PS1 discs showing up as CDs...

[josekortez]

I bought a copy of Loaded for PS1 today. Every time I put it into my PS2 after turning the system on, it shows up as a CD. After a few tries, it might show up as a game. I cleaned the disc and it's still happening.

What's causing this confusion, and has it happened to anyone else before?

[brykasch]

Well I would check and see if you have any of the special ps1 settings turned on, if so turn em off. Otherwise some ps2's don't read certain games. I had it happen on one (can't remember) but it could be a bad disc too.

[The Unknown Gamer]

Other possibility...you could of bought a pirated disc, no joke I bought Gex 3 from Blockbuster used and 3 days later the same thing happend to me. According to what I heard, especially on the news this happens with pirated discs, once the game system figures out it is. The disc won't read I had to find a mod chip/gameshark that I could plug into my PS1 in order to play the game.

[brykasch]

Not to make anyone look stupid. But I highly doubt you got a pirated copy from blockbuster. Did it have a bottom that wasn't black? What did the disc look like. Its hard to get a good pirated copy let alone one from a retail place. And a game system never eventually recognizes its a pirate disc, it either doesn't play it (on systems with no mod ), or will depending on the mod, some need patching to get them to work with certain mods etc, which is why you buy the darn game. Too much hassle dealing with bootleg stuff.

[josekortez]

Loaded isn't a bootleg. I've noticed now that when I put it in before turning the system on, it starts up just fine. Maybe since it's a longbox game, the PS2 tray confuses the hell out of the game. Like female logic does to me. O_O

[Flack]

Other possibility...you could of bought a pirated disc, no joke I bought Gex 3 from Blockbuster used and 3 days later the same thing happend to me. According to what I heard, especially on the news this happens with pirated discs, once the game system figures out it is. The disc won't read I had to find a mod chip/gameshark that I could plug into my PS1 in order to play the game.

I don't know why your game quit working, but it's not because your game system "figured out it was a bootleg." Consoles don't think. In the case of the Playstation, the system performs a region check on your game whenever you turn it on. That region check exists on the CD in the boot sector. A conventional CD burner cannot duplicate that boot sector. This is why copied PSX games do not work on unmodified Playstations. The Playstation checks the disc to make sure the game is from the right region (that's why JAP/PAL discs won't work either). For example, on a US Playstation, it will check the disc and make sure it's a US game. If you put in a JAP game, then it won't load. That's where the mod chip comes in. The mod chip returns the answer "Yup! It's right right region!" no matter what is inserted. If you put in a JAP disc it'll say, "Yup!" and boot it. If you put in a PAL game it'll say "Yup!" and it'll boot it. If you put a little tiny frozen pizza in there it won't know what the hell to do, but it'll still try to boot it because the game thinks it's the right region. So when you copy a PSX game it basically has no regional code, and every original Playstation will refuse to load it. However, a modified one says "Yup!" and will boot it right up.

So if your Playstation booted a game on the first day it should have kept booting it. There's no way for that regional boot code to "go away" after a few days, nor is it possible for your console to "figure out" that it was a copy several days later.

I wrote a much more in depth article for 2600 (The Hacker's Quarterly) a few years ago on mod chips, but this is the gist of it.

[SoulBlazer]

What's the easiest way to play copied PS1 and PS2 games on your PS2? I have a friend who has offered me dozens of games to play to try out, and I'd like to do it to save money, but I know I'd need to mod my PS2. Or would a GameShark work?

[brykasch]

I don't wand to sound harsh, but don't touch pirated discs. I knwo it sounds preachy, but in our industry there are ways to try things without plunking down 50 big ones. Rent from blockbuster or gamefly for one, or get a opm disc, whatever you need to do. Back in the day I had about 300 psx discs and almost every dc release, and I realized, I am never going to play half of these games, basically they were making me lose my love for the games. And once I had my daughter I knew I had to get rid of em, what kind of role model could i be with that stuff around, so I eventually purchased all the psx games and dc games I really wanted and gave the copies away, and I have felt much better since, as a future game designer, I couldn't sit and do something to take money out of a designer's pocket. And to answer any other questions, yes all my software, mp3's and movies are all legal:) Which really took some patience to do. If you invest money in something you have more of a tendency to get the maximum enjoyment out of soemthing. not to mention the wear and tear cdr's do to your systems, and the mess of mod's and patching ugg, only the dc got it right.

[SoulBlazer]

Believe me, I rent games a lot also, but there's some games I just can't FIND at my local video stores (Blockbusters and Hollywood) and would like to try then spending $40 on a used copy. :)