Tutorial: How to create and/or burn a Dreamcast disc in 5 minutes

[Christuserloeser]

This tutorial has three sections:
1 - General Info you should know.
2 - Burning a .CDI with BootDreams
3 - How to create and burn your own DC image with BootDreams


1General Info:

Media:
You'll need CDRs. Best are 80min/700Mbyte. CDRWs and other media are -NOT- supported.

You do -NOT- need a modded DC. About any Dreamcast will work with CDRs. Very, very few won't.


Format:
Standard in Dreamcast software is the DiscJuggler .CDI format. Nero's .NRG format would not work on MAC and LINUX, also any Nero version newer than 5.5 had its problems with the DC format.

Most downloads for Dreamcast come as .ZIP or .RAR files. WinRAR should help you with unzipping/unraring:
http://www.winrar-rog.com/eindex.html



2 Burning a .CDI file with BootDreams:

To burn a *.CDI file, it's recommend to use BootDreams' CDI-burner. BootDreams is VERY easy to use and it's for free:

Download it from here: http://dchelp.dcemulation.org


1. Download BootDreams and install it to e.g. C:/BootDreams/

2. Download the image you'd like to burn and unzip/unrar it somewhere, e.g. to C:/

3. Start BootDreams and choose "CDI Burner". Now click on "Browse" and point BootDreams to the CDI you would like to burn.

4. Click on "Burn CDI Image". That's it.



Other:
Nero Burning ROM isn't recommend for Dreamcast software but Alcohol120% (in TAO mode) works good too. Download the free trial version here:
http://trial.alcohol-soft.com/en/download_120.php



3 How to create and burn your own DC image with BootDreams:

1. Download BootDreams and install it to e.g. C:/BootDreams/

2. Download the emulator/game/app you would like to burn and put it in a dedicated folder, e.g. C:/BootDreams/SNES4ALL/

3. Now unzip/unrar your emulator/game/app into that same folder. The 1ST_READ.BIN contains the actual DC programme.

4. Start BootDreams and point it to C:/BootDreams/SNES4ALL/. It will then guide you trough the process. I recommend the 'CDRecord' method.

[Christuserloeser]

This tutorial has three sections:
1 - General Info you should know.
2 - Burning a .CDI with BootDreams
3 - How to create and burn your own DC image with BootDreams


1General Info:

Media:
You'll need CDRs. Best are 80min/700Mbyte. CDRWs and other media are -NOT- supported.

You do -NOT- need a modded DC. About any Dreamcast will work with CDRs. Very, very few won't.


Format:
Standard in Dreamcast software is the DiscJuggler .CDI format. Nero's .NRG format would not work on MAC and LINUX, also any Nero version newer than 5.5 had its problems with the DC format.

Most downloads for Dreamcast come as .ZIP or .RAR files. WinRAR should help you with unzipping/unraring:
http://www.winrar-rog.com/eindex.html



2 Burning a .CDI file with BootDreams:

To burn a *.CDI file, it's recommend to use BootDreams' CDI-burner. BootDreams is VERY easy to use and it's for free:

Download here: http://dchelp.dcemulation.com/


1. Download BootDreams and install it to e.g. C:/BootDreams/

2. Download the image you'd like to burn and unzip/unrar it somewhere, e.g. to C:/

3. Start BootDreams and choose "CDI Burner". Now click on "Browse" and point BootDreams to the CDI you would like to burn.

4. Click on "Burn CDI Image". That's it.


Other:
Nero Burning ROM isn't recommend for Dreamcast software but Alcohol120% (in TAO mode) works good too. Download the free trial version here:
http://trial.alcohol-soft.com/en/download_120.php



3 How to create and burn your own DC image with BootDreams:

1. Download BootDreams and install it to e.g. C:/BootDreams/

2. Download the emulator/game/app you would like to burn and put it in a dedicated folder, e.g. C:/BootDreams/SNES4ALL/

3. Now unzip/unrar your emulator/game/app into that same folder. The 1ST_READ.BIN contains the actual DC programme.

4. Start BootDreams and point it to C:/BootDreams/SNES4ALL/. It will then guide you trough the process. I recommend the 'CDRecord' method.

[moi]

great tutorial: thumbs up!
should definitelly be added to a FAQ-section!

[Cid Highwind]

Here's a small tutorial on an alternative way to create an emulator disc:

1. Get DCHakker (http://www.dchomebrew.org/dchakker.shtml) and burn it onto a CDr, this will be your emulator/homebrew bootdisc from now on. Personally I suggest getting the discjuggler image over the Nero one.

2. Grab the 'plain files' versions (binaries) of your homebrew games and emulators you want to have on the disc. If zipped, unzip them and rename the 1st_read.bin file to a recognizable 5 letter word, include version number of the emulator as well. Example: S4allv3

3.Make sure you have your roms at hand, putting them on the same disc as the emulator will save you the hassle of switching to a third disc.

4.Open a CD burning app that will allow you to make your own compilations (Nero will do)

5. Important: Make sure you create a multisession disc. If a new version of an emulator will be released, you can add it to this very same disc, so also keep in mind that you will not finalize the disc.

6. Create subfolders for emulators that only take one file, it will keep it more organised. Certain homebrew games have a folder structure of their own so I suggest putting their binaries and folders in the root of the disc.

FYI: Dreamses likes to have its roms in the /roms folder, Nester uses the /games folder by default. Be sure to read readme files of other emulators to find out if they require a certain rom folder.

7. Make sure the 'finalize disc' option is unchecked, then burn your disc.


Now you can pop in your DCHakker disc, wait till it's done loading (you'll know it's done when you see the files of the DCHakker disc in the onscreen browser). Then take out the DCHakker disc and put in your homebrew disc. Point at Rescan, hit A, and you can select the program you want to run.

http://www.consolevision.com/members/fackue/personal/dchakker1s.jpg

PS. I do not know if homebrew games with their own folder structure will work if the whole program is put in a subfolder as shown in the image above, maybe someone can confirm it works?

Fixed your picture. - fackue

[72da9]

1. Create a folder on your hard drive for your emulation disc. I.E. "NES".

2. Place the plain files 1st_READ.BIN & IP.BIN in this folder. If there is no IP.BIN, you can create one by taking an existing ip.bin file and using dx-ip4win08b to edit the ip.bin file to locate the 1st_read.bin file. This creates the selfboot portion of the disc.

3. Make a roms sub directory for the roms. Typical rule is to max out at 128 roms per directory.

4. I use a program called Selfboot. Once this program is opened up, locate your directory. I.E. "NES". Then in the window option I click on the choice to make a *.cdi image for discjuggler. Then click on the *.cdi button to create your *.cdi image with this program. It takes a bit to make the image. When done the image will be located in the Selfboot directory. Usually called "image.cdi" or your directory's name. I.E. "NES.CDI"

5. I use discjuggler v3.5 to burn the created image to disc. That's it, error free and easy to do.

[Christuserloeser]

Udated the links.

[milksheik]

In case anyone is interested, I have written a script that can burn most CDI images on Linux. It is based on cdirip 0.6.3 and cdrecord (I use version Cdrecord-Clone 2.01.01a04).

To use the script, just type "burndc-cdi {name-of-CDI-image}" in a shell. You may have to adjust the device specification for the burner in the script. To find the ID of your burner, try

cdrecord dev=ATA -scanbus or

cdrecord -scanbus

The script is attached. Save it to a file, remove the ".txt" and make it executable.

Use at your own risk ;)

[fackue]

Does it work? It seems like you're burning the second session as multiseesion. I'd like to see some possible input on there, like for example displaying the drive IDs then asking for their's, CD label and burn speed.

[milksheik]

It worked for me for about 5 out of 6 cdis I tried. I'm too lazy to add more comfort, but I would definitely like to hear any ideas about how to increase the success ratio :)

[fackue]

I would (and this is how BootDreams works) check if a audio file exists after ripping the image, if it does you burn the audio with multisession on, then burn the data session with it off. If it doesn't, burn the first data session with multisession on, then burn the second data session with multisession off.

The image mostly likely that didn't work for you was audio/data.

[milksheik]

So basically you say, burn the last session with mulitsession off, correct? Would it have the same effect when I just put "cdrecord -fix" at the end of everything?

I'll play with these options next time I encounter an image that doesn't work.

[fackue]

CDRecord -fix wouldn't do anything.

The image you burned before was probably a audio\data CD. This (http://www.bucanero.com.ar/descargas.php?id_descarga=27&id_categoria_descarga=3) CD image is audio\data.

[milksheik]

I just tried Scenedicate #1 (http://www.dreamcast-scene.com/index.php/DE/Scenedicate#download) and it burned fine. It seems to be an audio/data image:


Session 1 has 1 track(s)
Creating cuesheet...
Saving Track: 1 Type: Audio/2352 Size: 375 LBA: 0 [cut: 2]

Session 2 has 1 track(s)
Saving Track: 2 Type: Mode2/2336 Size: 44212 LBA: 11775 [cut: 2] [ISO]

Session 3 has 0 track(s)
Open session

All done!

[fackue]

Great! I'll post this on my website!

Quick question - what is the extension supposed to be, sh? I'm not too savy with Linux.

[milksheik]

It will work with any suffix you want, even *.jpg :p

But when you have an executable shell script you normally name it *.sh or with no extension at all. More important is to make it executable (chmod a+x {filename}).

[Christuserloeser]

Fixed the links for downloading BootDreams (URL has changed).

[Christuserloeser]

Fixed the links for downloading BootDreams (URL has changed).

[kingbuzzo]

In case anyone is interested, I have written a script that can burn most CDI images on Linux. It is based on cdirip 0.6.3 and cdrecord (I use version Cdrecord-Clone 2.01.01a04).

To use the script, just type "burndc-cdi {name-of-CDI-image}" in a shell. You may have to adjust the device specification for the burner in the script. To find the ID of your burner, try

cdrecord dev=ATA -scanbus or

cdrecord -scanbus

The script is attached. Save it to a file, remove the ".txt" and make it executable.

Use at your own risk ;)


I've tried this method in suse 10.1 and got the following output


linux-kb7l:/home/jason/Desktop # ./burndc-cdi bor.cdi
./burndc-cdi: line 6: cdirip: command not found

what am I missing?

thanks,

King.

[fackue]

Looks like you're missing cdirip. You can grab I from http://cdirip.cjb.net I believe (the linux version).

[milksheik]

Looks like you're missing cdirip. You can grab I from http://cdirip.cjb.net I believe (the linux version).
Yes. The latest version 0.6.3 however is only available at SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=108825). It is very easy to compile.

[fackue]

Thanks!

[RockmanHalo]

Can someone help me one-on-one?

IM: Mechdude77

[crackkills]

cool thnx

[malushi88]

I attempted to burn a homebrew disc but I could not find 1st_Read.BIN. I downloaded something and tried several combinations but i could never get it to work. could someone help me out? Am i missing files or something?

IM:burdman145

[Darksaviour69]

what where you trying to burn, where there any .bin files?

[Mr. Shizzy]

I'm from the PSP section of this site. But I do own a dreamcast, so I'll give this a shot. Thanks for the info. :)

[milksheik]

Someone contacted me via ICQ Page about the Linux burn script. I missed your name, please PM me with your ICQ number and I'll see if I can help.

[chrono75]

Hey man, I have a bunch of BLACK 700MB CDRs, will they work when it comes to burnig DreamSNES on a disc and getting the Dreamcast to read it?

[Darksaviour69]

only one way to find out ;)

[chrono75]

I did everything you wrote to the T and still, my Dreamcast didn't boot DreamSNES. Man, I have been trying to do this for at least two years now and I'm still not having any damn luck. Do you know what I might be doing wrong or maybe I HAVE to use 800MB CDs? If so, and if it's gonna work then I'm just gonna have to go out and get some 800MB CDRs. Could there be any other problems?

[Darksaviour69]

try burning a image from http://www.dcevolution.net/

[chrono75]

There goes 4 perfectly good CDRs...
This is just not workin for me. I can't get my Dreamcast to read any type of homebrew discs. I'm not sure what's wrong and it's pissing me off :(
Can someone point me in the direction of another good, DETAILED guide?
You see, what I'm trying to accomplish is an emulated SNES in my car. You see, I have a new 7inch TFT LCD visor TV and I have already played a gamecube in my car with blasting sound, now, I think it would be sweet to have a bunch of SNES games playable.

[fackue]

http://www.dcemulation.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=68460

[Darksaviour69]

hmm if you can't get a image from dcevo working maybe your dc can't run homebrew

check this guide
http://consolevision.com/?Dreamcast:Information:Buying_a_system

[chrono75]

I thought about that and pray that it's not one of those few DCs that can't. But, I did get mine a little later in the DC years... I'll check you guys' posts and look of the info and downloads. Thanks a bunch!

[Christuserloeser]

Links updated.

[The_It]

I tried using dcstella. it loaded a picture with atari 2600 onto the screen, and the atari logo onto the memory card, but nothing else. does that mean my dreamcast is capable of homebrew and Im just not doing it right? I got it at the GoodWill so i don't know when it was made.

[Christuserloeser]

does that mean my dreamcast is capable of homebrew and Im just not doing it right?

Yes.


I got it at the GoodWill so i don't know when it was made.

Doing your own emu discs is fun I heard... ;)

[Christuserloeser]

Updated the links.

[blackpuma]

Issues I came across trying to burn a Data/Data cdi image from DCEvo on a Debian (Ubuntu 7.10):

- cdirip source found at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdimagetools/

- cdrecord should be ran as root process

- cdrecord was interrupted by nautilus-cd-burner deamon or/and other automount auto[action] utilities.
(so I had to finaly remove this software).

- cdrecord versions significantly vary in flags so one must search the man pages to make sure "mode 2 form 1 with data size *2048" is selected.
man cdrecord and go to section TRACK OPTIONS

a more right sequence of command for data/data images should be:

cdirip <cdi-image> -cdrecord
[generates "tdata01.iso" (data) and "tdata02.iso" (bootstrap)]

sudo cdrecord dev=1,0,0 speed=4 driveropts=burnfree -tao -multi tdata01.iso
sudo cdrecord dev=1,0,0 speed=4 driveropts=burnfree -tao -xa tdata02.iso

(-multi and -xa define the correct mode in Cdrecord-ProDVD-ProBD-Clone 2.01.01a33.
Also, -xa alone fixates the disc.)

[livingston]

Is there any software for burning these disk images for Mac?

[JKKDARK]

Is there any software for burning these disk images for Mac?

http://dreamcast.dcemu.co.uk/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,69

[livingston]

Thanks. I downloaded a game, but the only files included are a .mdf and a .mds. Dream Tool doesn't seem to know what to do with these. Any ideas?

[MrTeressaBond]

Hi, i am wanting to burn the latest version of Yabause, but i dont really know how to do it.

also, i have even tried and i used the wrong files from another emulator to burn it using BootDreams, thus no game wont boot up.

can someone help me here?

[Christuserloeser]

Do you have burned other Dreamcast homebrew before ? The only difference with Yabause DC is that you will need to add the Saturn BIOS.

Please remember that Yabause DC is a work-in-progress emulator that still runs too slow to actually play and enjoy games so the current version of Yabause probably might not be of any real value to you.

[MrTeressaBond]

thats alright with me, i just want to try and see how it looks like thas all, and i can already assume it is near stable emulation from the revision version.

and no, i havent burned DC Homebrew, expect for PCSXDC, which took me awhile to discover how to do so.

and i do have the saturn bios, but can someone tell me how to do it exactly?

[Christuserloeser]

- Like I said, you burn it like all other plain files disrtibutions:


3 How to create and burn your own DC image with BootDreams:

1. Download BootDreams and install it to e.g. C:/BootDreams/

2. Download the emulator/game/app you would like to burn and put it in a dedicated folder, e.g. C:/BootDreams/SNES4ALL/

3. Now unzip/unrar your emulator/game/app into that same folder. The 1ST_READ.BIN contains the actual DC program.

4. Start BootDreams and point it to C:/BootDreams/SNES4ALL/. It will then guide you trough the process. I recommend the 'CDRecord' method.

The Saturn BIOS goes in the same folder to where you extracted the emulator's plain files.

You will need to rename it to 'saturn.bin' like it says in the readme:

C:/BootDreams/Yabause/saturn.bin




and no, i havent burned DC Homebrew, expect for PCSXDC

PSCXDC is pretty slow and discontinued.


If you haven't burned any homebrew yet, I recommend to start with the CDIs we host at DCEvolution. Here are temporary links to our releases:

http://dreamzoneboards.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1200314757

You can burn CDIs with BootDreams' internal CDI burner, Alcohol120% or DiscJuggler.

[MrTeressaBond]

very much aware of that, butit had alot of potential, i think someone should carry on with it (PCSXDC).

also, where do i get the 1ST_READ.BIN and it also asks me for IP.bin.

[Christuserloeser]

From SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading.php?group_id=89991&use_mirror=kent&filename=yabause-0.9.3-dc.tar.gz&30481142

Regarding PCSXDC: There's bleem!cast and there's the PSX4All project ...

[MrTeressaBond]

Regarding PCSXDC: There's bleem!cast and there's the PSX4All project ...

ohh hohoho, i already have Bleemcast (GT2, Tekken 3) and they are great stuff, also i have the Thrill Kill and Time Crisis, however, these were built upon a beta, tus making them very buggy. i even asked which beta is this and is it possible to make amends to it so it can literally play the game perfectly?

and from your link, it just downloads me Yabause DC (which i already have) and there is no 1ST_READ.BIN and IP.Bin.

[fackue]

yabause.bin is the 1ST_READ.BIN -- it's just unscrambled.

BootDreams does everything else for you so just add the bios and point BootDreams to the folder.

[MrTeressaBond]

ohh i see, so where do i get the IP.BIN then?

also, because u said it was unscrambled, so i basically rename the file to 1ST_READ.BIN from yabause.bin?

[Christuserloeser]

You can do that, yes. Also, BootDreams will create an IP.BIN for you based on the name of the program (so either "yabause.bin" or 1st_read.bin" should work).

[fackue]

ohh i see, so where do i get the IP.BIN then?

also, because u said it was unscrambled, so i basically rename the file to 1ST_READ.BIN from yabause.bin?

If it's unscrambled BootDreams will scramble it and rename it to 1ST_READ.BIN -- no need to rename it yourself.

BootDreams will also make the IP.BIN.

[MrTeressaBond]

well i remember when i did it, it did ask me for a 1ST_READ.BIN

[fackue]

well i remember when i did it, it did ask me for a 1ST_READ.BIN
Make sure to select yabause.bin when you select the main binary.

[vasili]

Think links need updating again :D

[fackue]

Done.

[Japhle]

So all I have to do is use a .cdi and use "burn Cdi" and then I can play games which were burned?

[Christuserloeser]

That is correct, although it might not work with (some?) commercial games.

BootDreams was meant to work with homebrew, not backups.

[thebib62]

Many thanks, been looking for a tut for a long time!

[vo_danh]

I am particularly interested in:
"3 How to create and burn your own DC image with BootDreams:"

I am trying to burn a CD of dreamSNES to play some roms. When im ready to create the image from bootdreams it asks for the main binary file, I am assuming this is the 1st_READ.BIN?

I do not fully understand the 1st_READ.BIN. When I tried to look for one to download, all i get are information how to see the 1st_READ.BIN for certain games etc and how to generate one etc, I can't find a solid download for one for my purpose, or know if mine is supposed to be just a blank file. A previous user listed one but turns out the yabasuse is for emulating the Sega Saturn. I have tried looking it up but have finally resorted to asking. Where can I dl this or where can i find info on how to generate the 1st_READ.BIN for my purpose on a windows machine. (the ones i've found and also the cdrtools package seems to be unix programs)

Also; are there any ISO programs that can open an existing CDI image of such distributed cds (emulator cds with roms in them) that us noobs can simply open, change the image by simply changing the roms we want to play, and either burning it directly or repacking the cdi and burning it, essentially leaving all other structures and needed files intact? PowerISO sure can't.

[Darksaviour69]

http://dreamcast.dcemu.co.uk/dreamsnes.php

download the binary from that page, that is the file you need for dreamsnes

[b11hitman]

interesting but what about games over 700mb

[VampDude]

interesting but what about games over 700mb

800MB CD's.

[raiannon]

I have been trying to burn SNES4all for my SC for the past two days, after putting it back in storage for a year or so since my last attempts. To start, I know that my system works with emulators because it was purchased with Nestor's DC, which is the only reason I get it out now. I love my old school nintendo. :)

But I find myself surrounded by shiny coasters now, and I feel that I've tried just about everything. I can't find a version of DiscJuggler that will install on Windows 7 x64 (as soon as the installer starts, it tells me to reboot without doing anything).

Programs I've tried:
Alcohol 120 (Doesn't support my dvd/cd burner, so I can't write below 10x)
CloneCD using mounted cdi file
BootDreams using Plain Files
BootDreams using cdi file
Nero 11 (out of desperation)


The closest I got was when I burned the plain files using BootDreams. It loaded up the main image and the config screen, but there were no games. Burning cdis with audio/data and putting them in the dreamcast results in it trying to play the audio file and ignoring the rest.

Nester DC is all on one disc, and snes4all shows that it's supposed to be. Can anyone help me figure this out without having to swap CDs before I lose all my hair?

Thanks.

[davidlowrance48]

Hello guys, I'm new on it and wanting to burn the latest version of yabause, but I don't really know how to do it.

Also, I have even tried and used the wrong files from another emulator to burn it using Boot Dreams, thus no game won't boot up.

Somebody help me there


. (http://www.articletrader.com/health/maxburn.html?preview=1)