How to create a selfbooting DreamSNES disc with games

Anything DreamSNES-related can be asked in this forum, such as general questions about the emulator, how to burn it, etc.
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Oni Lynx
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Post by Oni Lynx »

Christuserloeser wrote:Sounds like you've didn't include a MP3 or perhaps you did include MP3s that DreamSNES can't play.
Eh, looks like I edited my post a little late. I never changed the song that was given to me through the plain files originally. :|

EDIT: Apparently it's called "bubghost" by Soil of Sound.
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Post by Christuserloeser »

Hm, before I'd ask you for posting the entire directory structure of your CD, I'd say try to use BootDreams' CDRecord method. Set burning speed to 8x - and enable Auto-dummying. Also make sure you got enough space on your HDD (should be above 1.4 GB).

Other than that use a good CDR. The less you can see through the media, the better it is manufactured. (hold against a light)

Also add that NO_ROMS.HERE file to every folder except your ROMs folder.

Last thing to ask you would be to check if your DC now runs DreamSNES 096 on CDR as buggy as your own 098 disc. Could be you haven't tested it in a while and the laser's just a bit worn out (very easy to fix).
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Post by Oni Lynx »

Christuserloeser wrote:Hm, before I'd ask you for posting the entire directory structure of your CD, I'd say try to use BootDreams' CDRecord method. Set burning speed to 8x - and enable Auto-dummying. Also make sure you got enough space on your HDD (should be above 1.4 GB).

Other than that use a good CDR. The less you can see through the media, the better it is manufactured. (hold against a light)

Also add that NO_ROMS.HERE file to every folder except your ROMs folder.

Last thing to ask you would be to check if your DC now runs DreamSNES 096 on CDR as buggy as your own 098 disc. Could be you haven't tested it in a while and the laser's just a bit worn out (very easy to fix).
I played GTA2 (not a backup) and DreamSNES v0.9.6 right afterwards, and both were working flawlessly.

My CD-Rs are actually as non-see-through as possible. It's completely white on top, and you cannot see anything underneath (they're made by TDK). :p
However, the disc that has 0.9.6 on it is different than the one I'm trying to put 0.9.8 on...

As for the NO_ROMS.HERE file, I'm assuming you mean every file except the 'cd' folder, which houses the roms folder. (Because if I told it not to look in the 'cd' folder, wouldn't that tell it to not look in any others as well?)

Btw, thanks for helping me through this (all of you guys), you were all extremely helpful, and I can't thank you guys enough.

EDIT: I know this is going to sound newbish, but how do I go about creating a NO_ROMS.HERE file? I right-click, but which should I choose? I'm guessing New Shortcut, but I'd need a location from the original file to create one. It's probably obvious and I'm totally overlooking it, but I need some reassurance.
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Post by Christuserloeser »

NO_ROMS.HERE is an empty text file created with notepad.exe. Copy it to the root (C:\BootDreams\cd\ in your case) and all the folders except the \ROMS\ folder.

Then try BootDreams' CDRecord method at 8x. Also enable "Add Dummy file" in Extras.
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Post by Oni Lynx »

I got an error when trying to use CDRecord (with the Add Dummy File checked).
It reads:
/cygdrive/d/ProgramFiles/BootDreams/Tools/cdrecord: I/O error. read toc: scsi sendcmd: retryable error

EDIT: Also, to create the NO_ROMS.HERE file, I right-clicked, selected New Text File, didn't put anything in it, and saved it as NO_ROMS.HERE, and copied it to all directories expect 'roms' (so I put it in 'cd', 'gfx', 'sound' and 'locale'). I also let it create its own IP.BIN again (through the CDRecord method).
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Post by emptythought »

Did you put a blank CD-R in your drive first?
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Post by Oni Lynx »

fackue wrote:Did you put a blank CD-R in your drive first?
Yes, made sure of it.

EDIT: And apparently it didn't write anything to it, because I took it out, inserted it again, and there was no data on it at all.
EDIT 2: Nevermind, it did write to it. Another coaster, #13 I believe.
Last edited by Oni Lynx on Tue Jan 23, 2007 11:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by emptythought »

Install BootDreams in C:\BootDreams if you can and try again.
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Post by Oni Lynx »

Still no luck. Now it's back to not being able to burn again (I guess I got kind of lucky when it fully completed). I even uninstalled BootDreams and reinstalled it to C:\BootDreams, but nothing changed.
Ever since I put those NO_ROMS.HERE (which appears as NO_ROMS.HERE.txt on the list where you select the main binary, since I put one in the 'cd' folder) I've been getting problems, but I don't really think that's where the problem lies. It's just that my damned computer refuses to burn discs properly. I think I'm on my 15th disc right now, and I don't have much left. :(
I'm gonna keep trying, though. If I got it to get to the menu, I'm pretty sure I can get it to work all the way through. It's just a case of trial and error now.

EDIT: It really must be a problem with my computer, as it won't burn my NesterDC SE .cdi image to a CD-R either...
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Post by Christuserloeser »

Oni Lynx wrote:Still no luck. Now it's back to not being able to burn again (I guess I got kind of lucky when it fully completed). I even uninstalled BootDreams and reinstalled it to C:\BootDreams, but nothing changed.
So you installed BootDreams to C:\BootDreams\, that's good, but did you also move your DSNES folder to C:\BootDreams\DSNES\ (or \cd\ ) ?

Oni Lynx wrote:Ever since I put those NO_ROMS.HERE (which appears as NO_ROMS.HERE.txt on the list where you select the main binary, since I put one in the 'cd' folder)
Gotta love MS Windows for not showing the file extensions by default. You can turn that off btw. I think it's 'Extras' -> 'Folderoptions' in Explorer (I'm on a German version of WinXP, so I don't really know what the English names for these Tabs are).

Anyway, the file is supposed to be no_roms.here without any additional extension. Just rename them manually.

Oni Lynx wrote:I think I'm on my 15th disc right now, and I don't have much left. :(
I'm gonna keep trying, though. If I got it to get to the menu, I'm pretty sure I can get it to work all the way through.
Yeah, don't give up. You're almost there. When I started with Dreamcast stuff I went through pretty much the same. Now it's really easy, especially with great programs like BootDreams and SBInducer. I've been working with Echelon's Selfboot Tutorial when I started ^^

EDIT: It really must be a problem with my computer, as it won't burn my NesterDC SE .cdi image to a CD-R either...
Try to burn something from DCEvolution.net and see if that works.
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Post by Oni Lynx »

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it might be a problem with the CD-Rs. Can a CD actually be too big/heavy to fit into a drive? This seems to be the case with my brother's laptop, where it won't fit in without the top of the disc scratching up against the top of his laptop's disc drive. Once it gets in completely, you'll start to hear scratching noises, and the drive sounds as though it's (literally) about to break. But other CDs fit perfectly and load just fine.
Add that to the fact that my Dreamcast loads it slow, and my computer refuses to burn to them... Maybe the reason why is because the top of the disc (which is completely white and non-see-through) puts too much weight on the CD, causing the DC to try and spin it faster, even though it can't. Sounds kinda odd, but I think this may be it.
I'm gonna go out and get a different brand/different kind of CD-R, and hopefully this will solve my problem. I need more CD-Rs anyway, so it wouldn't hurt.
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Post by Christuserloeser »

I'm not sure if that's actually the problem, but it definitly can't be wrong to have more CDRs at hand.
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Post by Oni Lynx »

Believe it or not, I actually solved the problem. I went out and bought some brand new CD-Rs (TDK brand again, but a different kind of course). When I got home, I sent my Nester DC SE and DreamSNES 0.9.8 .cdi files to my brother's laptop, installed BootDreams to it, and burned both images to two CD-Rs (through BootDreams "Burn DiscJuggler Image" feature) and they worked flawlessly. The problem had to be a case of faulty CDs (they probably were too heavy for the disc drives). The new CD-Rs I bought were actually a bit lighter than my older ones. Very weird.

Anyway, thanks for helping me through this, it's been a learning experience. You guys were too helpful. Thanks again.
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Post by Christuserloeser »

Glad you got it working :D
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Post by digitalrain »

Hello, I'm having the same problem as some other people, but I haven't read it being resolved yet.
In BootDreams, when I try to create the iso, I get an error message saying:

"There was an error in creating the ISO image."

I'm really not sure as to what is causing the problem; I have alcohol installed, as well as the other things listed in the tutorial, and I have followed the steps exactly. The only thing I can think of is perhaps there's a problem with cygwin, although I do not have it open when trying to make the ISO. I've downloaded and installed cygwin, so is that likely to be causing the problem?
I have the program MagicISO, I wonder if that's causing any conflicts...

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
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Post by emptythought »

It's highly likely having problems because you have Cygwin installed (or opened). Try checking the exact error you get by running mkisofs. If you just double-click it it will close almost immediately so open command prompt and type this:

Code: Select all

cd C:\BootDreams\Tools
mkisofs
If you have BootDreams installed in another folder substitute it for C:\BootDreams.
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Post by digitalrain »

Ok, I typed that in command prompt and I see:

"C:\BootDreams\Tools>mkisofs
mkisofs: Missing pathspec.
Usage: mkisofs [options] file...

Use mkisofs -help
to get a list of valid options."

To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of it.
If missing pathspec refers to the cd directory, I've already selected 'Use complete paths'

I'm willing to uninstall cygwin, but I honestly don't know how to remove it. I see no directory for it, and it doesn't show up on the 'Add/Remove Programs' tool.
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Post by emptythought »

That's a strange error indeed. Apparently it means it's missing the folder name of which to make the ISO of and the latest version of BootDreams passes the selfboot folder name correctly. Cygwin is normally installed in the root of a drive since it can't handle folders that have spaces in their name i.e. Program Files. You should be able to just delete the entire Cygwin folder.
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Post by digitalrain »

Yeah, I found the folder. I'll delete it and try again, and post the results.

edit: Yeah, it didn't work. Hmm..Would it have anything to do with the fact that I have tried several versions of BootDreams?
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Post by emptythought »

To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of it.
If missing pathspec refers to the cd directory, I've already selected 'Use complete paths'
Download the latest version.
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