DC reads backups, but not pristine GD-roms

[BizarroStormy]

So I recently repurchased my DC back from a pawnshop after it was sitting on his shelf for two years, he never played it nor had anyone came by with an interest to pick it up. I was having problems getting it to read games a few years ago before I pawned it for beer money. So I decided to see if it would read backups. Plays them perfectly, yet my perfect copies of RE2, Shenmue, Sonic Adventure, and THPS won't play very well, only Evolution: Sacred Stone or w/e will.

The game will start up about half of the time, and I can load my saves, but then when I get to a place where it needs to load more data off of the disc (new environment, course, room, etc.) it freezes at the load screen.

I have done the potentiometer adjustment on the lense of the GD-Rom drive. And it works better than it did before, my discs don't have a scratch or smudge on them, but a scratched up CD-Rom of a backup will (I purposely scratched up a backup copy of Sonic Adventure).

A cd-rom reads from the inside out, whereas a gd-rom reads from the outside in, could my drive just be having an issue on those outside tracks? Like the shaft that it goes to and fro on may need to be greased?(couldn't edit this so it didn't sound dirty). Should I just shell out and get a new GD-rom drive off the net?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Macabre]

Its odd to hear that the gd-rom part has died before the cd-rom... But I guess its possible? I'd keep this system to play backup's, and try and find a new(er) gd-rom or dreamcast unit for legit games.

15$ is cheap, considering you will also be getting extra parts when one of the systems inevitably dies.

[Shogun]

I have this problem with only 1 game so far which is Sonic Adventure. The disc looks fine but the game isn't even recognized by the DC. All my other games play fine and so does the back up. I've tried messing with it but I never could get it to work.

[Favrenation]

I also have this problem with one game only too. I turned the potentiometer and it loaded once but its back to the same thing. It just means that your laser is slowly dying.

[Dingo]

Its odd to hear that the gd-rom part has died before the cd-rom...

Really? I would say it's 'typical', not 'odd' in my experience.

. . .

Sounds like your laser is wearing out. After a while it'll have problems reading even burned CDs that worked before.

You may be able to get it to read GD-roms by adjusting the laser pot. But that's going to be hit or miss.

Cleaning the lens couldn't hurt. It'll make it easier for a weak laser to focus.

I wouldn't grease the tracks inside the DC, but it couldn't hurt to make sure nothing is obstructing the movement of the laser. If you've been adjusting the laser pot, it's possible that a wire from one of the motors has gotten in the way when you reseated the top of the drive.

I say don't grease the track, because I've personally done it. It won't improve anything and it'll only attract dirt. It wasn't greased in the factory for a reason. If you want though, you can grease up the gears. Again though, it won't help your issue, but that at least makes the DC WAY quieter.


So, there are a few things you can try, but none will likely completely alleviate the problem short of replacing the laser assembly. You should be able to find a cheap console-only deal somewhere. Perhaps even one with 'busted controller ports' that will be easily fixable, or at least have a better working laser in it that you could swap around.

I've experienced similar issues before. AS was said earlier, this is a symptom that the laser is dying. The only thing that completely fixed it was swapping in a different laser.