My DVD's from the U.K wont play!!

Hey Guys,

Wondering if anybody can help. My HP nw8440 notebook will no longer play DVD's from other regions, it says that the drive has been locked into region 1. The message also says that even a fresh installation of windows xp will not unlock it. I did some research and I think I need firmware which will unlock the drive. I am in disbelief at them blocking DVD's from other regions.You can buy regionless DVD players, so what's the big deal. I purchased the comedy DVD's from the U.K because they don't sell them in the U.S. Does anybody know how to get around this annoying problem?. Thanks in advance.

Enlighten

 

How many times have you changed the region code? You can only do it (5)? times, then it's locked to the last code used.

Regardless...

Fresh Install of windows won't fix it, code is in the drive itself. You're going to have to find out which drive is used in your unit, then google around to find the hacked firmware.

 

PS: Post back the details on what you end up doing.

Sorry I don't have links for you, I have run across the info before though while doing searches.

Pretty sure that you can unlock, a locked drive with the hacked firmware.... been a while, and I didn't research all the details..

One thing I did run across was software that allows you to play discs from another region without changing the region code for those that don't what take the chance on killing their drive by flashing, Or want to retain their warranty. Don't know the details, but it's out there..

Here's a link or two to get you started:
http://www.google.com/search?q=region+free+firmware&hl=en&lr=

http://www.rpc1.org/

http://www.doom9.org/rpc1.htm

 

Ain't DRM grand? Vista and HD-DVD/Blu-Ray will just make it better

And I know you can do it in Linux using DeCSS (CSS is the Content Scrambling System). Not sure about playing it under Windows, but I'm sure someone has something along that line.

What's really sad is that you have to resort to doing something illegal (if you live in the US) to allow you to play your completely legal content.

 

Yep... It's because of the Hollywood types that they've added a bunch of stuff that really caused allot of problems over the years and delayed hardware to boot!


Vista?..... I'm seriously leaning towards coverting to Linux because of all the drm / big brother type stuff MS is adding to it.

 

Slysoft's AnyDVD should let you play disks from any region. The 21 day trial is free. If you buy a copy, you get upgrades for life. It's great software, and it does other really nice things besides defeating region coding ...