Ricoh Drives current modifications

- General information:

Ricoh now has 3 different product lines. The first one is code-named MMP (the MediaMaster) that includes most of the high-end Ricoh-brand-named products from the legendary MP7040 series to the newest MP7200 series. They are designed and manufactured by Ricoh Japan (though some of the new drives are manufactured at the new factory in mainland China).

The second one is code-named PALSER (whose meaning is beyond me) that includes the MP7063/MP7083 and MP7163 series. These products are actually manufactured by Samsung Electronics. Samsung has a model called SW-216, which is just the clone of MP7163A.

The third and the most interesting one is code-named NS (again I don't know what it stands for) that is never sold under the Ricoh brand name. The products are manufactured in Taiwan by AOpen. These include the CRW1232, CRW1632, CRW2040 and the upcoming CRW2440 series (older models are just clones of Ricoh models). The most interesting part is that the CRW1632 and the CRW2040 are virtually the same except the firmware, and it's rumoured that the CRW2440 is just the same! So get ready for a little overclocking exercise when the firmware of CRW2440 is released. :)

PS One last word of warning. DON'T try to write the firmware of a drive of a product line with another of a different product line (say writing the firmware of MP7200A to CRW1632). It DOESN'T work!

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- Convert Ricoh 7063Ax to 7083A!

The Ricoh 7063A supports 6X writing, 4X re-writing and 32X. The Ricoh 7083A support 8x writing, 8x re-writing and 32x reading:

- download both the firmwares for the 7063A and 7083A drives.
- extract both firmware and a copy of RFlash.exe into a directory
- the 7063A firmware filename is P00A180.BIN while the 7083 firmware filename is P10a120.bin
- start up RFlash.exe
- select your 7063A burner from the "Target Drive" drop down menu
- select the P00A180.BIN file from the "Source File" drop down menu
- tick the "Back Up current F/W" box to save your current firmware, just in case
- press the "Next" button
- before you press the "Start" button, go to the directory where you saved the firmware files
- rename the 7063A firmware (P00A180.BIN) to something else (for example, PA180.BIN)
- rename the 7083 firmware (P10a120.bin) to P00A180.BIN
- press the "Start" button and it should proceed with the upgrade
- after the upgrade has finished, shut down your computer for a couple seconds, then start it up again
- now you "upgraded" your 7063A to a 7083A :-).."

Note that the increased re-write speed works only with HS RW media!

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- Convert Ricoh RW7083A to MP7083A!

"...Difference between the MP7083A and RW7083A (or any other MP/RW)model is that MP7083A is recoginzed as "Ricoh CD-R/RW MP7083A" and the RW7083A as " CD-R/RW 7083A". It doesn't look like a big difference, but some current CDR programs (Feurio v1.52 for example) doesn't recoginze the RW model but does with the MP one! In Feurio, you have to manually choose the writer and what model is it (MP) if you have the RW version. You can't directly flash your RW model with the MP firmware, or vice versa. You have to trick the RFlash program. Here's how I flashed my RW to a MP:

- download both the RW and MP firmware for the 7083A
- extract both firmware and a copy of RFlash.exe into a directory
- the MP firmware filename is P10a120.bin while the RW firmware filename is P11a120.bin
- start up RFlash.exe
- select your RW7083A burner from the "Target Drive" drop down menu
- select the P11a120.bin file from the "Source File" drop down menu
- tick the "Back Up current F/W" box to save your current firmware, just in case
- press the "Next" button
- before you press the "Start" button, go to the directory where you saved the firmware files
- rename the RW firmware (P11a120.bin) to something else (for example, RW120.bin)
- rename the MP firmware (P10a120.bin) to P11a120.bin
- press the "Start" button and it should proceed with the upgrade
- after the upgrade has finished, shut down your computer for a couple seconds, then start it up again
- now you "upgraded" your RW7083A to a MP7083A :-).."

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- Upgrade your 4/4/20 CDR-W drive to an 6/4/4 one!

NOTE: We didn't tested this program and we do not know if it will work for you. Do it at your own risk! (most people reported that it will work just fine...)

"..I found the following program which can transform any of the following CDRs to MP7060s (6x/4x/24x) : (You also need firmware: MP 7060S v1.5 or MP 7060A v1.5)

Actima ARW-4420
A-Open CRW9420
Caravelle RW-4420 IDE
Caravelle RW-4420 SCSI
ComPro CDRW7040A
Delta OME-W141
Imation Super Recorder 4x4x20
Memorex CD-RW 4420
Ricoh MP7040A
Ricoh MP7040S
Ricoh RW7040A
Ricoh RW7040S
Ricoh RW7060A
Ricoh RW7060S
Smart & Friendly SAF769 CD SpeedRacer Plus
USDrives RW7040A
Verbatim CDRW4420

I have searched it for viruses and seems ok. I tested the recorder with DiscJuggler, Nero, CDRWin in both data & audio and works great. However is not working with Easy CD Creator Deluxe v4.0. It finds it but when it starts writing is stacks...Extract the m10....bin file (can't remember the exact name) and the rflash.exe. Start Rmorph in the same directory, enter what kind of drive you have when asked, and enter the exact file name of the .bin file. The file will then be patched. Exit rmorph.exe and start rflash.exe. Select the patched .bin file and be sure to check the 'backup f/w' checkbox. Now press start and your gone.."

Update:

"..There is another way to change the firmware of 7040 to 7060 without using Rmorph! You can use ATAMMP3.EXE (Dos Flasher). Reboot into safe mode (press F8) without loading Himem.sys and Emm386.exe and then type : C:> ATAMMP3.EXE /T M10A150.BIN (with /T option you bypass the check for updating right CDR!). You can also make a disk without Config.sys and Autoexec.bat and do the same process. If you make this upgrade then you could propably use all 7060 future firmware updates without need any Rmorth program. :-) This must be work in all clones of 7040A.!

(Thanks Astrapi for senting this important info!)..