DC Dev Unit GDROM Problem

I have a DC dev unit hooked up to my PC. It passes the DA-Checker tests and I can put it in OS mode, however, the red GDROM light on the front of the case is always on and it wont recognize GDROM dics or music cds when I pop them in.

Does this light mean that my GDROM is toast? If so, is this something that I can steal parts from a regular DC to fix, or will I need to find a working Katana GDROM drive to replace it with. Thanks.

 

I m not very familiar with the Kit, but I m under the impression that the drive included is a commercial one.

 

Make sure the cable in the drive is connected right...same thing happens with a floppy drive. Just a guess (meaning, flip the IDE cable or whatever it uses around)

 

Well I just opened the case and the cables for the GDROM appear to be inserted the correct way. Guess Ill have to tear it apart this weekend, mabe ill get lucky and find something...

I was also reading on this forum about problems with the GDROM closed door switch. By any chance does the red GDROM light turn on when the door is detected as being open?

 

you should switch the gdrom form emulation to normal mode using gd workshop.
try that.

 

Thanks Vitamen, well it turns out that its in GDROM mode. If I put it in emulation mode, the red light goes away and I get a new animated intro when I boot the dev unit. Im guessing that means emulation mode works fine & GDROM mode is messed up.

Sigh... so I guess if there arent any other suggestions ill attempt to disect the thing ... :crying:


Just realized this -- When I switch the drive into GDROM mode the following 2 messages appear on the log portion of the screen:
Open Door
Switch to GD-ROM
And the title bar at the top of the screen says "Door Open Switch GDROM"

When I switch from GDROM to emulation mode the log says:
Switch to Emulator
Open Door
And the title bar at the top of the screen says "Door Open Switch Emulator"

Does anyone know if these Door Open messages are normal, or do they indicate the broken GDROM door switch problem ive seen mentioned on this forum?

 

Sorry for the bump, but did you ever get this problem resolved?

 

He solved it by buying a working unit from me.

 

I finally got around to taking it fully apart: I cleaned the lens and some of the connectors, reaseated a few cables, and wouldnt you know its working!!!! :dance:

 

I got the same probleme after flashing my unit from R11 to R9
GD-Rom mode work fine before reflash and now it doesnt recognize GDROM dics (the red GDROM light on the front of the case is always on)
The reflash was successfull so i don't really understand .....

 

Have you tried going from R9 to R10?

 

Yes i got the same problem (in R9 and R10) :-( the gdrom doesn't spinup
I open the unit and disassemble it and it do nothing :-( so i run dacheck another time and now it work ??? i don't really understand why

EDIT : Does anyone succed playing shenmue on HKT01, i tried in gdrom mode and emulation mode but i always freeze at SEGA screen
I saw that the 1st_read.bin is in NAOMI format, do you think it's the problem ?

 

no i cant play shenmue on my dev kit

 

Mega bump on this ancient thread to say I just bought this faulty unit from klarth, and I've identified the cause of the GD-ROM reading problems as a manufacturing defect. Specifically, there's two connectors on the DA & CDM board that directly socket into other boards. One of them connects to the main board, and the other connects to the GD-ROM controller board. The solder work on these sockets is quite poor on my unit. These connectors use through-hole sockets with solder pads on both sides, but very little solder has been used, and for about 1 in every 4 joints, there's only actually solder on the back side of the board, it hasn't flowed through the hole to the other side, and some of the solder joints are dry. It was only a matter of time before one of these fragile joints broke, which is what has happened on my unit. I can make the drive work if I apply pressure upwards on the board during operation to force the broken joint back together. I'll be de-soldering and re-mounting both these connectors soon when I have the time to complete it in one sitting, and I'll post some pictures showing the problem later on.

For anyone else who has a Katana unit not reading disks, there's a quick way to determine if bad solder joints are the likely cause of disk reading errors. Just do the following:
1. Ensure the system is set to system mode (booting to the bios), and that GD-ROM emulation is turned off.
2. Boot the system to the bios
3. Insert a disk into the drive, and close the tray.
4. Wait a few seconds, and open the drive tray again. If the disk isn't spinning, it's probably a bad joint.

When the Katana unit can't detect the GD-ROM drive at all, IE, even when the unit is totally disconnected, the Katana only ever reports the drive as "tray open". If the drive is connected properly, the spindle should start spinning when you close the tray, in which case, you'll see the disk still spinning when you open it again after a few seconds. If it's not, it means the GD-ROM drive isn't connected properly to the system. If all the cables appear to be connected, it probably means a bad solder joint, and you might want to get a friend who's handy with a soldering iron to check it out. Be aware, you have to mostly dismantle the unit in order to remove the board in question.

 

Shenmue is not compatible with Katana.

 

Actually a member on this board (forgot his name) found out that Shenmue (together with a couple of other games, like Crazy Taxi etc) didn't boot because of a certain parameter. By changing a few value's inside the firmware the dev kit is able to boot those games!

 

I'm interested, any more information?

 

The issue is that these specific games check the Dreamcast's flash to determine the region settings of the Dreamcast so it can perform the appropriate video output. The Katana doesn't store region settings in its flash, so those titles won't boot.

 

Yet one could write the region flags inthe flash at the right address and the games would boot?