Dell firmware problems with TSSTCorp TS-L632D DVD drive

Saturday, March 1. 2008

Dell firmware problems with TSSTCorp TS-L632D DVD drive

If you own a Dell notebook with a TS-L632D CD/DVD drive and use it with Ubuntu Linux then you may have the same problem as me: You can't select the write speed in Nautilus. After hours of research I puzzled together various information I found on the net and now I got it working.

The problem is the Dell firmware. And the solution is to install the Samsung firmware. Unfortunately you need Windows for it...

First of all you must download the latest Dell firmware update for the drive (Currently this is DE04) because it contains the firmware flash tool you will need for flashing the Samsung firmware. Then you must download the latest Samsung firmware. The current SC04 firmware can be found here. But maybe you can find a newer one on the net.

Now unpack the downloaded Dell firmware update and you should end up with a *.BIN file (which you don't need) and a executable with a filename like SFDNWIN3.27.11.exe. Open a command-line, go to the directory which contains the executable and then start it with the command-line argument -NOCHECK. This parameter must be upper-case! Now select the Samsung firmware you have downloaded and then write it to the drive. Ignore the Version too old warning which may appear.

When you now reboot into your Linux then you can choose the write speed without any problems. Another interesting phenomena is that suddenly the drive is recognized as DVD-RAM capable:

cdrecord -prcap with DE04 firmware: 
...
Does not read DVD-RAM media
Does not write DVD-RAM media
...
cdrecord -prcap with SC04 firmware: 
...
Does read DVD-RAM media
Does write DVD-RAM media
...

Even Windows makes a difference now. With the DE04 firmware the drive was listed as DVD-RW drive. With the SC04 firmware it is now listed as DVD-RAM drive. Haven't tested if it really reads and writes DVD-RAM media but others reported that it works.

Posted in Linux | Comments (14)
Jackson Smith at 2008-11-28 08:45
Many warm thanks to Klaus Reimer for this post.

Unfortunately, I'm not running Ubuntu or any form of Linux on my Dell Inspiron 6400...yet; I'm still suffering Windows XP. However, I 'Upgraded' to DE04 and all audio and video playback from the optical drive became choppy and stuttered. Then I ran this sleek hack and now everything works again.

Thank you,

Jack
Patrick Smith at 2009-05-08 06:06
Hello, I am trying to perform this workaround using windows XP, but I am not versed, by any means, in command lines. How/where do I write the -NOCHECK ? It would be EXTREMELY helpful to me if you could help explain the process to me, in idiot terms. Thanks so much! Patrick
Klaus Reimer at 2009-05-08 08:06
1. Download the SC04 firmware file.
2. Download the DE04-2.zip file.
3. Unzip this ZIP-File to your desktop (After this you should have a DE04.BIN and a SFDNWIN3.27.11.exe on your Desktop)
4. Open a command line (Pressing Windows-R, typing "cmd", pressing Enter)
5. Go to the "Desktop" folder (By typing "cd Desktop")
6. Start the EXE file with the -NOCHECK parameter by typing "SFDNWIN3.27.11 -NOCHECK" (NOCHECK MUST BE UPPER CASE!). An alert is displayed saying that Nocheck mode is enabled. Confirm it with OK.
7. In the next strange window first make sure the correct drive is selected (if you have multiple CD ROM drives).
8. Click the button in the upper-left corner and then select the TS-L632D_SC04.bin file.
8. Click the next button (The one with the green chip and the white arrow). It should now flash the new firmware into the drive.

I hope that was detailed enough.
Janice at 2010-10-07 00:39
Everything works except when the Screen shows the SFDNWIN Pop up - on the drop down list it doesn't show my drive. I'm using Windows Vista 32 bit, Dell Inspiron 521S
Janice at 2010-11-30 01:11
I have since solved the problem myself without the help of any of the posts listed above. I have had to go into the registry to remove two files. I am so glad that my DVD drive is working as it should be. I have already been burning data to DVD with no issues. :)
Pierrot at 2009-04-06 04:43
Hi,

I've used to command line to open the executive file. After many researches, this seems to be the right thing to do. However, SFDNWIN wouldn't accept the SC04.bin file. It says : "This firmware is not compatible with the selected drive."

Any ideas ??

Pierre
Sam at 2009-04-17 17:41
Perhaps you forgot the -NOCHECK part?

I just tried this today (4/17/2009) and it worked for me the first try. Thank you so much to Klaus Reimer for sharing this.
Monreal at 2009-04-25 21:15
After a HD format to my laptop i've download DE04 in my drive, this cause a reading problem, i was able to write and reads data, but not to play CD or DVD, the reading were freezing or jumping or with little stops, all the configuration in device manager was correct, i've fix the problem loading SC04 version, so i do not recommend to use DE04 version on your players. Thank you for the information.
Annie at 2009-07-06 02:49
Just wanted to say a big THANKS! I came across this page referenced here by GrrArgh : http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19244409/19379243.aspx
I haven't had a problem with playing / burning CDs but when I tried to play my store bought, offical DVDs, they were terribly choppy. This update worked for me. Dell should update the drivers on the support site.
For reference, I have a Dell Latitude D820 with Win XP with the TSST L632D.
Richard A. Chagnon at 2009-10-29 23:28
Found your page when I was having trouble with my TS-L632D - DE03 in my Dell Inspiron E1505 using Windows Vista. Followed your instructions to flash the SC04 firmware and it work great! Thanks for the post.
PARIVARTAN at 2010-03-14 10:25
my dvd is not play dvd disc. massage show dvd decoreder is not install .
John at 2010-09-20 02:06
Thanks for posting this. I was having trouble copying a music CD onto my computer and this made the drive work much better. By the way, I found that if you create a shortcut to Tsdnwin.exe and modify the Target to include -NOCHECK, the windows firmware loader will also work (so that you do not need to go to DOS). This is especially useful for people with a 64 bit OS, since they would need to boot into a 32 bit OS to run the dos loader.
uwepig at 2010-12-07 18:29
thanks a lot,

The -NOCHECK option in upper case works great.

regards
uwepig
Carl at 2011-11-19 23:18
Thank you so much for posting these instructions. Now I know that I'm not crazy, AND I was able to fix the problem!

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