Saturn refuses to check security ring

Picked up a model 1 Sega Saturn from a thrift store for a smooth $12.48. I've gotten it to read and play MYST once but never again. With the case off it is very apparent that the laser sits there and focuses on the disc and lets it spin until it drops into the BIOS. From there it'll sit there attempting to read the disc, freeze the graphics for a second or two and then recognize the disc as an audio CD and let you play the CDDA tracks.

If I manually move the laser to the outer edge the Saturn simply moves it back towards the spindle. Not once will it move the laser out towards the edge to read the security ring. Anyone ever see this before?

EDIT: Forgot to mention I swapped out the original BIOS and put in a region free BIOS. MYST booted on the original but has yet to on the region free. I did have trouble getting my copy of Resident Evil to boot on the original BIOS as well.

 

I once had this happen. When I put in an official save backup cart my Sega Saturn did this, I tried part swapping as I had access to 2 others and it still didn't work, since then the cart hasn't broken any other systems and the broken system worked after being put in the closet for a few months. I would backup your saves, unplug it and pull the save battery, then leave it for awhile. It is a bit funny but I remember Myst the being only disc I had at the time, I wonder if there could be a bug in the game itself. My Sega Saturn was a US launch version

 

Instead of let it sit for months without the battery, all it takes is remove the said battery and push the master reset button right by it (with the unit powered on, of course as that button has no effect when it's off...).

 

x

 

Same. I have tweaked the pot and cleaned the laser to fix a few like this

 

^ same here too, OP just be carefull not to overdo the pot tweaking

 

Back in the day I worked saturns up regularly, more than often all I needed to do to fix bad drives was remove the plastic cover from the Optima-6 pickup, and with a toothpick push the reflexive prism back to it's place.

Usually when people drop the unit the prism moves and the pickup stops working correctly.

But then that was when them all were new... lol

 

If I had a remote clue how to do it without destroying the thing I might try.

Been increasing the POT slowly and all it still reads is CDDA. No change in anything else and I have cleaned it once already. With each flash of the access light I can hear the laser make a sound that I'm assuming is refocusing.

 

I think we can rule out dying laser. I swapped in an identical unit from a model 2 I have and it has the same exact behavior. I'm starting to wonder about the region free BIOS...

 

I still think this is related to a problem I had as mentioned earlier in post 2. Unfortunately I never could figure out what happened, only what triggered the failure, the region-free bios is another variable.

 

x

 

yeah sounds like a likely culprit

 

have you tried readjusting the ribbon cables from the laser board to the main board with a cleaning on connections? sometimes they become rusty inside and give those kind of problems!