Hugo Drax wrote:
Hugo,
There'll be a bunch of guys that will tell you the 985 is junk (I see
one already did). Well, I've had mine about 18 months, and have
followed all the posts in this NG about the 985.
True, mine was quirky at first. I used nothing but Verbatim DataLife
and DataLifePlus DVD+R's (and the Philips +RW's), and I did burn about a
25% ratio of coasters at first. Then, I updated the firmware, and have
only created one coaster out of some 25 recordings since then. I think
that one was my fault, though--I let it sit too long from original
recording until Finalizing it. But, the box itself has been solid.
A couple of weeks ago, I ordered a cake box of Ritek 2X discs from RIMA,
tried to record on one, and it died--powered off!--almost immediately.
Contacted RIMA for help, and they suggested updating the firmware (it
had been more than 6 months, and the firmware version had gone from
ff12t to ff12x). Contacted Philips tech support, and they said the
same. So, I did update to ff12x, but the Ritek's still wouldn't work.
Much to their credit, RIMA took them back and gave me a FULL refund
(excluding shipping, of course).
So, guess I'll stick with Verbatims. "Your mileage may vary!"
Anyway, you should check to see what version of firmware your box
has--as mentioned above, the latest is ff12x. The way you do that is go
to System Menu, press the down arrow till you get to the Remote Setup
lines, use the right arrow to move into the remote setup items, and
press the down arrow key until you get to the last parameter (I think a
couple of times), then press it once more. The screen will then display
your manufacture date, a bunch of other numbers, and within the last 2
lines you will see the firmware version, probably something like
"ff12-", where the dash is some letter.
Next, I would suggest that you go to Philips' site, go to Support, then
Downloads, and download the latest firmware. Also, download the
instruction .pdf file and print it out. Next, you'll have to burn a CD
on your PC to use to load the firmware into the 985. The firmware will
be a .ZIP file; extract it to some directory all by itself. Now, scan
the extracted files, and you will see 2 or 3 .TXT files, along with some
28 or so .001 files. DELETE the .TXT files before you burn your CD, or
else it won't work (Philips doesn't tell you that)! FOLLOW THE PHILIPS
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LETTER RE: BURNING THAT CD!!! (Yes, I meant to
shout!) You can use a CD-RW so you don't burn a coaster if you have
problems with it. From there on, the instructions are pretty much
correct. It will take some 10-15 minutes for the new firmware to load.
After that, you should have no ( or few) problems.
Good luck!
Stranger
