Anyone offering a Dreamcast IDE mod service?

I see a lot of options for devices that I can't actually buy. (Swat, Brazil, etc) Is anyone offering this service? I'd love to have CF reader in my Dreamcast. Would also need bios installed. I'm located in the US.

 

I would offer the service. But I don't have 50 posts yet. and haven't been here 3 months yet.. But good luck. I'm on the USA also.

 

Just wait a little longer. People are making a PCB that lets you solder and plug in a regular IDE cable.

 

I saw the xckdiy device on tabao but haven't seen much about it

 

There is not really that much to say about it - you just plug the HDD onto the board, remove the GD-ROM drive assembly and then plug the board into the connector where the GD-ROM used to go. You still need to replace the boot ROM, though

 

I'm personally holding out for Bad_Ad84's solution with an integrated IDE -> SATA adapter. It make no sense to me why someone would put this much money/effort/work into upgrading their Dreamcast for the future and then use a 10+ year old IDE 2.5in hard drive.

 

Any info out there on Bad_Ad84's device?

 

Only posts that I'm working on it.

There is no time frame, but it's in progress.

 

I was doing Dreamcasts with internal IDE to SATA and IDE to SD card interfaces a couple of years ago. There are a few threads around with my work floating around.

Compatibility would be great if they could just iron out CDDA.

 

Well... mine never gives me problems. Just because a drive has accrued more shelf life doesn't make it faulty.

 

It does make it a ticking time bomb. They have a rated shelf life, they don't last forever and will die.

 

Compact flash is a good idea as its all reads. Its lifespan doesnt do so well with random writes (like running an OS from it).

Only issue is cost per GB.

 

It's a business ploy. Expiration dates are even more meaningless on computer devices than they are on canned food.

 

Lol, ok.

As a former IT professional and current service engineer, I respectfully disagree.

I've seen your type a lot, when you lose a hard drive you will find out the hard way.

Hard drives are mechanical, they have spinning parts, bearing etc that will wear out. It's a fact of life, not an opinion.

Hell, non moving devices also have a limited life span. Go look at dangerous prototypes flash destroyer. That's writing to an eeprom over and over and it fails eventually.

You wouldnt want an eeprom that's been written to a million times. The same concept is true for hard drives.

 

You learnt something new today foxbox

 

If you mean that when IT professionals get miffed they forget the difference between NIB and deliberately destroyed.

 

You said yours doesn't give you any problems.

Which if it's sitting on your shelf, makes little sense. One would assume for it to "not have problems", you are actually using it.

But sure, if you are talking about buying NOS IDE drives - of course you can do that and expect to get decent life out of them. But that still makes no sense in the context of this thread as a new old stock ide drive will likely still cost more than a sata drive anyway.

But things sitting on a shelf can still seize up, so even nos doesn't guarantee anything. You are far better off buying new.

Also regarding my use of shelf life:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/shelf-life

Second definition, rather than the first. Maybe a British thing though.

 

I will confirm drives sitting on a shelf.. I got some hard drives for some friends.. 7 320gb IDE Western Digital Drives in a row later I finally got a working one.. the seller I got them from said he only did a spin test.. But I don't think he even did that.. Every Drive except 1 had the Click of Death. One wouldn't even Spin..... So a Drive Can and will Fail. no matter if you are using it or not.. Like Bad_Ad84 said Its mechanical...

And in my option Anything us Humans build Will One day Fail. Its just the way things are. there are only so many Spin up and Spin down cycles Them Drives can take. And the Read heads Wont work anymore.