Mega CD (JAP) Plays Backups?

[kyosuke75]

I just received a mega cd on ebay and tested it out with a cd-r backup of cosmic fantasy stories and ninja warriors without success. It either spits it out or doesn't recognize it as a mega cd.

This unit is the Japanese unit not european model and the isos are burnt for use on the Japanese unit.

I have a regular model 1 USA Genesis unit attatched to the mega cd.

If anyone has any info on that that would be great!

Kyosuke75

 

[kyosuke75]

Almost forgot...my mega cd (Jap) is the model 1 front loading unit...

Kyosuke75

 

[Agent21KGB]

It should play back up with no modfications. Back when they made the system people couldn't even dream of owning a cd burner so sega never put in any burn protection. I have a US model 1, more then likely the mega cd lens needs cleaning. Just tear it open and swab the lens with a q tip and rubbing alcohol. That should fix and problems you have.

 

[Azazel]

Does it play originals fine?

 

[kyosuke75]

Yeah,

It does play originals fine. I played wonderdog on it and it works fine. Sometimes it doesn't always boot up but maybe it needs to be cleaned.

Agent21kgb: Is it ok to touch the lens with q-tip and alcohol? I always thought that those things were fragile... I have no idea...but I will try it.

Yeah I always thought since regular sega cd plays backups the mega cd should too but for some odd reason they didn't... maybe just this one isn't playing them properly.

Thanks,

Kyosuke75

 

[CHE]

Nah, I was wrong

 

[Agent21KGB]

Nah the machines are very tough, old school consoles always are. Hell mine fell off a cabinet and took a 7 foot fall onto a concrete floor, still tickin. It sucks to clean a model 1. You need to uncouple it and take out all the screws, the ones on the bottom and the ones by the connection slot to the genesis. Then after you pull the top off there should be a metal plate that is above the cd rom unit. Remove that with just a few screws and you should have clear access to the cd rom lens. Now just touch the alcohol soaked q tip to the lens and swab the thing in a circular motion. Put the system back together and you are good to go.

 

[kyosuke75]

Agent,

I cleaned the lens but it still doesn't work with cdrs and now it just doesn't really work.

I think the mega cd lens is dying or something.

Kyosuke75

 

[Vic Viper]

I own a similar Mega-CD 1 japanese unit. Mine's from the 1st batch which went to sale in late 1991. Since it's a year older than the SCDs we see arround, it was already showing problems in reading the discs ( I thought it was weak laser) but I got a US SCD1 apart and put it's laser on my mega CD. It was still dificult to read some originals (with scratches) and all CDRs ... Then I thought it would be the boards. I replaced the original power board with the SCD one and then it worked like a charm ... The next day I figured out why the original power/audio board was faulty. It was dry eletrolythic capacitors, that caused the power suply to be not good enough for the CD-Rom drive work properly.

This was about a year and a half ago, And I think I told about it here in SX (I used to hang here a bit in 2000). About 3 or 4 months ago it again gave me trouble with a dry capacitor, but this time it was on the audio circuit. I had only the megadrive sound, the PCM and CD-DA sound were completely muted. Again, changing one capacitor on the audio circuit solved the problem. I hope this hint help you with your problem. Also, NEVER use common alchool to clean CD drive lens as it destroy the polarization film that is printed on the lens. It MUST be isophropylic alchool. A KSS 240A (Sony) is a triple beam laser pickup (expensive model) so wasting one like that is not really a very good idea ...