Super Magic Drive fails to load games [Archive]

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Wai

03-09-2008, 06:29 AM

I have a Super Magic Drive to play my Sega Genesis games. It was working fine until yesterday. While I was playing Ecco the Dolphin, the screen froze. I thought it was nothing, so I turned everything off and went back to doing my homework (I had been playing for about two hours). Today, I tried playing again. The Super Magic Drive seemed to have no problems reading and detecting the files on the floppy disk. However, once the countdown was complete, the TV simply showed a blank, black screen. The game did not load.

Here's some more details:
- I don't think it's the Genesis itself, because it has no problems playing cartridges without the Super Magic Drive.
- The TV is funtioning properly and play normal channels as per usual.
- The Super Magic Drive failed to play any floppy disk I put in it, so it shouldn't be any of the floppy disk's fault.

Can some please guide me through fixing the Super Magic Drive? We bought it fresh from a store over a decade ago. If it was really dead, shouldn't it fail to even read the floppy disks?

I found this forum on Google after trying to seek help for the Super Magic Drive. I came across a thread regarding the memory of the Super Magic Drive, and something about it being full or faulty. Could my problem be related to that? Here's a link to the thread I found, but we don't have the same problem: http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=96276

Any help will be greatly appreciated. I really hope my Super Magic Drive can be fixed.

Blitzwing256

03-09-2008, 04:37 PM

Try switching out the floppy drive with a new one, it may have croaked.

Wai

03-09-2008, 07:56 PM

But what could have gone wrong with the floppy drive? Did something come loose? Aren't those floppy drives pretty much non-existant today?

InsaneDavid

03-10-2008, 01:13 AM

But what could have gone wrong with the floppy drive? Did something come loose? Aren't those floppy drives pretty much non-existant today?

Considering that a floppy drive is a bunch of moving parts they're known to wear out and fail eventually. All things will sooner or later wear out beyond repair - video games, electronics, and yes - even ourselves.

Floppy drives are still easy to find whether new, old leftovers you may have, pulls from dead systems, flea markets, etc. The trick with most of these copiers is some of them require drives that can have their jumpers set a specific way. I don't know much about the SMD but search Google, I'm sure someone has ran down what the specifics are if it requires a non-standard jumper setting.

Wai

03-10-2008, 06:17 AM

An update from me:

I managed to single out the SMD800 itself as being the problem. The Genesis is fine, since it can play cartridges. I tried playing the Sonic 3 cartridge with the SMD800 attached, but it failed to work (which strongly suggests that the floppy drive is fine).

Strange enough, after securing some of the cables and plugs to the Genesis and blowing some dust off, the SMD800 occasionally managed to play some games. The simple ones tended to load fine, but the ones with more detailed or complex graphics (such as Ecco the Dolphin) would have some glitches (like running into imaginary barriers and getting stuck in walls). Otherwise, the games failed to load.

JLukas

03-10-2008, 06:34 AM

Possible problems

Dirty cart contacts between game and SMD
Game is not compatible with SMD
Floppy disk has bad sectors/game image is damaged (load the disk in your PC and test on an emulator - does it have the same problems there?)
Floppy drive hardware problem

tag274

03-11-2008, 07:12 PM

Could Be Any Of

Dirty Cart
Bust system
Fault Floppy Drive

Hope it works ;)

Pete Rittwage

03-11-2008, 09:32 PM

It sounds like the memory has gone bad if the games load but don't play. Also, I think when you play a game "through" the unit, it actually copies it to RAM and plays from there, so that'd be why that doesn't work either.

I'm sure the memory can be replaced, but it's surely surface-mounted and won't be fun to work on.

Wai

03-12-2008, 01:14 AM

I think the battery of the SMD800 has gone flat. What can I replace it with? All my games are stored in floppy disks, so if I replace the battery, will it affect anything? Most of the games I play use passwords, so they should be fine (I don't really care about top score records and most other things that require memory).

beyre83

11-25-2008, 05:41 AM

Just jumping on the band wagon here

i have a weird issue with my super magic drive (SMD-800 24M)

if i plug a cart direct to the megadrive game works fine (Colours Correctly Displayed on PAL CRT TV)

if i plug a cart into the smd (have a 2" bar at the top of the screen thats a diffrent colour to the rest of the game, this is really annoying now ive possibully ruled out the smd, since it does not do this when on my brothers md / tv i since borrowed his md, and it still does it on my tv) same applys if you send a game to the smd via parallel port, so one could assume its picking up interferance, the only thing i could sujest is that the megadrive power bricks are close to the telly. prehaps this is causeing the problem. but haveing said that wouldnt that cause it to happen with cart pluged direct? no sure will have to check

yours faithfully

Ben

p.s either that or my lcd / pc could be causeing problems with rf interferance, will have to try that, and let you know

if you have had / heard of this problem before let me know any advice much apperciated

Cauterize

11-25-2008, 05:58 AM

Wai

11-25-2008, 06:18 AM

One of the wires in my SMD800 has been disconnected by the acid leakage from the battery. I haven't updated the thread because I finally realised what the problem was.

beyre83

11-25-2008, 06:24 AM

Seeing as it was my original post you found, I feel I should give you a hand on this!

The times I use my Super Magic Drive, I only ever send ROMs via a Parallel Port Cable from my PC. As you have experienced, the floppy drives are too tempramental. A few of my other Disk Drives for SNES no longer work either.
Sending Roms via the PC is so much easier, takes up less space and overall is a hell of a lot faster!

I ended up getting the 24M Version of the Super Magic Drive with the built in disk drive, the one that supports the Street Fighter II games. But its floppy drive isnt much better.

The green bar mentioned seems to be on most of my Disk Drive units too. I think there is some interference from the Floppy Drive, some magnetical interference?

Your money is better invested in a Tototek MD-Pro Flash Cart!

i have a 24M version but dosnt have integral disk drive the diskdrive is a stand alone unit which i didnt get one

here is screen shot of the game cart in the supermagic drive, unit not even connected to the pc but please note this does not happen on my brothers pal crt tv, just mine

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj134/beneyre/DSCF0197-1.jpg

Now is a picture of the cart direct in the megadrive, no interferance

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj134/beneyre/DSCF0209.jpg

so i dont think its the smd-800 at fault, since this error does not occure on my brothers tv, just mine so am at a total loss

Ben

p.s i have a ToToTek 64M MD-PRO Flash Cart :) the main reason for getting the unit, was the fact that i can dump my legaly owned carts. easyer, than the mike pavone's cable system, whilst i have built a working cable, i had to kinda distroy a md1 for it to work, ie the caseing and disconnecting pin b32 permnantly such as it wont boot the games anymore, but i have pleanty of other megadrive 1's and 2's so it dosnt really matter, but its still a pain, and dos sucks :-p

Cauterize

11-26-2008, 05:26 PM

Hmmm the green bars are a mystery to me... Seems to effect alot of backup units!
But you say that it doesnt happen on your brothers TV? *interesting*
I shall try one of my units on another TV and see what happens!