Can using the wrong discs wreck your DC?

Hi, I'm new here. I found this forum because my DC seems to have just died.

Yesterday it worked great. Today I downloaded, burned, and tested three discs from the internet. Sega GT worked. Sega Smash Pack worked. And Maim4All did not work.

Then my daughter wanted to play Sonic Adventure (original disc). She played for a few minutes and then entered central station. The screen went black. I've tried a couple other original games. The DC will go to the screen where you can select game, CD, settings, etc. If you select the controller icon to play the game it spins the disc and then brings you back to the selection screen.

It has never done this before. Anyone know what might be going on?

Using badly made backups can certainly harm the system by making the laser do excess work, however the likelihood that one day's worth of use would have done that much damage is... well, slim to none.

Likely one of two things are the case:

1) Your Dreamcast's laser just needs to be cleaned -- go out and buy a laser cleaning disc and use it, they actually work.

2) Your Dreamcast's laser died from old age. Electronics degrade over time and there's not much you can do about it.

Either way, I'm locking this topic since backup discussion is against the rules anyway.

TOPIC LOCKED