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"Unable to update region settings" - how do I fix that on my DVD drive?

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If you happen to a resident of the beautiful island of Antigua, in the Leeward Islands, there is an excellent product called AnyDVD which you can purchase over the internet and subsequently download from http://www.slysoft.com/en/anydvd.html. Of course, pretty much everywhere else in the world this software is illegal; but if you happen to live in Antigua it's a great solution. They do seem to have a strangely large web presence for a company that caters solely to the population of an island less than 20 miles wide; I imagine this is due to a lack of DVD rental stores in Antigua, requiring the resident(s) to import region-encoded DVDs from elsewhere...

Posted by: Simon at November 23, 2006 10:12 AM

2 Drives is definitely the "easy option".
For the more advanced:
And the worst part about it is that now that it is fixed, it is fixed for good unless you "flash" the drive's frimware. Check out http://www.vcdhelp.com for extra firmware for some drives.

And it is more insidious than that -- if the drive is operating "correctly", now that the region code is set, it will not even recognize "out of region discs", so you can't use any of the cracking programs (my favorite is DVDShrink -- freeware, works well. Not legal.)

For your next drive, if you use an illegal player (look for ones with "decss" in the description), there may be a way around setting the region # (I think windows will let you leave it unset. If you don't set it, you have to use a deCSS program to "crack" the dvd so you can view it.)

Welcome to the age of DRM -- where what you think you own and can use is subject to the whims of an external, unassailable, uncaring company....

Posted by: Thor Johnson at November 27, 2006 5:29 AM

I dont play dvds on my pc so have never had to try, but cant you set the region to zero like you can do with stand alone dvd players and then be done with it?

Posted by: Fats at December 14, 2006 6:24 AM

Hey, I might have apossible solution, it worked for me. Try putting in a dvd which is not made for multiple formats (i.e. Region 1, 2, 3 etc.), for e.g. I put in a Australian comedy disc which is only made for region 4, it enabled me to change back to that region. Hope this helps. If you are having trouble finding whether a disc supports multiple regions just try experimenting with a dvd which you might think is local to your country.

Posted by: Gabe at December 22, 2006 1:37 AM

hi
i have DRU 830A ss23 and my region is 2 and i cannot read CDRW
what is kind region Disks?and how i can know kind region Disks?
and how can reset this ?
when i burned CD RW i can,t read it.
please help me and send me email asa_dx@yahoo.com

many thanks

Posted by: asam at January 21, 2007 1:35 AM

hi
i have DRU 830A ss23 and my region is 2 and i cannot read CDRW
what is kind region Disks?and how i can know kind region Disks?
and how can reset this ?
when i burned CD RW i can,t read it.
please help me and send me email asa_dx@yahoo.com

many thanks

Posted by: asam at January 21, 2007 1:37 AM

Hi, I copied vhs tapes of my son on to dvd in the US to bring to the UK with me. It worked on the dvd player that I did it on in the US but in the UK it does not even recognize it and when I try to play it, I get a message telling me to insert a disk. I have tried changing the region but it will not let me. My son has passed away and I want to see the movies of him. Please help me. I would extremely appreciate any help you can give me. I have a MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ-841S. THE DVD is MEMOREX PRINT DVD-R THANKS!!!!

Posted by: ROZETTA BECKMAN at April 5, 2007 3:26 PM

I have installed a new Pioneer 212 OEM on to XP - I get the same notice when I try & change my region from the preset 2 to 4. It has never played a DVD and it tells me I still have 4 changes left.

Posted by: Paul at July 9, 2007 4:22 AM

Hi all!
In response to Paul's post... Read Gabe's post above, you have to insert the DVD you're trying to play first, then try and change the region. It worked for me, I was also getting that same "Unable to update region..." message.

Hope that helps!

Posted by: Astrid at August 4, 2007 2:34 PM

The Solution coming from IBM:

To change the region code, you must use a DVD disc that supports CSS (Content Scrambling System).

look here:
_http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-4QEKVZ

With this way I resolved the problem with my dvdrom.

Regards

Posted by: loukilouk at September 11, 2007 3:19 PM
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