Problems with burning saturn games

I just recently dug my saturn back out to play some games I that I downloaded. The older burns that I had laying around are booting perfect and playing fine for a long time with no loading problems. Thing is, now I am trying to burn the new games I just got and none of them are working. I tried 3 different games (bin/cue and iso/mp3 with .cue made with sega cue maker) and I have also tried 3 different programs (Nero 5.0.somever, CDRwin, and Alcohol 120 - burned with DAO on Nero and CDRWin) and nothing worked. Last night I burned 4 games for other systems with no problems with both Nero and CDRWin. When I burn the saturn games the files all show up on my computer, but when I put them in the Saturn, they just keep reading (checking disc) and then just pause for a long time. They finally come up with the track listing, but it never lets me play the audio from the disc. I have also tried 2 different types of media (memorex and verbatim) with no luck. Please help me.
 
From talking to him, some are imports, but he has a 4 in 1 cart anyway. He has burned at 2x (although burn speed doesn't matter if you have a good CD-RW drive.)
 
Yeah, it was Silhouette Mirage(import) and Guardian Heroes(US). Burned at 2x and still can't figure it out....
 
Ok guys, I have played around with my system more over the last few days and here is what I found. Only certain of my old games that I burned a few years back are actually loading now. And the ones that are loading are all the same brand, others that won't load are another brand. I know for a fact that those games used to work to as I played the crap out of them, so I must come to the conclusion now that my system is going out or at least the laser is. Is there any way to get a new laser? My system is the oval button one and my mod chip is about 4 or 5 years old now so I really don't remember much about it other than the fact that is was a pass-through cable on the cdrom to the mainboard and it only had 1 wire to soldier for power. If I were to just buy another oval button console from ebay or something, could I just switch the drive out and what not? Please help me out. Thanks.
 
It does sound like the laser to me. Perhaps the media you're having problems reading on your Saturn have slightly lower reflectivity than the working ones.

You could try the Saturn CDRW mod FAQ - the idea is to adjust a small screw to slightly increase the laser's power output and possibly fix your problem for good without having to replace anything.
 
Where do I find that faq? The Miscellaneous section doesn't seem to be working. Could you either email me the faq or something or just tell me what to do. Also, if that doesn't work, are all oval button saturns the same that I could just use the parts from another one? Thanks.
 
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... You're right, I can't get into the Misc. section either... Broken link, anyone? ...
 
I dont have the faq in here... But open your saturn and look for an orange screw made of rubber or something underneath the cd board... screw it (to the right
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) and lens power will increase... increase it slowly until those cdr's can be read...

Edit: Not "underneath the cd board", I meant underneath the lens... in the middle of the cd board
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Thanks to mal for suggesting the Wayback Machine, the misc section was archived.
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Code:
===========================

How to Modify a Sega Saturn

to Read CD-RW Media

===========================

by RadSil (radsil@crackdealer.com)

Visit SegaXtreme!

[url]http://www.litespeedcomputers.com/sx/[/url]

Best read in Notepad, turn Word Wrap ON

===========================

DISCLAIMER: If you screw something up don't blame me. If you have any reservation at all about doing this, then don't do it. Note that this technique will shorten the life of the laser--not much, but it will. Thank you.

===========================

	Tinkering around with my Saturn one day, I discovered a particularly strange orange screw mounted on the laser unit. Logically, being a tinkerer and part time techie, my first reaction was that the screw controlled the power or intensity of the laser beam. I was struggling in my head to find a use for this (why would it be there?) and was enlightened. I had remembered that CD-RWs required a stronger laser intensity than a typical pressed disc or CD-R.

	Naturally, I whipped out a Philips-head and gave it a 3/4 turn. Now, I needed a game to test... so I burned a copy of the first disc of 'D'. It was close by, so I burnt it. Also, if you are unfamiliar with 'D', it is an FMV game. I also figured that maybe it would be more of a test for the laser because of the data streaming.

	Lo and behold, it worked! Of course, I was excited to say the least. I tried it with different games, and they worked as well.

	So to sum up, here is a nice ordered list of instructions in case you aren't perceptive enough to pick them out of the above text:

	1) Open your Saturn

	2) Turn the unit so that the back is facing you

	3) Locate an *orange* (how could you miss it?) screw on the back of the laser unit

	4) Give it a slight turn (25-30 degrees should do it)

	5) Test with a Saturn game written on CD-RW

	6) Turn the screw left a little and try the disc again

	7) Repeat steps 5 and 6 until you have the minimum amount of power to use a CD-RW

	And there you have it. This mod will come in handy if you want to make Saturn demos/games and don't have a PAR cart and PC card. Maybe in the future I'll write a doc on how to make a proper Saturn ISO, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

===========================

EOF
 
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