Dreamcast-Talk.com

Hi i want to use my GDEMU together with the Dream IDE Reborn Board. But Somehow when the GDEMU is Installed to the GD-ROM Connector my HDD shows only "Can't read MBR from IDE by LBA".

I Use the DreamBoot No-GDROM BIOS and without the GDEMU installed it works fine so far.

If i Switch to the Original BIOS (Dual Bios mod with switch) the GDEMU starts just fine but whe in Launch Dreamshell as CDI on it, no HDD is shown.

Is it even possible ? The GDEMU should just act as a "Drive" for Dreamshell ?

Something strange : If a Drive Board is inserted (without Drive > Its Dead). The Hdd will just show up fine.

Anybody here who have done this combo ?

Thanks

You know, I was wondering if anybody would ever do this. I mean technically it is possible, so it should just work. After all the GDEMU literally just emulates the disc drive.

You can't boot dreamshell with gdemu.
@megavolt85 Could explain that better than me but it's due to gdemu building.

"You know, I was wondering if anybody would ever do this." Yeah i know it sounds strange but i would really like to use both. Its more like a proof of concept and the DREAM IDE REBORN was allready here so i thougt it could work.

"You can't boot dreamshell with gdemu." I can Boot it with GDEMU but it could be that i am not be able to utilize the hdd throug it. But this is not the Problem.

If i switch to the "DreamBoot NO-GD-Rom" Bios with the GD Emu Inserted, the MBR of the HDD cant be read anymore.

I Would like to switch between these two options without dissambling the Dreamcast and disconnect the GDEMU everytime.

Maybe it has something todoo with the 33.8868 mhz signal line ?

If I recall correctly, GDEMU ignores the drive select signal of ATA, so you cannot have a secondary device on the bus since GDEMU will respond to signals for both devices.

Just like @BlueCrab said
Deunan Knute promised to fix this in future firmwares, but it should be understood that this will only be available to users of the original GDEMU

But then again if you have a working IDE solution, you might as well just install the latest RetroDream release and call it a day.
It has presets for using the correct iso loader version for most games and reaches like 98% compatibility.
Also games load very fast from IDE, which benefits games such as Soldier of Fortune (which I almost finished playing from my CF card).

Oh ok that explains everything. Is
there maybe a workaround by somehow enable or disable a powerline to the gdemu by a switch or something ? if it gets no power it cant operate i guess ?

I discovered an adittional issue: The IDE Mod works only at ide HDD's. But when i use a Sata HDD's via Adapter (JM20330) Dreamshell Iso Loader and Settings freezes at the "Loading" Screen. But playing from RetroDream loader works. But the game is stuttering a bit o.O.

Any Idea about this ?

Skoomadude wrote:Oh ok that explains everything. Is
there maybe a workaround by somehow enable or disable a powerline to the gdemu by a switch or something ? if it gets no power it cant operate i guess ?

I discovered an adittional issue: The IDE Mod works only at ide HDD's. But when i use a Sata HDD's via Adapter (JM20330) Dreamshell Iso Loader and Settings freezes at the "Loading" Screen. But playing from RetroDream loader works. But the game is stuttering a bit o.O.

Any Idea about this ?

the threads of the ide must be well organized.

Skoomadude wrote:"You know, I was wondering if anybody would ever do this." Yeah i know it sounds strange but i would really like to use both. Its more like a proof of concept and the DREAM IDE REBORN was allready here so i thougt it could work.

"You can't boot dreamshell with gdemu." I can Boot it with GDEMU but it could be that i am not be able to utilize the hdd throug it. But this is not the Problem.

If i switch to the "DreamBoot NO-GD-Rom" Bios with the GD Emu Inserted, the MBR of the HDD cant be read anymore.

I Would like to switch between these two options without dissambling the Dreamcast and disconnect the GDEMU everytime.

Maybe it has something todoo with the 33.8868 mhz signal line ?

on gd-rom you will ignore the GD-ROM reader in the cd option of dreamhell you will not be able to select it.