I've recently done the piggyback BIOS mod, and already loaded the Link83 BIOS onto it. But I'm still a bit lost about the different BIOSes on the Dreamshell disk and what they do. What I'm wondering is, if it's possible to load something onto the BIOS chip that will always load to a menu like when the Dreamshell disk is in, but WITHOUT a GD-ROM drive or SD card adaptor installed? If not, is there likely to be a BIOS that will do that? I'm just thinking ahead to when I have a HDD or CF card in there, and just want something minimal on the BIOS chip that will load to a menu where the games on the HDD or CF can be loaded directly, WITHOUT having to rely on a GD-ROM drive or SD card adaptor to get there.
AFAIK it's possible, but what you want doesn't exist yet. DreamShell is too big to fit in the 2MB BIOS. Someone could probably write a minimalist version of the IDE drivers and a menu that fits inside 2MB but it wasn't done yet and it probably would be pretty hard to be honest.
Thanks, that's what I thought, I've been reading a lot, but couldn't see what I was hoping for. Would you happen to know if Dreamshell would fit on a 16MB MMC card, and work with an SD adaptor? (And yes, no typo, a 16MB card, I have an old one knocking about that came with a digital camera a good few years ago). Also, does the internal SD card adaptor mod interfere in any way with VS-Link games?
I really can't say about the small sd card. You better ask on dc-swat forum, they got an english section. My guess it that it'd interfere with VS-cable as it's using the same SERIAL connection: made for a single device.
Well, I made up an SD adapter, and had big issues with an SD adapter and microSD, but tried a proper SD card, and the adapter is flawless with that. The SD adapter has a very loose lock, so maybe the issue is there. I also tried the MMC, but it doesn't seem to be seen by Dreamshell. Are there any BIOSes available that can be flashed to the BIOS chip that allow the system to boot to Dreamshell from an SD card? (without use of GD drive and Dreamshell CD). I notice that there are a number of BIOSes in folder on the Dreamshell disk, but the ones in the DS folder, they appear to be flashed ok, but when I reboot the DC, it doesn't, the picture gets no signal. Do they work? The only BIOS I can get to work after flashing is the link83 one. I didn't test any of the others in the Sega folder.
Thanks for the hint, there is a file called "sd_loader_with.bios" in the bios\ds folder, but in Dreamshell, it wasn't visible because there were 9 other files in the directory, and there doesn't seem to be a way to flick to a second page. So I moved a few of the other "boot..." BIOSes, and this time I could flash the "sd_loader_with.bios" file. On reboot, I got a "can't find DS_CORE.bin" message, and when I checked the SD card, found that the file had been renamed "1DS_CORE.bin" for some unknown reason (I didn't do it) and was 0 bytes. (maybe it was Win7 that did it). Anyway, I copied the DS_CORE.bin file from the CD to the SD card, and it will boot as far as displaying "Executing..." but hangs here now. How long should it be before it displays the next message after "Executing..." or goes to Dreamshell? And is it OK to delete the 512MB dummy file on the SD card? I presumed it was.
It was called ds_loader.bin last time I did it I know he changed the boot files a little. There are different ds cores for different booth methods now (I think!). Dummy file is fine to delete, executing should be a couple of seconds tops
I thought it would just be a few seconds alright. Tried a few things, but still no dice. I even downloaded RC1 (I was using RC2), burned a CD, copied the files to the SD, but it will reach the "Executing..." line, then the screen goes blank for a couple of seconds, then it repeats the messages down to "Executing..." again, blank, and then repeat, etc. DC_CORE.bin was also called "1DC_CORE.bin" on RC1 as well, so it couldn't be found until it was renamed. Tried going back to RC2, formatted the SD card, recopied the Dreamshell folder contents to the root, but still no dice. At a loss at to what's wrong.
I still can't get RC1 or RC2 to work, but when I googled "1DS_CORE.bin", I got a few hints, and downloaded: "DreamShell 4.0 Beta 4 (Form SD Loader)" archive and loaded the DS folder onto the SD card, and this did indeed load up to DreamShell desktop, so at least I can say that my hardware is ok. Pheww! But it doesn't seem to have a lot of the apps that the newer RC1 and RC2 have, like the BIOS flasher or ISO loader, which is what I'm needing.
I have DS on my BIOS and my SD adapter is one that was made for micoSD cards and doesn't support full size SD cards. The bad thing is is it a va2.1 so I can't do the IDE HDD mod to this one. I have helder's internal SD card mod installed on this one but a 4 wire modchip to make it region free. I plan on removing it for a BIOS mod and to use DS as the main BIOS with the SD installed totally internal to load DS with IDE mod and an eSATA port on the back to hook the HDD. But its a lot like what your looking for so I'm gonna keep a close eye on this thread. Once mine is done I'll post pics. Good luck and so good to see so much life from the DC. On a side note I have gotten Sturmwind working great from SD sans CDDA so I really hope it can be working from IDE as well.
