Is my Saturn dying?

[enigmaxtreme]

So I pulled out my Modchipped Model 1 Saturn today and found that none of my backups were loading, I finally got Action Replay to boot after numerous times reinserting the cartridge. Original games worked fine, but my backups always gave me a Drive Empty message.

I know this system is like 20 years old this year, but should I be looking at the chip (PCB V3 (Universal)) or the lens

[Ziggy]

So I pulled out my Modchipped Model 1 Saturn today and found that none of my backups were loading [...] Original games worked fine, but my backups always gave me a Drive Empty message.

If original games work fine, then it's most likely the CD-Rs that are the problem. How long has it been since you've used them? It also matter how and where they were stored. Cheap CD-Rs (which make up most of the ones you can buy) vary in quality greatly and wont last forever. This is why you always see people recommending to buy this or that brand or writable media, and avoid the cheap stuff like Memorex and whatnot. A lot people think it's all just BS because most of the time you can use Memorex or some off-brand and it'll work 99.9% of the time, but they're unaware that one of the problems is that they don't last.

Disc rot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

Data degradation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation

You could try putting one of your burns in your computer and see if you can browse the files on the disc. Though this isn't the ultimate test to see if the disc is good, but it'll let you know if the discs are definitely bad. If a CD-R is bad, your computer might take a long time, or at least longer than usual, to read it (if it's able to read it at all). If your computer can read it, that doesn't prove that the disc is in perfect health. You computer's optical drive is a lot better than the Saturn's.

What I would do is copy and burn one of your originals and see if that works. Assuming you're on Windows and not Mac... Get ImgBurn, if you don't already have it, and rip an original disc to BIN/CUE then burn it to a CD-R at the slowest possible speed. See if that works in your Saturn.

Cleaning the lens couldn't hurt. Get some 50% (you don't want it to be too strong, but ~75% is OK) Isopropyl Alcohol and lightly dampen one end of a Q-Tip (aka cotton swab if you're outside of NA) and gently swab the lens then immediately swab the lens again with the dry end.

I finally got Action Replay to boot after numerous times reinserting the cartridge.

That's a different problem altogether. The Saturn's cart slot is notorious for not being the most robust. They can be finicky, and are pretty easy to damage. The contacts could also be dirty. You can clean them like you would a normal cart slot, but I can't stress enough to be extra careful because of how delicate they are. I would first clean the pins on the Action Replay cart.

[enigmaxtreme]

Never mind, false alarm. All I had to do was put in a lens cleaner disc and the system started reading like fine again.

Thank you for the read though

[Nyukki]

Ziggy's posts are always super informative, what selfless posting, admirable!

[TSTR]

Ziggy's posts are always super informative, what selfless posting, admirable!

wow
such posting
much informative
admirable

doge.png

[Ziggy]

Never mind, false alarm. All I had to do was put in a lens cleaner disc and the system started reading like fine again.

Thank you for the read though

No problem. Just an FYI tho, the fact that your Saturn was able to read originals but not burns until you cleaned the lens just proves that the burns are harder for the Saturn to read. If there's any burns that you play often, and they're not super expensive, you should consider getting a real copy of the game. It has nothing to do with the morals of playing burns versus buying the games, I just mention it as a way to keep wear and tear off the console.

The burns that you have now, you might benefit from copying them and reburning them. This would be useful in two ways: One, you'd have fresh burns that, possibly, the Saturn can read easier (use good media, burn slow). And two, you might find some old burns that are on their way out. If you start getting read errors while copying a disc then you'll know that there's areas on the disc that are bad. For example, you could have a disc that loads up to the first level just fine but there might be a bad area on the disc that the game doesn't touch until later in the game.

Ziggy's posts are always super informative, what selfless posting, admirable!

wow
such posting
much informative
admirable

doge.png

Even i thought forum posting is one of the best way to enhance knowledge as well grab new thing, that is the reason me joined this forum.

[TSTR]

Hehe. Zig, you're one of the most helpful folks on here. Love ya!

[Mad_Hatter]

Hehe. Zig, you're one of the most helpful folks on here. Love ya!

+1

[flojocabron]

Hehe. Zig, you're one of the most helpful folks on here. Love ya!

+1

Quick! Someone post in the "I love you man" thread!

We are all happy and giddy!

[Mad_Hatter]

Ziggy587, I got a quick question for you since we are on this topic.

This might sound dumb. But would switching in between burnt games and originals a lot cause more wear and tear than if you just stick with burnt games?