Sega Saturn-model 2 white w/ modchip not reading cdr anymore

[Jags86]

Greetings. I have a white model 2 jap saturn. It is installed with a region mod as well as a mod chip. I haven't played it in a few years and I pulled it out the other day and I now can no longer play burned games. Real games work fine as well as the region mod working fine.

Part of me thinks I cannot remember how to burn saturn games correctly, but there was an old burned copy of radiant silver gun in the saturn that I know used to work that now doesn't. Also I've made many a coaster (or so I think coaster). All the burned games I put in the unit give the audio console which says "this is a sega saturn cd. Please don't play on audio video equipment..."

Could the mod chip have failed? Seems odd that if it failed that regular games still would work. Perhaps I forgot how to burn games correctly?

[s8n]

but there was an old burned copy of radiant silver gun in the saturn that I know used to work that now doesn't

CD-R's over time tend to die they dont last forever , its possible the Radiant Silvergun CD-R is dead and causing the problem.

To burn a new CD-R use Nero ive found it to be much better than IMGburn in terms of PI Errors and PI Failures Nero has less IMGburn has more.

Also give your Laser a clean with Isopropyl Alcohol theres Videos on Youtube on how to do it.


chat soon

s8n

[ninjainspandex]

I had the exact same problem, used rubbing alcohol Q-tip and some compressed air to clean the lens and it worked just fine after that.

[Jags86]

So I tried cleaning the lense with some some rubbing alcohol on a q-tip and compressed air. Still no dice on the CDRs. In fact, after I did it, the drive stopped spinning. I unplugged the machine and plugged it back in and it started spinning again.

Machine still plays real discs from all regions but won't play CD-Rs.

I tried burning bin/cue files via Nero, Burn (for Mac), and Alcohol 120%...all yield the same result. I get to the audio cd player listing 2 tracks. Track 2 plays as audio and says "this is a sega saturn cd blah blah blah". If I remove the disc and put a real one in, it allows me to boot to it.

Also, the interface on the saturn freezes for a few seconds when trying to load the CDR...then it unfreezes and goes back to it being an audio file.

Also I should note that the system doesn't even give me the option to play the audio portion "Game disc unsuitable for this system" is all I get. However, when i put that disc into my computer i get a track 01 thats the data portion and 19 audio tracks that play fine.
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update:
Saturn now reads all of the audio tracks on the Radiant Silvergun CDR. Still won't play.

I tried burning a different .bin/.cue thinking that perhaps there was a problem with the one I was using. Saturn spins the disc and says "checking disc". Disc stops spinning and no more messages from the machine...is my Saturn dying?

strange update 2:

in the greatest of twists, I got Radiant Silvergun CDR to boot up once...if I set the saturn to PAL/50Hz mode . Guess I can play it if I don't mind the game in black and white and off center...??

None of the other burns work which leads me to believe I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to burning these games.

[s8n]

hi Jags , reflow the solder on your Modchip it may have cracked over time


also try and clean the contact points that go from the CD Drive to the Motherboard ( its usually a 21 Pin Cable to Modchip then another Cable to the Motherboard ) , these can get dull or corroded over time as well.


when cleaning use a Pencil Rubber and when that is done clean with Isopropyl Alcohol

[Hobie-wan]

Also, search for one of the other 784 threads about burning Saturn backups and check some of the suggestions there.

[s8n]

Also, search for one of the other 784 threads about burning Saturn backups and check some of the suggestions there.

Hobie , aggression and sarcasm X 784


razz

[Jags86]

Also, search for one of the other 784 threads about burning Saturn backups and check some of the suggestions there.

Thank you for the helpful reply but I've determined that it is not my CD-R burning ability that is the problem.

I took apart the unit and the solder points on the modchip and the cd board looked fine. I unplugged the ribbon from the motherboard to the modchip and also the modchip to the cdrom unit and then put them back it. The system worked the next time I booted it up but then had issues where games were not booting into the correct region. It then failed to boot after that.

This morning however, the unit booted up normally and loaded a NTSC-U game in the correct region. However other games are still botting into the incorrect region that I know used to boot into the correct one. I guess the next step is to re-solder the contact points of the modchip and give that a go. I don't want to take apart the region mod as I didn't do that in the first place and its a little too complicated for me.