I would like to update the firmware for the Samsung SC-148 CD-ROM that came with my PC. EMachines, as usual, doesn't know of one and Samsung will not help because the CD-ROM is an OEM. Has anyone tried to update this product? Would I be better off using the CD-ROM as a doorstop?
The original firmware version is B100. IBM has updates to the firmware of the SC-148C they use on their computers, but I am not sure what impact that will have on the CDROM that came with the emachine.

I tried IBM's B107 update, and Nero 5.5's CD Speed test let me know that
the IBM udpate was a big mistake -- average access speed went down badly.
I have restored the original B100 (from a French source, using Google), and
it's back up to average access of almost 30X, ranging from 21X to around 46X.

Couldn't find any copies of IBM B105, which might work, but I don't know.
Couldn't find any other firmware updates for the original SC-148C.

Bottom line: B100 works nicely -- probably best to leave it alone.

Update time: had a newer SC-148C that had VB103 firmware.
Pulled it off, put it on the old drive, and tried it -- not perfect,
when compared to the newer drive, but much, much better than
it was with B107, and much better than B100.

Run "f1198l /?" from boot floppy to get parameters; for safety's
sake, READ your B100 firmware onto the floppy first, then
write VB103. Backups help, vitally.

doesn't seem to work for me. I do it but the backup creates a 0kb file and the writing of the firmware just sits there in that command prompt doing nothing. I know my drive is on the second IDE and slave. so number 4, any help using this thing?

VB103 does not work. It makes the drive inaccessible to BIOS. There are 2 firmware files for this model on support.dell.com. One is B105, the other is C005. I tried C005 but it wouldn't install on my PC. Haven't tried B105. After VB103 crapped out the drive, I put in B107 from IBM, which installs very nicely. Don't know about its performance, but it does read CD-R ok.