@crea78
Flashing the firmware is pretty straight forward. I've attached a screen shot to show you the software. I should caution you though that, while not likely, you could end up with a useless 3500 if things go wrong. So please don't come shouting at us if this happens. Now that said, I have flashed the BIOS and firmware of many different pieces of computer hardware and never had a failure.
-disconnect all items from the firewire bus so only the NEC 3500 remains
-probably best to close as many programs and applications as possible, limits the chances of stuff going wrong, especially as a newbie
-double click NEC Win Flash to start the program
-choose your NEC drive in the Device Section
-click Dump to create a backup of the existing firmware that's in the drive to your local hard drive
-when that's complete click Flash and navigate to the firmware update which is XXXXXXX.bin, in this case I'm using the 2C8 SE version, you can see that file in the folder (along with the backup Dump I created)
-after selecting the firmware it should go ahead and flash your drive
-when it's complete, exit the program. I then use the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the taskbar next to the clock. Once Windows tells me it's safe to remove the item, I cycle power on the external enclosure, keeping it off for about 10 seconds
-turn it back on, open up CD/DVD Speed to confirm the new version of firmware, stick in a test disk to either burn or test read transfer rates, depending on your desire. Maybe also copy some files from the optical disc to hard drive with Windows Explorer.

Hope this helps. Experienced users, please don't be afraid to point out if I missed anything or if something is wrong. It's late for me.