3DO Troubleshooting

[Student Driver]

Got a 3DO the other week (after years of wanting one) for free... an FZ-1, a single controller, a copy of Demolition Man, and a copy of The 3DO Game Guide. On testing, Demolition Man doesn't seem to work. I believe the system's fine and the game might be at fault due to the following:

 

- The system seems to power up normally with no disc in the drive, eventually going to the asteroid-filled demo scene. Therefore, I believe the system's powering up normally, with no glitches.

 

- The system plays music CDs (a little less impressive than a VLM, but hey), therefore the laser, CD mechanism, etc., seem to be working okay.

 

- The system spends a while attempting to read the Demolition Man CD, with the laser mechanism making a seeking sound reminiscent of an out-of-alignment laserdisc player, ejecting the disc after a minute or so.

 

The game isn't scratched up, but I unfortunately have no other 3DO in which to test the thing... are the above conditions sufficient for me to infer that the FZ-1 is working (and thus go on a shopping spree for games on eBay), or do FZ-1 systems routinely break down part-way, booting up and playing music CDs, but not able to play 3DO titles?

[oesii]

I would guess that the FZ-1 which is usually solid is working and that you have a defective disk. Do you have a CD burner? There's tons of 3DO games on the newsgroups and on the web that you can burn onto a CD-R and play with no mods necessary. But most 3DO games are dirt cheap anyways you could always spend less than $5 on one and try it out.

[glitch]

The CDR idea isn't a bad one, it may save you from buying games for a faulty system. One note though is that the FZ-1 can be a bit touchy w/ some CDRs for some reason. My FZ-1 will only play about 50% of the CDR discs my FZ-10 will play so you may want to try a couple before giving up.

[Student Driver]

I don't have easy access to a CD burner, but have friends who might... on the touchiness of CD-Rs, might using CD-RWs work better? I've often heard that CD-RWs often work in, say, DVD or CD players, where standard CD-Rs won't work.

[glitch]

Not sure since I've never tried it. Since it's a thicker media it may work better. I've had better luck w/ the slower rated CD-Rs than the faster rated ones. 4x CD-Rs seem to work very well. I believe it may be due to the fact that it's an older laser lens and requires more reflection than a lot of discs now have. I've had similar problems w/ PCs w/ very old CD Rom drives. If you send me a PM I can probably send you a couple that work in my FZ-1.

[Atariman]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but my 3DO is having the same issue that Student Driver is describing. It isn't an FZ-1 (it's an FZ-10) and hasn't had issues with game discs in the past. It wouldn't play the one I popped in there awhile ago and when I tried the one that I had left in there the last time I played it, it wouldn't play, either.

 

It does play music CDs like a champ, though. All I have noticed is that when it is trying to read a game disc, it makes a noise that sounds like a rattle. It picks right up that it is a game disc, but once it gets to the 3DO boot screen, it just hangs there while making this "rattle" noise.

 

Any other ideas?