Multi region laptop DVD player?

[Dr_Weasel]

I have a Sony Vaio Laptop (PCG-FRV31) thats US of origin. It has a DVD/CD-RW combo drive and I want it to play both Region1 and Region2 disks. Is it possible to crack the DVD player to make it multi region? Windows locks it to one region or the other doesnt it?

If I have to choose between Region 1 or Region 2, then Id prefer it stay as it is. But in this day and age, its gotta be possible to multi region it hasnt it?

 

[Tom]

Do you know what kind of bios/firmware etc your DVD drive is running? Perhaps its a stock phillips model for example, and you can reprogram its firmware to disable the copy protection?

 

[Dr_Weasel]

The device manager lists it as QSI CDRW/DVD SBW242U. I would have thought it would have been a Sony drive tbh

Where does one go about getting these firmware reprogramming things then? I googled and found this, http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?download_id=1709 but Im scared.

Im not a technophobe (Im a software engineer), but this DVD milarky is new to me. I never thought it'd catch on tbh (live Java...)

 

[Tom]

I've flashed the firmware in my drives a few times, so long as you don't lose power, or have a million other programs running in the background, it should be fine.

I'd recommend posting on the forums for that link, there will be loads of people who know more about this kind of stuff than anyone here, as its pretty specialised.

DVD hacking forum ffs!

 

[Yaka]

flashing firmware on dvd drives is not that hard m8.

 

[Dr_Weasel]

Flashing isnt a problem, im good at that Its whether it'll fix the region im uncertain about...

That link was for Dell only laptops anyway.