Help! - Basic firmware upgrade question

[Bruce Morrison]

Sorry if this is a very basic question, but I need some help. I'm trying to do a firmware upgrade on a Panasonic BD50 player, using a CD-R. I'm running Windows 7 and I'm having problems creating the CD-R in the correct format.

First, when I load a blank CD-R, I have to choose how it should be formatted. The two options are:

Like a USB flash drive (Live File System)
To use with a CD/DVD player (Mastered)

Which option do I need to select?

Then the firmware upgrade instructions say that the CD-R needs to be in ISO9660 format. Does this require any particular burn method, or can I simply use Windows Explorer to copy the file to the CD-R? Apparently Windows Vista doesn't have native support for ISO9660, but I'm not sure whether this is also true of Windows 7.

I've tried using the "Mastered" formatting option and burning the file via Explorer but, when I loaded the CD-R in the player, it gave a "E DISC" message (presumably meaning "error disc") and ejected it without doing the upgrade. So I'm obviously doing something wrong somewhere. I don't really want to waste more CD-Rs without getting some guidance if possible.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

[crs]

I'd suggest you use better software to create your disc. Nero, for instance. There's also a free one called ImgBurn, it can work for this purpose too, but as far as I remembered (been a while), it's a bit more complicated, you had to create an image file first. Not sure if you can burn files directly with it.

But these apps have much better options to create discs with.

There's many file formats you can put on your disc, but ISO is the common one, UDF another. Making it UDF/ISO would probably make it readable with just about anything.

Hope this helps.

[jeffb66]

A CD-R disc does not require any special format for copying data files such as a firmware update. You just need to use the CD buring software to copy the file to a disc. This can been done in windows 7, but third party software often has more features and are easier to use.

I use a free CD burner software called CDBurnerXP 4.3 which can be downloaded from http://www.filehippo.com/download_cdburnerxp/

Other good free CD burning software are Nero BurnLite 10 ( download from http://www.filehippo.com/download_nero_lite/) or ImgBurn 2.5.5 (download from http://www.filehippo.com/download_imgburn/).

[Bruce Morrison]

Thanks for the replies guys. I've used ImgBurn but I now have a much more serious problem, for which I desperately need some advice.

The upgrade process began OK but suddenly stopped in the middle and the player ejected the CD-R with "UPD NG" displayed on the front panel. It is supposed to display "FINISH" when the upgrade has been completed successfully.

When I removed the CD-R and closed the tray, it then displayed "INSERT DISC". I re-inserted it and the same process repeated with the same outcome.

Before this point was reached, the following flashing messages had been displayed during the process:

"L FVU"
"L DRV"
"L MAIN"

So after going around this loop three times, I'm now left with the tray open and the player displaying "INSERT DISC". I really don't want to disconnect the power, as I think that might well leave the player inoperable.

Can anyone suggest how I can get out of this situation without damaging the player?

[crs]

That's not good, not at all (unless it's normal, but doesn't sound like it). I guess this needs expertise answers. If not here, maybe you should try more dedicated forums for this player/brand.

[Bruce Morrison]

OK, panic over! I installed Nero BurnLite and used it to burn another CD-R and that one worked perfectly! Whew!

The other good news is that the firmware update has corrected a problem I was having with the Special Features disc on the new Blu-ray of Dances With Wolves. Previously, some of the featurettes were being displayed in a small rectangular image in the top left corner of the screen.

Anyway, many thanks guys for your help.