Help with my Pc Engine Duo-R!!!!!

[Mospeda]

Hey guys. Constant lurker. But i have finally found a problem i need to address to the much revered people over at digitpress.

I recently purchased a Duo-R off Epay (ugh) to replace the turboduo i stupidly sold during my salad days. I backed up my copies of Dracula-X and Macross 2036 to perserve them. When i first put these copies into the Duo-R they loaded beautifully and played wonderful. However i went to boot the discs today and it pauses at the load street (Hit run button...just a moment). The CD-rs were burned at 40x or so and are genric office depot spin-x discs. I attempted to load another non-copied CD (an audio one) and it loaded with no problem. However the CDs that i had been playing on the same unit before now refuse to play?!?!?!!?

Any suggestions? Unfortunately i lost my original discs in a moving fiasco a few months back so cannot test them. However, i assume since the audio cds play fine, the drive is not the issue. I actually got the Komani logo to show a couple times on dracula-x then nothing.

help! @_@

[Ed Oscuro]

PCE used what one of my forum's members calls a "bitch of a format." That would be Read by Sector, and that means it's very unforgiving of any changes in the placing of data tracks.

However, it looks like your PC-Engine is able to find the data...sometimes. I couldn't tell you exactly what's going on, but you might do well to find a better burning program (this writer, Pitchfork, used Disc Juggler) and try again. You should be able to make it work with plain old MP3s. I hope you didn't burn the music on as an MP3, right? I'd hate to hear what it sounds like in MP3 format.

Oh, and I'm terribly sorry to hear you lost your original Rondo disk o_O

[BenT]

Duo hardware is also notoriously prone to getting flimsy with age, especially when it comes to reading discs. Your Duo unit just might be in bad shape. Test if other (non-pirated) CD games are fine.

[jaydubnb]

Hey guys. Constant lurker. But i have finally found a problem i need to address to the much revered people over at digitpress.

I recently purchased a Duo-R off Epay (ugh) to replace the turboduo i stupidly sold during my salad days. I backed up my copies of Dracula-X and Macross 2036 to perserve them. When i first put these copies into the Duo-R they loaded beautifully and played wonderful. However i went to boot the discs today and it pauses at the load street (Hit run button...just a moment). The CD-rs were burned at 40x or so and are genric office depot spin-x discs. I attempted to load another non-copied CD (an audio one) and it loaded with no problem. However the CDs that i had been playing on the same unit before now refuse to play?!?!?!!?

Any suggestions? Unfortunately i lost my original discs in a moving fiasco a few months back so cannot test them. However, i assume since the audio cds play fine, the drive is not the issue. I actually got the Komani logo to show a couple times on dracula-x then nothing.

help! @_@

Mospeda, I own a Duo-R too and I had a bit of the same problem when I got it. It would boot things when it wanted to in the beginning until I gave it a good cleaning with some compressed air and it never gave me any problems again :) BTW-- I love your username, Mospeada rules! Did you know that the remastered original Mospeda is coming out on DVD for the first time in the US? Awesome, anime :)

[Mospeda]

Thanx for all the help. Well i just got home tonight and fired up my copy of R-Type complete and it worked!! Macross did too. Dracula-x is still giiving me trouble. I'm baffled why they opted to work now. Can you tell me more about the compressed air cleaning? Where you sprayed it, where not to directly spray it? perhaps a better burner is order, i use Fire Burn and up to now have had no problems. Thanks for your advice people.


P.S: Yea i'm aware of the aware of the dvd release of the original genesis climber mospaeda!

[maxlords]

I'd highly recommend burning your CDRs of Duo games at 2X or 4X. I used Nero to burn my Drac X and it works like a charm :) And for those wondering...I have the original too, I just burned it cause it's easier to play the burn than to fiddle around with the more expensive game. I do that for all my $100+ games for Duo, 3D0, and Sega CD, which is to say....not many!

[Ed Oscuro]

...I love it when people don't read my posts!

It's obviously not the Duo, since it can play these other games. Before you mess up your system, I'd suggest you either get a new copy of DX or burn a new copy. Like I said, try Disc Juggler, if you can't find that post again and I'll see if I can't find out the name of some other programs that should work.

[jaydubnb]

Thanx for all the help. Well i just got home tonight and fired up my copy of R-Type complete and it worked!! Macross did too. Dracula-x is still giiving me trouble. I'm baffled why they opted to work now. Can you tell me more about the compressed air cleaning? Where you sprayed it, where not to directly spray it? perhaps a better burner is order, i use Fire Burn and up to now have had no problems. Thanks for your advice people.


P.S: Yea i'm aware of the aware of the dvd release of the original genesis climber mospaeda!

Well, I did NOT spray it directly around the lens area, because that compressed air packs a HUGE punch. I kinda worked around the edges and I guess the sheer force of it blew out areas where I did not directly aim. Hasnt given me a prob since.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yes, it's good to clear that up...but I really don't think that's what the problem is at all. All sorts of people come to my home forums asking why their Rondo, Nocturne or whatever ISOs won't work, and it usually sounds like this.

Don't go messing around with the unit if it's playing other games correctly. I'm quite certain it'll turn out to be the disk.

[hing]

what's the color of your CDR data surface?

In playing CD session, try letting DUO to read the data track (sometimes track number 2) until the end. when it finished, reload the game, see there is any improvement?

yes, i agress the disc should be burn as slow as possible (i.e. 2x) like you burning a PS2 DVD on nero.

[Mospeda]

Once again. Thanks for the input. I am merely boggled why the burns work occasionally (and in Dracula-X's case, not at all) when they all worked perfect the first day i tried them. I'm getting decent results with R-Type and Macross, but Dracula-X refuses to load past the komani logo.

The surface of the CD-rs are standard blue. Granted, they are not of the highest quality (spin-x). but they worked before at the burned 40x speed. I am devoid of any original PCE/TG-16 discs to try (due to that inane moving incident).

What programs and speed or discs do you guys suggest i use in the future? I was using Fire Burn and was told it was relatively decent. Nero doesn't like my Samsung 40x CD-R and refuses to acknowledge it's existence.

Thanks again.

[maxlords]

Then Discjuggler or CloneCD at 2X-4X. I"ve never had a problem burning PCE games, but I've heard a LOT of people have had problems with burning CDRs of Drac X.....no idea why. I use Memorex CDRs and have never had a problem with em going bad.

[zektor]

I remember I once had this problem with a DC backup. Burned at 12X it would glitch, and sometimes not even load. What I did was dump the entire disk to image using Disc Juggler (this is the 12x burned disc I am speaking of) and just re-burned the image at 2x. Worked like a charm. Give it a try, if you can use Disc Juggler it is extremely easy to re-burn your 40x copy at 2 or 4x.

[hing]

PCE CDROM system is very problematic. >:( I own three 1st generation of PCE CDROM players (all japanese version). all well except the first. sometimes i played game without background music (from sound tracks)....i used the method of air-spray cleaning -- since i own an air-compressor with an air-spray gun. It helps increasing the loading speed but still no music occasionally.

if it is really true that player reads CD from sector to sector, i think the problem of mine is motor, but not len.

your problem may be only for the disk. how about using "alcohol 120%"? I find it is good to backup my PS2 DVDs.
For Nero, i use Samsung writer as well, just not sure the model is same as u or not?

FYI:
someone on the yahoo auction is selling a brand new DUO-R....it costs around 325 USD ;) . this auction is held on yahoo HK. i am not sure that guy is willing to send this console to someone interested.

[Ed Oscuro]

Egh, that's a horrible price for a Duo R, if I may say so.

[maxlords]

Yeah...that's VERY VERY steep.

[Ed Oscuro]

Maybe we're just getting old. Last time I checked, a few months ago, you could buy a Duo R from Hong Kong -- so it's not the region -- around $100 cheaper.

You could buy a copy of Rondo for just a little more than you'd save buying another Duo R.