My Dreamcast will not play discs anymore, I put it in it spins a bit then stops and says “insert game disc” when I press play. It’s odd because just yesterday is was working perfectly. I bought it used but never played a pirated game myself (as I hear that kills the drive). I’ve tried ALL my games and music CDs and got nothing.
Clean the laser lens? Any funny sounds or smells?
I’ve only replaced the controller ports fuse on my DC – never had to mess with the optical system. You might want to look into the SD-card hack if you can’t fix the GD-ROM.
Wait a sec… you’re saying all I can do is buy a new one?! How’s that happen overnight?! I DID try to wipe it down but to no avail…
No DC experts in the audience?
Hey bud, i had the same problem too…Here are two things you can do to fix this…
- [media=youtube]1VVGoha9BhY[/media]
This didn’t work for me but it work for others i believe…
- What i did, i believe the true problem is not actually the laser or the contacts being dusty but the open/close just finally took its toll…I notice that if i took the casing off & held the close latch to make the DC thinks its close the game played fine w/ no problem, so i ended up using a glue gun to make it closed at all times…Im not really good in explaining but if you need me to show you with picture let me know…
I used to buy “broken” dreamcasts on eBay cheap and fix em for friends. The problem is this. The dreamcast laser after allot of use starts to weaken. It will lose its strength and stop reading the disk.
You can take your dreamcast apart, carefully take the laser out and there?s a small screw for power adjustment. All it takes is one small 5-10 degree turn usually right and it will increase the power. Put it all back together and enjoy your games again.
There are also guides online showing how to do this. It?s very easy just be careful with the ribbon cables.