Hacking Homebrew GCN Problems with gamecube burned disks

[Ash05]

I have a problem with burned disks on my gamecube. I burn them correctly with the lowest speed, but they do not seem to work. I run them with swiss, as my gamecube is modded with the sd2sp2, It does not have a chip. All burned disks except Pokemon gale of darkness pop an error. I did the pot tweak correctly too, as the gamecube reads the disks. I do not know what I am doing wrong. Any help?

 

[Shadow#1]

I have a problem with burned disks on my gamecube. I burn them correctly with the lowest speed, but they do not seem to work. I run them with swiss, as my gamecube is modded with the sd2sp2, It does not have a chip. All burned disks except Pokemon gale of darkness pop an error. I did the pot tweak correctly too, as the gamecube reads the disks. I do not know what I am doing wrong. Any help?

Forget burning disks anymore and load them off the sd2sp2

 

[Ash05]

Forget burning disks anymore and load them off the sd2sp2

I just like to have the mini DVDs. The problema is that I'm using the sd2sp2?

 

[SylverReZ]

Forget burning disks anymore and load them off the sd2sp2

People still like to use discs, its their own preference for playing games if they cannot afford any additions.

 

[Ash05]

I have a problem with burned disks on my gamecube. I burn them correctly with the lowest speed, but they do not seem to work. I run them with swiss, as my gamecube is modded with the sd2sp2, It does not have a chip. All burned disks except Pokemon gale of darkness pop an error. I did the pot tweak correctly too, as the gamecube reads the disks. I do not know what I am doing wrong. Any help?

I just figured out that for some reason the disk reader stops after some time. Does anyone know what this is happening?

 

[SylverReZ]

I just figured out that for some reason the disk reader stops after some time. Does anyone know what this is happening?

The laser could be fried for when you've messed with the laser pot too much. You should always measure the current from the pot trim as you're adjusting it slightly to get a correct adjustment. The second reasoning could be that you're using cheap DVD media, best to use high-quality media from notable brands like Sony, TDK, amongst those names.

 

[Ash05]

The laser could be fried for when you've messed with the laser pot too much. You should always measure the current from the pot trim as you're adjusting it slightly to get a correct adjustment. The second reasoning could be that you're using cheap DVD media, best to use high-quality media from notable brands like Sony, TDK, amongst those names.

Well, the gamecube reads perfectly the original games, so I think I did the pot tweak well, and It also reads the burned DVDs, but when I load them, an error occurres. But on the other hand, my mini DVDs are maybe the cheapest ones, so maybe that is why It does not read them properly.

 

[SylverReZ]

my mini DVDs are maybe the cheapest ones, so maybe that is why It does not read them properly.

Yeah. That might be why.

 

[Ash05]

Well, the gamecube reads perfectly the original games, so I think I did the pot tweak well, and It also reads the burned DVDs, but when I load them, an error occurres. But on the other hand, my mini DVDs are maybe the cheapest ones, so maybe that is why It does not read them properly.

And I did the tweak using a multimeter, so I do not think It IS because of the laser.

 

[Tomato123]

Usually it's either the pot being set wrong or bad quality discs. If you are certain the pot is correct then yeah, bad quality discs. I ran into that issue before as no burnt game would work but switched to better discs and then no problems at all afterwards.

 

[Ash05]

Yeah. That might be why.

It could be, do you have an Amazon link to good mini DVDs?

Post automatically merged: May 12, 2023

Usually it's either the pot being set wrong or bad quality discs. If you are certain the pot is correct then yeah, bad quality discs. I ran into that issue before as no burnt game would work but switched to better discs and then no problems at all afterwards.

Yeah, maybe It is beacuse of that, but as I said, one of them works, I don't know why.

Post automatically merged: May 12, 2023

It could be, do you have an Amazon link to good mini DVDs?

Post automatically merged: May 12, 2023

Yeah, maybe It is beacuse of that, but as I said, one of them works, I don't know why.

Also I set the laser to 140 more por less ohms, is that correct or too low?

 

[SylverReZ]

It could be, do you have an Amazon link to good mini DVDs?

eBay will be your best bet.

 

[Tomato123]

Yeah, maybe It is beacuse of that, but as I said, one of them works, I don't know why.

Also I set the laser to 140 more por less ohms, is that correct or too low?

Lower quality discs are sometimes pretty inconsistent. Some will be fine while others will have bad sectors. And for the laser pot, you need to play around with it to see what works for you as it depends on your laser specifically.

 

[Ash05]

Lower quality discs are sometimes pretty inconsistent. Some will be fine while others will have bad sectors. And for the laser pot, you need to play around with it to see what works for you as it depends on your laser specifically.

Yeah, I have played with It a lot, as I test It a lot of times because the DVDs didn't work.

Post automatically merged: May 12, 2023

Yeah, I have played with It a lot, as I test It a lot of times because the DVDs didn't work.

I Will buy good disks and try with them

 

[Tomato123]

Yeah, I have played with It a lot, as I test It a lot of times because the DVDs didn't work.

Test it with the known good discs instead of trying to calibrate it based on the potentially bad ones.

Also worth noting that 140 means you likely have a DOL-101 model as those were shipped with between 150-250. So anywhere between 150-250 should be entirely safe while under that means the laser is going to be stronger than usual and might not last as long. It's only really good to run it like that if it can't read discs at all and you have no choice but to lower it. It's probably safe to use values of slightly lower but when you're going outside of the range of what the manufacturer set it to then anything could happen.

 

[toxic9]

The best brand, in my opinion, is Memorex mini DVD-R. Most of the times they work for me at 1st try.

The laser must be in good condition, and adjusted for DVD-R, of course.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Avoid burning discs with slim line drives, especially external USB drives without own power supply. Never had any luck with such a drive creating a working GC backup.
Use a good quality and fullsized writer/reader.

Check your burned DVD-R for Pi errors (sadly not supported by most drives). Even if a PC drive can read a disc at full speed, garbage console drives may struggle. Number of Pi errors is one indication for good/bad burns.

 

[Ash05]

Test it with the known good discs instead of trying to calibrate it based on the potentially bad ones.

Also worth noting that 140 means you likely have a DOL-101 model as those were shipped with between 150-250. So anywhere between 150-250 should be entirely safe while under that means the laser is going to be stronger than usual and might not last as long. It's only really good to run it like that if it can't read discs at all and you have no choice but to lower it. It's probably safe to use values of slightly lower but when you're going outside of the range of what the manufacturer set it to then anything could happen.

I just realized none of my games work, except from the original ones. The disk reader works fine, it detects the mini-dvds but soon the game stops working and the reader stops spinning the disk.

Post automatically merged: May 12, 2023

 

[Tomato123]

I just realized none of my games work, except from the original ones. The disk reader works fine, it detects the mini-dvds but soon the game stops working and the reader stops spinning the disk.

Post automatically merged: May 12, 2023

How far do they get? Are you able to see the game being detected (able to see the name/image) and try to boot or are you not even getting that far?

 

[KleinesSinchen]

*Sigh*
Alright. I'm back at my main computer and can fully answer now.

I just realized none of my games work, except from the original ones. The disk reader works fine, it detects the mini-dvds but soon the game stops working and the reader stops spinning the disk.

Really: Please test the burn quality. Especially for DVD there are huge differences when comparing writers and blanks, as well as the question if a writer "likes" certain blanks or not.
When talking about recordable optical discs nowadays, answers like this are guaranteed to pop up:

Forget burning disks anymore and load them off the sd2sp2

It is true that the optical disc technology comes with huge problems and limitations and using other methods nowadays is superior (and I would generally advise to use other methods of game loading in practice over wearing down aging optical drives). That doesn't mean that optical discs don't work at all. Some trial and error might be required.
For GC you can often find the advise to look for RITEK-G04 media, as the GC seems to like the dark dye. They are out of production since… eternity… and there is no guarantee for them to simply work out of the box under all circumstances. In other context, not GameCube, you can often find statements that RITEK media are very low quality.

I took two RITEK-G04 mini DVD-R and burned two copies of Pokémon Box with two different writers. DVD-R from the same batch.

The first one was recorded with some external drive. Could as well have been "Amazon's Choice for DVD Burner" a few months ago when I ordered this – to have one external drive for the case I have to deal with modern laptops and need DVD access. Recorders leave their name on the disc.


The second one is a full-sized Lite-On drive promising real time adjustment of writing strategy for good burns on unknown and poor blank media.


Now have a look at the scan results when checking the burn quality. The external drive delivered a garbage recording. (Lower left corner shows the total errors). This external thing clearly had no idea how to properly handle the medium. Next to incompatible to these blanks. The worst part at the beginning might be still recorded in CAV mode which needs on-the-fly adjustments to the writing strategy.
This is an extreme case of bad burn quality. I've rarely encountered something like this:


The big Lite-On drive seems to do as the bold claims in the adverting says: Almost no Pi failures and a lot less Pi Errors (note the different scale on the upper graph reaching only to 100 compared to over 1000). The result is not overwhelming quality, but acceptable



Despite this obvious difference in quality… the PC reading drive doesn't hesitate or struggle or complain. Both DVDs are read full speed (which is reduced for the mini DVD-R in the media description compared to proper 12cm DVDs). No problems. This horrible amount of errors is well within the capabilities of the error correction. Imgburn "Verify after burning" reported success for the bad burn (factually correct, since the PC drives can read everything and correct the mass of errors).

Can you guess how the GameCube with XenoGC clone reacts to the two copies?

• The bad copy isn't even there → "No disc inserted"
• The good copy starts like an original

Those RITEK-G04 might be too old by now, with unknown storage conditions. But with a good writer they are still usable.
Try finding a combination of writer and DVD-R that work together well. Not every writer can handle all media alike. Be prepared to experiment when burning discs for consoles. The GameCube is among the most picky consoles.