Dreamcast disk read error

[Trench]

I bought a dreamcast and it won't read games. It will turn on and work, but it will go to the menu with the music, play disk, vmu... when I click the disk option, it says insert disk. Any way to fix this?

[Uzumaki]

Does the disc spin at all? If it does spin, try cleaning the laser lens using the universal CD cleaning kit that should play like audio CD.

 

If it doesn't spin, take the console apart and see if it could be loose cables.

 

If it's not loose and still won't work, it's probably dead.

[antron]

you can adjust the laser with a tiny screw somewhere.

[PressureCooker2600]

yea.....some of my games dont work alot of the time....dreamcasts just suck really bad when it comes to their reading lasers

[Artlover]

Given the message, my first guess is the Door lid switch.

[Foxsolo2000]

I've had that trouble a lot recently. Is it me or do Dreamcast games scratch far easier than other disc? Quite often the game will go out for no reason and then come back on saying reading disc after having screwed the game. It is only certain titles out of the 50 I have but the ones it happens on are the ones I enjoy the most

[Artlover]

I think it's mostly the screwy 1gig GD format that makes it prone to issues. Is the GD drive mech even a true custom design, or just a hacked CD-Rom being made to work with weird propriatary media.

[Bruce Tomlin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GD-ROM

 

A normal CD-reader will not read beyond the first track because, according to the CD table of contents (TOC), there is no data there. With modified firmware that looks for a second TOC in the high-density region it is possible to read data from the high-density region even on a normal CD-reader.