. It didn't. Generated a different 5-6 digit hex code for failure. I checked and the firmware remained on 1.05. At this point I am running out of options, so I found that DVDFab says it can patch the firmware for you, but the tool to do so costs about $100. Sigh. I bought a package of this tool and UHD ripping software and hoped for the best. And spent a lot more than $100 on said package. On my first attempt to patch, it did start and seemed to run OK without generating an error code but the program became a run away and never ended. After 30 minutes I tried everything I could to cancel the program and nothing worked. I even tried throwing the power switch on LG drive and the program still refused to stop. DVDFab documentation said it should only take 2-3 minutes to patch. So I forced a hardware interrupt and rebooted my PC. At this point I think the LG drive was actually successfully patched, but I forgot to check, so I ran the DVDFab patching program again. Same response - it started and after 2-3 minutes it ran away, never to end. I left it alone for 30 more minutes and forced another hardware interrupt/reboot. At this point I remembered to check the firmware and it was downgraded to 1.02. The drive has worked flawlessly since the downgrade and can rip UHD discs successfully to my hard drive. Note that I used Vantec external device enclosures with a power supply on my BD drives. Some people have reported having problems changing firmware on BD drives in Vantec enclosures, but it did work OK for me. If you're not sure if paying this money to DVDFab and trying this is for you, MakeMKV does list some resellers who downgrade firmware on drives they sell. This drive has done everything I need it to do so I do recommend buying it.
| Brand | LG Electronics |
|---|---|
| Series | WH16NS40 |
| Item model number | WH16NS40 |
| Hardware Platform | PC |
| Operating System | Windows 7/ Vista/ XP |
| Item Weight | 1.54 pounds |
| Product Dimensions | 6.8 x 5.7 x 1.6 inches |
| Item Dimensions LxWxH | 6.8 x 5.7 x 1.6 inches |
| Color | Black |
| Manufacturer | LG ODD |
| ASIN | B00E7B08MS |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Date First Available | July 28, 2013 |
