Sega Saturn temperamental with CD-Rs?

[Koop]

So I recently got a used Saturn for a great price locally and have burned a few games I really want to play (as the only title I own is Nascar 98 which came with the console and Puyo Puyo Sun which I imported a long time ago).

I was using the swap method to play these games with no issue until it just stopped working and wouldn't read my CD-Rs. It was able to read Nascar and Puyo fine (Just got the 4-1 today so I can play imports).

Wasn't sure what was up so I started googling around to see what I could find out. All I really found was a lot of arguments about CD-Rs requiring more strain on the laser to play due to the way a pressed game vs a burned game is made. I thought perhaps my laser was losing power and just couldn't read CD-Rs anymore.

I really didn't want to mess with the laser power at all. I popped in the CD-R to see if it could read the disk at all from the CD player menu and what do you know, it can play all the audio tracks no problem... So I decided to just go ahead and try and do another swap, and low and behold all of a sudden everything was fine. Tested it several times back to back with no issues.

Now later on it won't read them again. Any ideas what I can do to remedy it or is it just the laser going bad/being stressed from CD-Rs?

[emwearz]

If you are not doing the reset method, give that a go. You are most likely just botching your timings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhCsuC6j57c

[Koop]

If you are not doing the reset method, give that a go. You are most likely just botching your timings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhCsuC6j57c

Thanks for the reply. Yes the reset method has been what I was using for the past two weeks without issue until today.

I just tried it again with no issue. Maybe I am just simply swapping too quickly after the reset.

If there is nothing wrong with the laser in this guy I would love to just put a modchip in there eventually as I'm sure all this swapping shenanigans is not good for the drive.

[stickem]

or just flash a memory cart to play backups...

[Koop]

or just flash a memory cart to play backups...

Yeah I'd like to do that, but then I would lose the memory card functionality of the 4-in-1 correct?

[stickem]

or just flash a memory cart to play backups...

Yeah I'd like to do that, but then I would lose the memory card functionality of the 4-in-1 correct?

well yeah, hopefully that gets fixed at some point. i'm just using system memory for the time being. i have a couple model 1's and never got the modchip to work, so next best thing i guess.

[Koop]

or just flash a memory cart to play backups...

Yeah I'd like to do that, but then I would lose the memory card functionality of the 4-in-1 correct?

well yeah, hopefully that gets fixed at some point. i'm just using system memory for the time being. i have a couple model 1's and never got the modchip to work, so next best thing i guess.

I ran out of system memory from playing only a few games. For some reason NiGHTS into Dreams takes up a lot of space. Does flashing it also take away the expanded memory feature of the card too? I wasn't sure about that.