Boy, off all the luck.

I only know about 1 thing that Plextor says. You should turn off the DMA setting on your ATA controler before flashing. his may or not be your problem, but if you didn't do it it's probably a good thing to try.

These setings should be found under:

control panel - system - device manager

IDE ATA/ATAPI controlers

Primary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel

Depending on which channel your drive is hooked to.

Advanced Settings tab

Device 0
Device 1

Depending on whether your device is a master or slave.

Transfer Mode.

DMA if available
PIO only

Change the setting to PIO only and reboot.

They try flashing.

Good Luck