Download Pioneer v1.30 firmware for A05/105

Pioneer has released a new firmware for the mega-popular DVD-R drive Pioneer DVR-A05 (also known as DVR-105). You can download the firmware here.

According to Pioneer these improvements can be expected.

Flash has tested this firmware on some previously poor quality media and is still getting the same poor quality results. Of the new firmware he says, "I personally cannot find any difference to date between 1.21 and 1.30 firmwares. There is no difference in writing speed available with all my brands of media that I have at my disposal, and as I have had no problems with media playability I can find no improvement." Pioneer are a bit vague as to what improvements the upgrade does.

Caution Advised
But as many of us already know, you should be really, really careful when upgrading Pioneer's firmware. Pioneer has a legacy of issuing firmware upgrades that wont allow downgrading back to the previous version and have introduced various limitations on media usage (Pioneer tends to block "unauthorized" blank media manufacturers' discs from burning on its drives). So, beware. Currently the best known firmware for Pioneer A05/105 is 1.21 because, as Flash puts it, "that is the one I get the best burns with 4x media. I have also tried .58 which burns more of the old media but the burn quality is still inferior so downgrading, although possible, is of no advantage to me."

Thanks to GRADIUS from the Firmware Forums it is now possible to downgrade the A05 to any firmware from 0.58 upwards.

This is quite a simple process: just download the file Pionner AO5 Downgrade Flash and extract the contents to a folder of your choice, make sure there is no disc in the drive and then run the file upgrade.bat and follow the onscreen instructions.

Flash continues, "I have applied this downgrade to my A05 firmware 1.30 and was able to burn to discs that were previously unrecognisable.

"From this firmware it is possible to upgrade to any firmware of your choice I recommend doing it in stages
1) R5TA100.EXE
2) R5ta121.exe
3) r5ta130.exe"

All are available for download here.

All these firmwares are official Pioneer firmwares and currently there are no patched firmwares available, but rest assured when there is this will be one of the first places to find them.