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GD-rom drive not working anymore

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2020 10:36 am
by Gocha
Hi everyone, I just lost the draft of this post so I'm gonna go directly to the point. (I'm so tired of writing!)

First of all, GDEMU is probably an awesome option and everything, but I want to have my dreamcast working and reading discs the old way.

My dreamcast drive is not working anymore, it happened before but adjusting the potentiometer fixed it, this time by adjusting it a few degrees nothing happened, I repeted the process a few time and nothing. My multimeter also does not register anything on my dreamcast (it was never registered anything and I'm not good at using it, so IDK if it's a problem on my technique, the multimeter or the dreamcast)

Model: NTSC U model 1
Drive: samsung 3.3V

My questions are:
1.- Where can I buy a good replacement for the drive? there are some chinese copies and some original ones on ebay, but those are used and there is no way to tell if they with keep working in the future or even work right now.
2.- is there something wrong Im doing with the multimeter? there are some pictures bellow. It's set to 2000 omhs, the black cable is on COM; the other cable is on V omhs mA


Here is my multimeter
potenciometro 1.png

Here is how I've been testing it
potenciometro 2.png
And here is something I saw on the internet, don't know where or if it works in anyway for anything
potenciometro 3.png

Re: GD-rom drive not working anymore

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2020 10:53 am
by Bob Dobbs
I am assuming the DC powers up thus not a power supply issue.

Sometimes those drives suffer from other issues from motor to laser. I have NEVER had the luck with the screw adjustment as I have six bad drives sitting at home.

To sum it up, this is a weak area for me but I believe you may have to get a used working Dreamcast. I don't recommend the risk of buying a potentially bad drive unless you feel differently about that.

Re: GD-rom drive not working anymore

Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2020 12:46 pm
by Xiden
Gocha wrote:Hi everyone, I just lost the draft of this post so I'm gonna go directly to the point. (I'm so tired of writing!)

First of all, GDEMU is probably an awesome option and everything, but I want to have my dreamcast working and reading discs the old way.

My dreamcast drive is not working anymore, it happened before but adjusting the potentiometer fixed it, this time by adjusting it a few degrees nothing happened, I repeted the process a few time and nothing. My multimeter also does not register anything on my dreamcast (it was never registered anything and I'm not good at using it, so IDK if it's a problem on my technique, the multimeter or the dreamcast)

Model: NTSC U model 1
Drive: samsung 3.3V

My questions are:
1.- Where can I buy a good replacement for the drive? there are some chinese copies and some original ones on ebay, but those are used and there is no way to tell if they with keep working in the future or even work right now.
2.- is there something wrong Im doing with the multimeter? there are some pictures bellow. It's set to 2000 omhs, the black cable is on COM; the other cable is on V omhs mA


Here is my multimeter
potenciometro 1.png


Here is how I've been testing it
potenciometro 2.png

And here is something I saw on the internet, don't know where or if it works in anyway for anything
potenciometro 3.png
Id highly recommended replacing it with a USB-Gdrom or gdemu. Save yourself the hassle of a cd drive if you can. Their are gdemu clones available for relatively cheap prices.