Dreamshell problems!

[MoeFoh]

I read through entire topic. Dreamshell is booting and you run VMU Manager and the SD Card is greyed out - do I have that right? The LED should be on when inserting into the Dreamcast - otherwise you have a bad connection.

To further troubleshoot, let's install a known good configuration:
viewtopic.php?p=158330&sid=f274f79de544 ... d7#p158330

Copy the included Boot CDI to your GDEMU and boot from it.

Make sure the 4GB card is empty before extracting the 7z file.

Run and report back.

Thank you! I added the DREAMSHELL(LOADER).cdi to my GDEMU. And put the /ds, /games and /rd folders on the root of my 4GB SD card. When I open the loader file on the Dreamcast I get two options:
* Boot from RAM
* Boot from CD
I cannot click any of them. Is this correct?

It proves the SD Card is not being recognized in the SD Adapter at boot time. Issue could be the 4GB Card (not likely), a faultly SD Adapter, a bad connection with the serial port, a faulty serial port or something I have not thought of. Do you have another adapter to try?

[bayram]

I read through entire topic. Dreamshell is booting and you run VMU Manager and the SD Card is greyed out - do I have that right? The LED should be on when inserting into the Dreamcast - otherwise you have a bad connection.

To further troubleshoot, let's install a known good configuration:
viewtopic.php?p=158330&sid=f274f79de544 ... d7#p158330

Copy the included Boot CDI to your GDEMU and boot from it.

Make sure the 4GB card is empty before extracting the 7z file.

Run and report back.

Thank you! I added the DREAMSHELL(LOADER).cdi to my GDEMU. And put the /ds, /games and /rd folders on the root of my 4GB SD card. When I open the loader file on the Dreamcast I get two options:
* Boot from RAM
* Boot from CD
I cannot click any of them. Is this correct?

It proves the SD Card is not being recognized in the SD Adapter at boot time. Issue could be the 4GB Card (not likely), a faultly SD Adapter, a bad connection with the serial port, a faulty serial port or something I have not thought of. Do you have another adapter to try?

No I dont unfortunately ...

[bayram]

I read through entire topic. Dreamshell is booting and you run VMU Manager and the SD Card is greyed out - do I have that right? The LED should be on when inserting into the Dreamcast - otherwise you have a bad connection.

To further troubleshoot, let's install a known good configuration:
viewtopic.php?p=158330&sid=f274f79de544 ... d7#p158330

Copy the included Boot CDI to your GDEMU and boot from it.

Make sure the 4GB card is empty before extracting the 7z file.

Run and report back.

Thank you! I added the DREAMSHELL(LOADER).cdi to my GDEMU. And put the /ds, /games and /rd folders on the root of my 4GB SD card. When I open the loader file on the Dreamcast I get two options:
* Boot from RAM
* Boot from CD
I cannot click any of them. Is this correct?

It proves the SD Card is not being recognized in the SD Adapter at boot time. Issue could be the 4GB Card (not likely), a faultly SD Adapter, a bad connection with the serial port, a faulty serial port or something I have not thought of. Do you have another adapter to try?

Great news! I was about to order another card reader but thought I should test another card to be sure. I used a 8GB SD card I had lying around instead of the 4GB micro SD. I formated it using RUFUS and the used the DreamShell CDI that you linked to, and it finally works! So if anybody else is struggling like me, dont be a stubborn fool, try another card first lol. Now, it might be that the micro sd slot on my card reader is faulty. That cannot be ruled out. Another interesting thing is that when I tried it on the other DreamShell instance I downloaded, it just freezes after the DreamShell intro screen. The one that freezes seems like a newer version. The UI seems fresher and it has a intro music.

Thank you so much for helping me debug this @MoeFoh!

On a side note, do you know if it is possible to run MAME roms off of the SD card?

[MoeFoh]

Cool, cool!
My test link is an older version of Dreamshell from 2021. I have not installed nor tested the latest Dreamshell release from Swat's github. Anyway, you'll want to use the boot CDI & Dreamshell to the ones the come within the same zip file (no mixing).

MAME: Try this ISO:
https://mega.nz/file/o3wUkDZA#rCLGgbYvx ... d_zj8HxMFY
It's a repack by Dubcity. See his collection #3.

[bayram]

Cool, cool!
My test link is an older version of Dreamshell from 2021. I have not installed nor tested the latest Dreamshell release from Swat's github. Anyway, you'll want to use the boot CDI & Dreamshell to the ones the come within the same zip file (no mixing).

MAME: Try this ISO:
https://mega.nz/file/o3wUkDZA#rCLGgbYvx ... d_zj8HxMFY
It's a repack by Dubcity. See his collection #3.

Thanks! Do you know if there exists an ISO with newer arcade games, like capcom cps1 gamesor if that even is possible on the Dreamcast? Would love to make my Dreamcast the one-stop shop for everything arcade

[Mike]

Hi, I’m new.
I had the same problem and journey as bayram

Success:
What finally worked for me was to use a non-micro/TF SD card. I picked up a regular sized 32GB ONN card at Walmart -> format with Rufus -> Used the files provided by MoeFoh
and it worked.

Specs:
•(VA1/North American) Dreamcast
•GDEMU clone [with TF card to store ROMs and Dreamshell(loader).cdi]
•Bitfunx DC SD TF card reader V2 (from AliExpress)

Interesting issue:
-I love how when Dreamshell crashes it reboots GDEMU instead of me needing to power down the Dreamcast.
-Speaking of crashing: my [Sonic Adventure Chao Adventure] file worth (128 blocks!!) (from the year 2002) won’t transfer successfully. Instead Dreamshell crashes.
-Also, my [Tomb Raider system settings] file won’t transfer. Dreamshell crashes instead.
-All other .VMU files transfer successfully

[MoeFoh]

That's a red flag. Second adapter now where the micro-card slot didn't work, but the full-sized slot did.

[Grumb]

Hey Guys,

i am new here and rather checked the "searched option" and didn't want to start a new thread. So I try to get a solution for my upcoming problem.

I bought a Dreamcast with an SD Card Adapter on the serial port and a PAL 1 Laser Disk drive.
The bundle includes an Dreamshell self burned disk with "Beta 4". It boots Dreamshell and recognizes the SD card.

Now my task is to rip my games to play them via redream on my Mac in high quality. so "Beta 4" does not have a game rip mode included and I tried to "update" on Dreamshell 4.0.1. I downloaded the package from GitHub and had in the zip file the "DS" folder and two .cdi filed (release and boot loader).

as I have seen on YouTube I had to load all the files on my SD card and boot the "dreamshell" with the disk. I have an older Mac and used "liquidCD" to burn the .cdi files. with liquidCD I just can burn one .cdi file, so I burned two disks, each with one file.

by booting the disks, the dreamcast recognizes each but only reboot the main menu and does not boot DreamShell.

does anyone knows, what I did wrong? do you need any further information? Thanks in advance for helping me out