Michael Eng

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Sony (Spressa) CDU-928E Firmware

Introduction

The Sony CDU-928E CD Recorder is (was) a double speed, caddy loading ATAPI CD recorder (not CD-RW). It was introduced in 1997 and discontinued in 1999. In the United States, it was sold as the Spressa 928.

This website used to contain information about the Sony CDU-928E CD recorder. As this information was not updated since early 1999, it has since been removed. However, I continue to provide a copy of the firmware for this model of CD recorder, as it is not readily available elsewhere.

Please note that I will not provide technical support should you be unfortunate enough to still have this particular piece of equipment! In addition, you perform the actions on this page entirely at your own risk.

Instructions

How to determine your drive's firmware revision

Windows NT:
Press Start Menu, Settings, Control Panel
Select the SCSI Adapters icon (NT treats the PCI IDE interface as if it was SCSI)
Expand the lists by pressing on the + signs
Find SONY CD-R  CDU928E in the list and press Properties button
Press Settings tab and the Firmware version is displayed.

Windows 95:
Right click on My Computer, select Properties
Select Device Manager tab
Find CD-ROM drives, Expand the lists by pressing on the + signs
Find SONY CD-R  CDU928E in the list and press Properties button
Press Settings tab and the Firmware version is displayed.

How to install the update

• If you do not have a unzip program, download and install WinZip following the instructions on their web page.
• Unzip the archive downloaded using the instructions or help supplied with the unzip program.  You should unzip the files into a new directory on your hard drive - for example I recommend you use C:\928
• You should now have the following files: 928e11x.bin, flashupd.bat, readme.txt and updater.exe
• You should now EXIT Windows.  In Windows 95, this is done by pressing the Start Menu, Shut Down, Restart computer in MS-DOS Mode.  If you are using Windows NT you should prepare a MS-DOS boot disk with the files on it.
• You will now be faced with a C:\> prompt.
• Change to the directory where you unzipped the archive to.  In my example I will type cd 928.
• Type the command dir to ensure that the files are present.  You should see something similar to this:

C:\>cd 928

C:\928>dir

 Volume in drive C is SYSTEM
 Volume Serial Number is 301F-08FA
 Directory of C:\928

.              <DIR>        09/04/98   3:11 .
..             <DIR>        09/04/98   3:11 ..
928E11x  BIN       262,174  07/10/97  11:15 928E11x.BIN
FLASHUPD BAT           130  18/07/97  16:43 FLASHUPD.BAT
README   TXT         1,024  08/10/97   9:25 README.TXT
UPDATER  EXE       196,786  04/07/97  14:17 UPDATER.EXE
         4 file(s)        460,114 bytes
         2 dir(s)     749,662,208 bytes free

C:\928>

• Use this table to determine which command to type next.  If your computer is a NEC PC-98xx model (only Japanese NEC computers) then replace /AT with /98

• If you don't know what your configuration is, don't guess.  Many BIOSes will supply the necessary information at boot time.
• The update will take a few seconds to complete. Under no circumstances should you attempt to interrupt the process with a reset or power off.

Files

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