Hi eveyone. Earlier today I found a Sega CD at a thrift shop. It attached to a Genesis Model 1 and came with 4 controllers, 2 power supplys, and a video connector (coax) Anyway I didnt have a Sega CD so I got it to use with my 32x and make my a giant beast lol. Well stupid me didnt bother to test it before I went to town on cleaning it. I took it all the way apart and took the mobo out. I then cleaned the whole thing and now it looks great ^^, however I cant get it to work. I dont know if it was broke to start with, or if I did it. Anyway heres what I know... The laser will move on its track. The laser does move up and down and emit a red beam (glow) as it should when looking for a disc. It will spin up a cd. However I think I put it back togather wrong because any CD i put in it, it makes a loud scratching noise, and when I spin a disc with my hand in the bay it rubs the plastic of the unit. I think this is the most likly problem but no matter how many times I take it apart and try again, I cant get it to stop rubbing on the plastic. Also, the Access light flashs all the time. Even when the lid is open, or theres nothing in the drive and its closed. It always does it. Then when I goto the music menu without a cd in the drive (or even with a cd in) it wont let me use my controller to navigate the buttons. Anyone have any ideas??? Are they supposed to make that loud noise and catch before spinning up to speed (i really doubt it lol) Any help is greatly appricated! Thanks!
Sounds to me that you'Ve put the thing back together wrong. The Access light will flash even if the draw is open if the Mega CD thinks it's looking for a disc. Yakumo
Thanks Yakumo. I will keep trying but I dont see how I can mess it up. The laser unit sites on 4 plastic stands and then the top plastic gets set on. I dont see how I can be getting it wrong lol. Anyway does anyone know how I can test the laser without the housing around it. I can use a clothes pin to trip the door switch and it will spin it up, but without the plastic disc above the cd from the lid it wont balance. I currently see no way to put something on top of the disc so it will spin without the housing. BTW, Can anyone take a good high res pic of their sega cd so I can see the laser unit IN the plastic. I want to see how high out of the housing the spindle sticks up. Thanks! EDIT: Ok, I carefully put it back togather and hulked the screws down to make sure the plastic was flush. Now it will read even the most scratched music CD right away. I mean it takes maybe 3-5 seconds before it will play it. However I still get some odd scratchy like noise from the drive. Im not sure that its the disc this time though. I think it may be from the large disc in the lid that spins with the disc. Anyway more to the point, it will not read ANY sega CD game. I have 5 real games and none will read and all are in mint to near mint shape. It takes about 7 seconds to look at it then says no disc. I can understand this. Its not like a PS2 where theres a DVD side and CD side. The laser should read any CD so why can it read music and not games? Do games spin at a higher RPM and its meeting with resistance?
you mentioned the large head that spins with the disc, perhaps its rubbing against something like you mentioned, thus causing the cd to slow down, and not be read properly. I'd take that apart and see what's rubbing on it, as thats most likely the issue Ryan
Well there in lies my problem. The damn spndle isnt self locking as most consoles are. Meaning that it needs the large disc head in the lid to create friction and spin the disc. If I try to read a CD with the lid off or open it will just bob around because it cant hold the disc in place to spin it. So either the CD is rubbing the plastic housing, or the large disc in the lid isnt lubed enough and is catching it. I cant test one without the other though so I dont see what I can do I gave thought to pulling the spindle out and replacing it with a self locking one but that might break something and I dont have a spare for parts. I am now leaning towards the disc in the lid but I cant even get it out to look at it without braking off 3 plastic clips that hold it in. If anyone has any ideas at all please let me know. Thanks for the help guys!
ok sorry to triple post lol but I have solved the problem and would like to share it here incase anyone in the furure finds this topic. After much work I tryed removing the laser cover. It looked to be plastic but it was metal. Its the part the covers the laser except for the eye itself. Apparently the cds were hitting this and not spinning correctly. After removing the plate (4 small screws) the unit now works fine and boots all media it should. I am going to leave the plate out for now as I cant see any downside to it. Its just to keep dust out of the laser area. Thanks for the ideas and help!
Well thats true, however I keep all my consoles super clean and wipe them down almost daily lol. Also I have a Sega CD emulator on my Xbox that I use over the real thing. So its not going to see much action outside of Sonic CD (nothing like playing Sonic Games with a Genesis Pad in your hand lol) So I think it will be ok.
That's sad to hear! You should go for the true experience... yeah holding the pad... the loading times.... hehe. There are quite a few good games besides Sonic, too! Shining Force is a must
Well its not so much that I dont like playing them on the real system, but I dont have the largest collection of Sega CD games lol. I have some and my favorite being Sonic CD. However some others are hard and quite rare. Especially around where I live. I have seen 2 real Sega CD games since 1995. Both in my local thrift shop and I bought both (Earthworm Jim and Jurassic Park) other then that all of them came from Ebay lol. I even have a sealed copy of Sonic CD ^^
lol I am aware of that. I just havnet gotten around to seeing if I can burn a Sega CD ISO and make it work on the real hardware. Its on my list, but its a ways down. My big project is getting my exploited PS2 set up and working right now.
