Hitachi 8X DVD GD-5000 needs firmware update

[SimMike]

I just got this used Hitachi 8X GD-5000 and was somewhat disappointed in
that the DVD would pause for about 5 seconds when doing layer changes on the
DVD disks. In Device manager under settings for the DVD drive, the firmware
was listed as 0110. I went to this website
http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/dvd/dvdf.htm and downloaded
the firmware update to 0215.

This exe file created a bootable disk with instructions on how to update the
firmware of the drive. I followed these and the drive now plays disks
without the annoying pauses. One thing that bugged me about the firmware
upgrade was an annoying 1 minute pause while the program said the update was
taking place. It almost looked like a lock-up, but I sat it out and the
upgrade worked. If you turn off or reset your computer during this minute,
it might damage the firmware of the drive and cause problems, so just be
patient.