How do I find whats on my Katana?

I got my Katana booted and its in emulation mode, no disc mounted. Is there any way to see whats on the Katana? or do I need to get an old pc and boot XP? Which I can and will do if I need to.

 

You'll need a PC with a compatible SCSI card and the required cables+terminators to make any more progress.

 

Oh, once you've got that sorted out, you might want to read a bit of this thread:
http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?49795-Request-Code-Warrior-Guide
I've just given some steps for attempting data recovery of any data that may be on the HDD in the unit, which I strongly recommend doing before anything else.

 

I probably will turn one of my old Dell pcs I have into a PS1, Xbox and Dreamcast dev box then.

 

So far from what I can see, there was crap on here, a bunch of DOOM files and DCLOAD. Making a backup anyway. Regardless, got the R11 SDK installed and running. Trying to figure how to load something onto this thing...do I put it into developer mode or something?

 

I have a question about mine that might be simple.. When I power it up, it just goes to the Dreamcast launch screen with the 4 icons. It won't launch anything, and it won't recognize any disc put in it (tried retail games and an audio CD. It doesn't only play GD-ROM, does it?). (Had it for a while, and just kind of assumed it wasn't working properly so I never did much with it.) It came from Konami originally, so I'm definitely curious as to whats on the hard drive, or what data recovery might find...

Is the disc not loading the result of it being set to launch something from the drive and having nothing there to launch? The disc spins up and seems to 'settle' like the disc is recognized, but I suppose the optical drive could be bad... Just kind of curious about that.

I'm bringing home an NT PC with all SCSI internals (company was going to throw it away...), so I figure that will help with trying to access the hard drive.

 

You should run the GD Debug Checker. You can message me and I can try to help, not an ace or anything but I know how stuff SHOULD look

 

I'm assuming it's in emulation mode, so it won't actually read what is in the GD drive until you change it in GD Workshop.

 

So, pulled the drive and mounted it in the computer. It's the normal 4gb drive, partitioned into two 2gb partitions, and the second one wasn't formatted (and I verified it's all blank with recovery software).

The main partition had about 1.6gb of stuff on it, all related to Microsoft's Flight Combat Simulator (was that ever released for DC? Either officially or unofficially...). It seems to be a bunch of small 'test' and 'sample' builds, but there's one 500+mb folder and one 800+mb folder, so it might have something playable on it... (Drive makes odd noises occasionally, that made me nervous, so my first priority was getting everything off. Copied off all visible files, and then a complete clone of the drive. Most of the drive was used by existing files, but I'll still do data recovery on the unused portion, just in case...)

And the system appears to have originally come from KCEA's Honolulu studio...

Contents of a little text file:

I'll be attempting to connect the box to the computer properly and seeing if I can get whatever is on the drive to actually play...

 

Already done...

 

That's the "factory" configuration, so that is always good news.

Nice find. I don't think MS Combat FS was ever released in any form for DC. Wikipedia and Planet Dreamcast seem to agree, and I can't find any previews which means a low likelihood of review disks in circulation.

 

Nice find! I remember some rumors back in the days about Microsoft games being ported to the Dreamcast. Age of Empires comes to my mind...

 

Nice find! Keep us updated!

 

This is exciting! searching for the treasure..!

 

Also keen to see what else might be tucked away there! Good luck with your quest... I guess we can now officially add "Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator" to the list of unreleased DC games! Here's hoping there's some sort of playable build on there, either way it's a great discovery!

 

I have a question for people that have a working Katana (5.24). I'm having a little trouble figuring out if the system is working 100% or not.

What mine does:
Not connected to anything, and no SCSI terminators installed, it boots up with the animated DC logo and then the DC dash. I can navigate the 4 icons and select them. If I select the 'Play Game' icon, it asks for a disc. When I insert one, I hear it spin up, but nothing happens (testing with a retail disc only, that's all I have...)

If I connect terminators to the 3 SCSI ports, the system comes up with a white screen with the DC logo (but no animation, the logo just pops on). It sits there for about 5-6 minutes, and I can hear the hard drive trying to mount. After several minutes, the logo fades away and the DC dash fades up and immediately puts up a message that says:
'Please wait while disc is being checked'
and it just sets there indefinitely.

What exactly _should_ the system do when powered up on it's own either with or without SCSI terminators?

The second result is all it will do when connected to a computer as well (I know the terminators are necessary there), although the computer finds it at POST, and tries to install drivers for it. But the drive never shows up in Explorer, and GD Workshop doesn't see it... I'm not using the exact recommended SCSI card (a 2930 instead of a 2940), and before I try to replace that card, I figured I'd make sure the Katana itself is working properly... (It does pass it's internal test fine)

 

The first behaviour sounds normal of a unit in emulation mode. The other behaviour doesn't sound usual, definitely not something I encounter with my unit.

 

If you put terminators on yours (or connect it to a computer that's turned off), what does it do? Do you get the same animated DC logo?