Dreamcast Development disc on retail console?

I bought a disc that looks like this:

Can it be played on a retail console?

 

Yes you can!

You got two options:

1) Buy a "System Disc 2"-bootdisc which was made specifically for developers and members of the press to boot these type of discs on a stock Dreamcast. (Don't bother a copy of the internet, it won't work)

2) Perform the swap-disc trick with a disc with the same amount of "tracks" as this one.

Goodluck

 

With the second option, how do I tell how many tracks the dev disc has, as well as the disc used to swap? and can that damage either of the discs or the dreamcast? I would have to borrow a friends dreamcast to test it, seeing as I don't own one yet, and I'm sure he won't be happy with me destroying his discs.

 

The easiest way to find out how many tracks a game has, is to simply do a check if you can find a GDI dump of the retail version on the internet. When doing this for NFL 2K1 (http://redump.org/disc/22155/) you'll see it's a 3-track game, which means you can use the majority of games for the swap (e.g. Sonic Adventure or NFL 2K1 retail).

Doing the swap properly without rushing it will not jeopardize your disc nor Dreamcast system. I don't have any guide for this ready, but a quick google gives you the following guide: http://www.thegypsy.com/dcswap/

 

1. Remove the top case
2. Short the Dreamcast battery (we need this so the Dreamcast to lose its time)
3. Hold the black lid switch with rubber band
4. Put the normal disc and boot the Dreamcast
5. Wait on the set time screen for the cd to stop (2 min)
6. Change the cd and press A to boot!

 

I will try these methods as soon as it arrives (3-4 days)

 

i never had in my possesion those disks but have anybody try with utopia boot cd??

 

Useless, these discs really only work when using the System Disc 2 or swap-trick. And there are a few discs out there that only run on devkits.

 

It might be possible to create a homebrew program that would actually boot a GD-R, but the utopia boot disc certainly won't allow it.

 

Doubtful. The Dreamcast GD-ROM will not recognize the high-density layer without the security ring. It's basically the same situation as reading any GD on a PC CD-ROM drive.

 

I imagine a mil-cd with hacked 122m TOC that you would have to hardswap after the program is loaded in memory and the cd was stopped. Would still require swapping, but it might allow to boot gd-r if the program can read the TOC in the gd-r bootsector and them use it as its own.

It would probably have better chances of working as a proper gd-r dumper, no need to fake the TOC of the next disc, just force-read the right sectors in the right mode.