Building a Dreamcast into a PC case.

[garry68]

I have an old mini tower case that I want to use to rehouse a Dreamcast.
My main question is can the GD ROM drive be re-purposed to work inside a standard front loader CD/DVD bay?
If not is there anything else I can use for a GD drive?

I have three Dreamcast, one in good condition, one with lens and power issues, and one with a broken case, that I intend to use for this project.
If I can get the Dreamcast running from inside the old PC case, I then intend to add various mods to this, as I'll have much more space to plug/solder stuff in etc.

[Anthony817]

There is an IDE mod you can do which absolutely means you can use an older IDE DVD drive in it. Somebody made one as a proof of concept, but it is redundant now with GDEMU's and USB-GDROM and the IDE HDD mod itself.

http://www.thedreamcastjunkyard.co.uk/2 ... mcast.html

[garry68]

Thanks Anthony,
I have read about the USB-GDROM, which I may end up using. I don't suppose there is any way of using this alongside the normal GD ROM optical drive?

The main point of putting this in a PC case is to have something to tinker with.
I plan to put a Dreampi in this case as well and build the USB modem into an empty expansion card slot, I already have these parts.
I'll probably wire in a region select switch and an SD card as well, just because...

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

[poopidoop]

i would recommend getting a clone GDEMU over the USB-GDROM, youll save quite a bit of money and the GDEMU clone works great.

[megavolt85]

There is an IDE mod you can do which absolutely means you can use an older IDE DVD drive in it.l

I threw this useless project

I have read about the USB-GDROM, which I may end up using.

USB-GDROM strongly expensive to the functionality

[garry68]

So a a clone GDEMU is the way to go then.

Thanks.

[Anthony817]

Pretty much yup, unless you want to wait ages and ages to get in on the official ones and have to pay over $170 total for them after shipping is all said and done. The clones are honestly a Godsend for the community. As much as we would all rather give the guy some money instead, he just never partnered with a place that could help cut down on production costs and would rather bank big bucks on making the supply and demand outrageously high for these. It is his own fault for letting this happen sadly.

When you can find clones for $45 shipped, it really is a no brainer.