I still have had no joy with this problem. Do you think unplugging the A03 and reinstalling it will unlock it again as its locked to R1 and is useless to me now.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Unplugging it will not help.. From what I understand, they are pretty useless for reading anyway.. Why not just use a DVDRom to read your non R1 DVDs.

no unplugging will not help - you can use any DVD-Rom drive to read any region movie - its only the Movie Playing Software that detects the drives region code - ripping software dont care - the reason its locked out it because the firmware upgrades itself to only allow R1 dvds now - so you need to find a firmware flash - also i have found my A03 to be an excellent dvd-reader especially for discs which i thought were screwed it reads them fine

Yes - my A03 locked after the 5th time. So is there a flash available to unlock the drive?

As for getting another DVD drive - I have no more bays left :(

Did you try the firmware at http://kickme.to/dvd105s which someone suggested??