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    introduction
    About one year ago, I posted an article about how to hack the region code of a thinkpad T21. Now, when I saw a Thinkpad T23 with this cool 144x1050 Display resolution, I had to buy me a new model. Again, it came with a DVD-Drive and again I wanted to hack it. And again, I succeded, and this time, it was even easier....

    warning
    I am not sure whether patching the firmware (and the DVD-Player-Software) is legal in your country. I am not even sure wheter it is here in Switzerland. So: If it is not: Please don't run to your lawyer but send me a short email and I will remove this page.

    getting the firmware
    This time, there is no firmware to download from the web, but a small Tool that sends undocumented ASPI-Commands to the drive, an Hitachi GD-S200, this time, to reset the internal counter. This has the big advantage that the dangerous flashing procedure is not necessary. Also, as your drive will stay RPC-2, you will not have to hack your Player-Software. On the other hand, as your drive will stay RPC-2, you will have to use the tool below on every region-change, but this is the same with the player-software and RPC-1...

    The biggest disadvantage: As the hacking-tool is required on every region change and as it is a windows-program, you need Windows for watching your dvd's, but as Windows is the only i386-OS that can be used to watch DVDs in an acceptable quality, this is not that a limitation.

    After all, finding the tool was quite simple: I just used the string "dvd-rom hitachi gd-s200 region free firmware" on Google and took the first working link to find this tool.

    aspi
    My new Thinkpad came with Windows 2000 preinstalled, which I upgraded to WinXP. Both of those OSes do not come with an ASPI-Layer that can be used with the tool above.

    Using the string "aspi winxp" in Google, broguht me to a site that explains how to install the ASPI-Layer for Windows 2000 and XP.

    Please download this archive, extract it, preserving folder names and double-click on Instaspi.bat. Then restart your computer.

    Now you can use the tool above to set the region code and reset the internal counter back to 4 changes.

    Once again: Have fun!


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