can't flash firmware on TDK CDRW

I got the TDK 12x10x32x CDRW and the 1.07 firmware won't work. I've disabled DMA for the drive, as suggested in the manual. I start up, run the .exe to flash the firmware, and the hourglass shows up next to my mouse pointer. Then the hourglass disappears and no more messages show up. If I hit ctrl-alt-del the flash program shows up, and if I select "End Task", it says the program is not responding.

Has anybody else had this problem?

Relevant info:

A7V
Pioneer CDROM as primary master (Via controller)
TDK CDRW as secondary master (Via controller)
4 WD hard drives
2 on FastTrack 66 (boot)
2 on onboard Promise ATA100
Win 98 original