iXtreme Burner Max Official Tutorial from Team Xecutor

[charincol]

This has already been popping up on other modding sites in the last 24 hours, so I'm posting the link to the official thread so there's no confusion as to where it comes from and how it's done.

All credit goes to Ubergeek at Team Xecuter

Official Thread and Link to Tutorial Here

There are some things in the tutorial that are a little unclear. I'll make some clarifications in hopes of answering some of the questions that'll be coming. (I know, I make big funny joke.)

As registrations seem to be unavailable at Team Xecuter, here's the tutorial. I will update it if Team Xecuter updates it.
iXtreme Burner Max Tutorial.pdf

The first thing you need to do is READ THE TUTORIAL!

Next, you will want to READ THE TUTORIAL!

Now, download the LiteOn firmware for your drive here. It's the latest official LiteOn firmware for your drive. For example, if you have a LiteOn iHAS124-XX, then download the file from the iHAS124 B link. The example file in the tutorial, AL1A.exe, is for the iHAS324. You must use the "B" version for whatever model have. You can also use a higher model version if you want to activate more features. However, if you didn't get a drive with lightscribe, firmware won't enable it, as it requies additional hardware inside the drive.

Connect your drive to your PC or to a USB port if you are using a USB to SATA enclosure or some other USB to SATA adapter.

Run the update that you download above ^^^^^ and reboot your PC or disconnect/reconnect power to your USB to SATA connected drive. Now you are ready to flash iXtreme Burner Max to your iHAS drive.

Download the two utilities that have download links in the tutorial: Flash_Utility.exe and EEPROM_Utility.exe.

The EEPROM utility is used to backup/restore the EEPROM. The Flash_Utility is used to backup and flash/restore firmware to the drive. It's recommended that you back them up, but it's not required. If you ever need to restore the drive back to stock firmware, you can always download the latest LiteOn firmware above and run it.

Finally, we're to the part that you all bought your drives for - flashing iXtreme Burner Max to your drive.

You will use the Flash_Utility file for this. But, alas, the iXtreme Burner Max firmware has not been released yet. It's planned release is this weekend, so you'll have to wait a few more days. At least now, you'll be able to have your drive prepped and ready to go when the firmware rolls out.

There are a couple of very important things to note here.

• It doesn't look like JungleFlasher is going to be used for flashing the LT Burner Max Firmware to the LiteOn iHAS drives. There are two reasons: the LiteOn firmware flashing program from codeguys.rpc1.org already does the job well, and to keep people from mistakenly using JungleFlasher on their other PC DVD drives and bricking them.
• You will need to ensure your drive has the latest LiteOn firmware on it before flashing iXtreme Burner Max to it. This is so the EEPROM is fully updated or else you might have issues with burning after you've put Burner Max on it. iXtreme Burner Max does not update the EEPROM. (This is for those of you who ask, "Why do we need to put the latest LiteOn firmware on it if we are just going to replace it?")
• If you are connecting your drive thru USB, you need to make sure the drive is being reported properly as an iHAS drive or you won't be able to flash it.
• As of now, 2.4x and 4x speed are the official supported burning speeds fot iXtreme Burning Max. If you want to use media other than Verbatin, there is a Kprobe Liteon Burn Quality Testing Tool you can use to gauge how reliable your backups are after you burn them. However, Verbatims are the only discs to have tested error-free by c4eva and his team.
• If you burn at 4x speed you will need to ensure that OPC is enabled in IMGBURN. Refer to the tutorial for the location of the option. (Don't ask about this option in CloneCD, I couldn't find it either.)
• For those of you with Verbatim discs, burn the MKM-001-00 discs at 2.4x, and MKM-003-00 discs at 4x speed. This will give the best burns. IMGBURN will list the disc ID as shown here:

In order for XGD3 games to be burned properly, the new drives with new firmware will have to burn very close to edge of the disc. This area is where the dye (the material where the data resides) is the most inconsistent. The stock firmware in DVD burners has been coded to stop burning well short of the edge of the dye. Here are some pictures to illustrate this. (XGD2 - COD:BO, XGD3 - GOW3)

{ XGD2 Retail }{ XGD3 Retail } {XGD2 Backup}{XGD3 Backup}


A rip of an XGD2 game is 7,838,695,424 Bytes (7.8 GB); A rip of an XGD3 game is 8,738,846,720 Bytes (8.7 GB).
Notice how the pressed area of data on the XGD2 and XGD3 retail discs appear to be about the same, yet there is a difference of .9 GB of data when ripped. The XGD2 Backup shows the burn area of the 7.8 GB image being about the same as both retail discs.

Notice the burn area of the XGD3 Backup. 8,547,991,552 Bytes (8.5 GB) of the XGD3 image was written to the disc. That just happens to be the exact rated capacity of 8.5 GB DL discs. (Funny coincidence, I know) The difference is about 191 MB that gets cut off (truncated) at the end. Keeping this chunk of data intact on the backup is what iXtreme Burner Max has been created for. If you compare the 2 backups, notice how much area the additional 709 MB (difference between XDG2 and XGD3 images minus the truncated chunk) takes up and it's only 79% of the total additional data required to burn a full XGD3 image. So, the remaining 21% of the truncated 191 MB, has to fit in the rest of the area within the dye. There's not a whole lot of space left.

Cheaper, lower-grade discs have greater areas of inconsistent dye at the outer tracks than higher-grade discs, such as Verbatim do. This isn't an opinion; it's not debatable; live with it. This is why c4eva and his team have reported that only Verbatim discs have been burning error-free. The statement, "But, my cheaper discs have always worked fine," is irrelevant as you will be burning them with a capacity they were never designed for.

For those of you who wonder why bother with a Burner Max drive for XGD3 games when they have been working fine so far: let's hold a contest to see who can guess the exact number of new security checks that fit inside the 191 MB getting truncated by not using one. The winner gets a freshly-banned console; the runner-up gets a profile that's suspended until 12/31/9999.

P.S. Here's my full disclosure:

Thanks Team Xecuter and codeguys

[MiniAlien]

Shouldn't this topic be marked as a sticky? It'll become very usefull

[Cify]

here is a link to the tutorial pdf http://www.filesonic.com/file/266596...r_Tutorial.pdf

[Evo]

not needed. peeps downloaded tut already but could help i guess

[charincol]

here is a link to the tutorial pdf Download iXtreme_Burner_Tutorial.pdf for free on Filesonic.com

Since Team Xecuter has stopped registrations due to server load (hopefully it's not all the time), I have added the tutorial for download in my post. If they update it, I will update it here. No need to post links for it that will be outdated later.

[tim85]

Thanks for that, helpful info. Looks easy enough too

[UNLEASHED]

Shouldn't this topic be marked as a sticky? It'll become very usefull

done

[dfpbld]

is burner max firmware released yet?

[cola1701]

sometime over the weekend

[caftdunt]

Excellent post m8 , one thing though i have ihas324b and in the tut it mentions you need to use AL1A.exe dated 14th June, 2011 however there is AL1B.exe dated 14th October, 2011 i presume i would use this one over the AL1A ? cheers