BD Burner "Region" setting has "0 Changes Left" after reinstalling Windows. Help.

[Mugsy]

I never changed the Region Code of my BD Burner. Always left it on the default ("A") and it always played BD movies just fine.

But last week I went from a single SSD C: drive to a Raid-0 and had to reinstall Windows (64 bit 7-Home). Now when I try to play a BD movie, my software (PowerDVD-10) tells me "this is your first time playing a BD disk" and to select my Region (A, B or C), but the "Changes Left" counter reads "0".

If I click OK, I just get the same dialog. If I cancel, the disk never loads and the software just waits for a disk. Pressing Play starts the process over.

There must be a setting in the Windows Registry that links to the players firmware, but Hellifino where it is.

Any ideas? Thx.

 

[MauveCloud]

I think you're making false assumptions about the blu-ray drive firmware. I don't think there's anything in the blu-ray specification that requires drives to provide access to the firmware via the SATA connection. If the firmware can be changed at all, it could require opening up the drive and using a specialized connector. I suggest you contact the drive manufacturer and you might be able to convince them to let you ship them the drive so they can reset the "changes left" counter (I doubt they'd agree to tell you how to do it yourself, since that would defeat the purpose of having a limited number of region code changes)

 

[Mugsy]

I read someplace that Windows reads the drive's firmware and stores the Region Setting in the Registry, but I'm not finding anything to confirm that.

I contacted the manufacturer the other day and they said once the counter hits zero, nothing can be done to change it (a bit of a white-lie, but understandable.)

If PowerDVD still works with my old installation (backed up a now removed HDD), the problem MUST be software related and fixable.

Thx.