GD-rom backup

DCPepperoni · Post by **DCPepperoni** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 5:32 am

hey..

i've just been reading a document talking about why normal dreamcast cds can store up too 1gb....

well this doc says it eliminates error correction and reduncy.. in brief...

it is possible to turn a normal cd-rom drive into a gd-rom drive..

- preparing the drive consists of removing the magnetic strip inside...

if anyone else has seen this doc.. or has any relavent info on this please say something....

PS: i will post a link soon...

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 5:58 am

Its just the firmware that makes the GD-Rom difference to a CD rom. Most people don't understand this or beleive it but MidnightObsession put a protable CD players laser assembly into a DC and it worked fine.

DCPepperoni · Post by **DCPepperoni** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:04 am

so it can be done then... with the right tools....

- why buy a bba for $150+ when you can just do this??

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:08 am

cos you can't surf the net using this or uplaod binaries to your DC for deving.

DCPepperoni · Post by **DCPepperoni** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:13 am

so is the discs sega used.. regular cds...

whihc has just minimized the error correction therfore having more space on the discs....
and making them more pron to scratches..

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:19 am

no, GD disc is an accual disc but its rare to find blank ones these days

DCPepperoni · Post by **DCPepperoni** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:38 am

so have you actually done this...

turned a regular cd-rom into a gd-rom and then used the swap trick (used in psx and saturn) to backup the game...

PS: site under construction cannot post document

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:47 am

we don't condone backing up games here. And I have never backedup a game as the only way I know of is using a BBA. I do know you can't turn a regular cd-rom into a GD-rom, people have tried and failed. hooking up the firmware would make it impossible for a PC to reconize

DCPepperoni · Post by **DCPepperoni** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:49 am

Document Excerpt:

The first thing we need is a CD-R drive, buy a cheap one, something you won't mind taking apart. Also, it MUST be capable of reading 80 min CDs/CD-RW without a problem and with digital audio extraction. Although I haven't tried this out with a DVD drive yet, it should do even better, because the laser autoadjusts to read different formats. The drive I'm using is an Artec 50x, another one that works is the Acer 32x.

OK, once we have our drive, we need to adapt it. The first thing to do is to take off the drive's cover (the outer shell), both the upper and lower plates and if necessary, freeing the CD bay (take off the disc tray).

Once we have our "naked" drive, we take off the magnetic sheet, which fixes and centers the CD within the drive, in my case (Artec 50x), it's the strip that goes over the drive from one end to the other with a circle in the center, this circle is magnetized. Right, we take off the screws and keep this sheet aside, it should be easy to take off whenever we like. We finally have our drive ready, no need to say we should have full access to the top of the CD whenever we need, so don't shove the drive inside your computer case.

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:59 am

right..... I kind of see what they are doing. And in theory it could work. Could you send me this document. sonic_animator@hotmail.com

DCPepperoni · Post by **DCPepperoni** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 7:14 am

i found this...

http://www.mgforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23829

DCPepperoni · Post by **DCPepperoni** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 7:14 am

i found this...

Link edited for warez

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 7:30 am

I would take that lin off. Warez is bad here

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:57 am

Warez, again

Matisfaction · Post by **Matisfaction** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 10:33 am

Sounds like you wanna mod a cd drive so that you can read GD roms with it and then copy them.

DCPepperoni · Post by **DCPepperoni** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:28 pm

boy.. you can't have any fun around here...

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:58 pm

You can have fun just don't talk about warez

FETUS · Post by **FETUS** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 5:26 pm

If you've seen all the modded dc's that have ran through this place you wouldn't be saying that. but all of this is very interesting.

kram2048 · Post by **kram2048** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 2:19 pm

I would have another reason to want to mod a drive: a gigabyte of stored data for a PC backup would be awesome, and a GD-ROM based homebrew would be even better, btw the word firmware: hint... hint..., software on a chip.

if you know how to dump the firmware to a file, you can convert to x86 asm and rebuild then flash the firmware on the PC CD-ROM, if you also have the code within the firmware of the original drive, so you can make a GD/CD-RW/DVD combo laptop drive, though you must know SH4 asm and 80386+ asm do do that

ETR · Post by **ETR** » Wed Feb 09, 2005 2:44 pm

Uhm, In before lock, due to extreme warez?