As a regular traveller between continents, I need to be able to access
local DVDs from any region on my notebook PC.  Unfortunately the
notebook PC configuration is limited to only a few changes of DVD
region code before it goes permanent.  Is there any way of removing
this limit?   My notebook PC is a Toshiba Tecra 8200 if that's
relevant.

The following is a link to a DVD Digest article with in-depth
instructions for doing what you requested:
http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/articles/region.html

You may however, want to read the following articles first:
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Expiring_20DVD_20region_20locks
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,1839115%5e15306%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html
http://www.techlawonline.com/articles/decss.htm
They discuss reasons why the region code was put into effect and the
history behind its decryption, as well as legal issues surrounding it.

Hope that helps.

-Tox-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by dogbreath-ga on 13 Nov 2002 07:03 PST

I have read the article and spent a lot of time on the bulletin board
about flashing the firmware of the DVD drive.  How do you find the
firmware level of your PC DVD drive in W2000(It does not appear in any
of the properties tabs)?

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Request for Answer Clarification by dogbreath-ga on 13 Nov 2002 07:14 PST

BTW, I know my DVD drive is a Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-R2002. It's the
actual firmware level I cant find.

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Clarification of Answer by tox-ga on 13 Nov 2002 13:45 PST

dogbreath-ga,
What you can do is update it your cd drive to latest (Rev. B 1F26)
firmware level.  You can download that update here:
http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/dvdf/2002_1F26.zip

After setting a region code after the firmware update, apply this
patch:
http://digilander.iol.it/firmware1/2002_XF26.zip.

Make sure you follow the instructions inside the zip files.
If you have any more questions, I'll be happy to clarify them for you.

-Tox-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by dogbreath-ga on 14 Nov 2002 01:55 PST

Thanks but before I start patching firmware or anything, I need to
know what firmware I am currently on, partly to check on the bulletin
boards if anyone has had any problems going from this level, but
mainly so that I can fall back to that level if it all goes wrong (the
bulletin boards describe some really bad experiences doing this!)   I
feel it should not be that hard to find the current firmware level of
my DVD ROM drive, but I just cant seem to find it.

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Clarification of Answer by tox-ga on 14 Nov 2002 21:16 PST

dogbreath-ga,
To find the firmware version of your CD-ROM (I'm assuming that you are
using Windows 2000/XP since the settings tab is missing)

1. Click Start, Run and type in REGEDIT. Click OK.
2. Create a backup of the registry before continuing by clicking
Registry on the menu bar. Export the registry.
3. In the Registry Editor, click the + sign next to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
4. Click the Plus (+) sign next to System.
5. Click the Plus (+) sign next to CurrentControlSet.
6. Click the Plus (+) sign next to Services.
7. Click the Plus (+) sign next to Cdrom.
8. Click the Enum folder.
9. The drives and firmware will be listed in the Data field.
10. Firmware revision will be listed after the drive model. 

Basically, you should see something that looks like this:
IDE\CdRomHP_CD-Writer+_9300______________________1.0b____\4d593031393356395138_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0

In this case, 1.0b is the firmware level of the CD-ROM drive.
I hope this helps.

-Tox-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by dogbreath-ga on 15 Nov 2002 03:29 PST

Thanks Tox
This method works fine for finding my firmware level (1324) and I can
now get on with checking out the patches for the firmware as you
describe.  Will get back with the result - unless of course the
patching of the firmware causes an irreversible end to my reliable old
Tosh notebook, in which case "I may be some time"...

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Clarification of Answer by tox-ga on 15 Nov 2002 10:39 PST

dogbreath-ga,
Good luck to you then. Glad to have helped.

-Tox-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by dogbreath-ga on 09 Dec 2002 06:43 PST

Sorry I have been some time rating this answer.  After lots of work
reviewing the bulletin boards for the firmware patches to make my PC
DVD drive region free, I did find the right firmware patch. However I
also found there was some software (DVD Region Free $40) that does the
same thing without the need to patch the firmware. Since there are
loads of posts from people seeking help with firmware patches that
have gone wrong and irreversibly disabled their DVD drives etc, I
decided that $40 was a small price to pay to avoid the risks
associated with firmware patching on a laptop which is absolutely
critical to my day to day business.

I evaluated the software download for free and it worked perfectly
with all my DVD players and so I have registered to get the full
service version.  The website is:

www.dvdidle.com 

If you have by any chance heard of any problems with this software or
anything to watch out for, do please let me know. But there is no need
to spend any of your time doing further research, thanks.

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Clarification of Answer by tox-ga on 12 Dec 2002 17:26 PST

dogbreath-ga,
  Sorry I couldn't help you as much as you would have liked. 
Unfortunately, I could not locate any review for the "DVD Region-Free"
software that you are planning to use.  I have found multiple sites
offering it for download (demo) though, so at least you know that it
is most likely not a scam.
  My only suggestion would be to try out the demo for a few days
first.  These 3rd party, small company softwares are sometimes
rip-offs, so be careful.
  Hope that helps.

-tox-ga

Thanks for the answer.  A perfect answer would have included the stuff
I came across about software methods as well as firmware, but we got a
solution in the end