GD-ROM Dumping Guide

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Revision as of 02:31, 15 December 2022

GD-Rom and GD-R dumping guide.

Note: Some GD-Roms may NOT dump with this method, and require a TOSEC-style SD Card dump for the HD area which then has to be "fixed" to meet redump spec. If the game is a single track in the HD area, then the TOSEC-style dump will be equal a redump dump for HD area, LD area still needs Plextor dumping. See GD-Rom SD Card Dumping Guide.

What are GDs?

GDs (Gigadiscs) are the type of optical media used by the Sega Dreamcast as well as the Sega NAOMI, Sega NAOMI 2, Sega Chihiro and Triforce arcade systems. The disc contains two distinct areas, a Low Density (LD) Area and a High Density (HD) Area, physically separated by a ring. To get a good dump, you need to extract both Areas from the disc.

If you have any of the officially released discs for the Dreamcast or any of the above mentioned arcade systems, you are pretty much guaranteed to have a GD. The Dreamcast did however support loading of MIL-CDs, which lead to a number of unlicensed software being pressed on regular CD-Roms. Check for the GD-ROM logo on the disc or check the reflective side of the disc for a visible LD/HD Area divide if you are unsure.

Tools

First you need to make sure you have the necessary equipment. To dump a GD you need:

• Windows PC
• Compatible drive(s)
• MPF application (includes DiscImageCreator)
• DCDumper, ice, startstop applications
• Audio Trap Disc

Dumping the LD Area

The LD Area should be dumped with using the Disc Dumping Guide (MPF) with a CD-Rom compatible drive.

The LD Area is a standard CD-Rom, so it will be the only data to display on the disc when browsing the disc in Windows Explorer.

Dumping the HD Area

To dump the HD Area of the GD-Rom, a Swap Disc technique is used. There are two ways to do the Swap Disc technique:

• Prepare a Drive for Top Removal as seen in this video tutorial. Afterwards, set the top back onto the drive with screws removed, this allows for easy top removal. This is the most reliable of the two ways to Swap Discs. Make sure your drive lid is replaced perfectly, putting your drive lid on unevenly can lead to the dump failing partially into the dumping process.
• Pin Eject - which isn't as reliable as the Top Removal way.

Notes:

• Dumping the HD Area can take over an hour sometimes and your drive may make scary noises.
• 1x read speeds can be helpful or even necessary when dumping GD-Rs.

Method 1: DCDumper

One of the two ways to dump the HD Area is with DCDumper. A video tutorial for this section can be seen here.

• Insert the Audio Trap Disc to an HD Area compatible drive.
• In command line, cd (change directory) to the "DCDumper_ice_startstop" folder.
• Run startstop [DriveLetter] 1
• Remove the top off the drive.
• Insert the GD-Rom and put the drive top back on.
• Run dcdumper [DriveLetter] -c446261 -df -ft -t0 -p20
• It will take several "PASS"es to get all matches, this is fine. If you need to stop (sometimes there is no progress for 30mins) and restart the dumping process, it will continue where it left off - so don't delete progress if you have to stop it.
• When the HD Area dump completes, you'll convert it to it's final form. Run ice.exe dense.bin 44990 > gamename.txt This will produce a bunch of files starting with "Track 03" and going as high as however many tracks were on the HD section of the disc (as little as 1, as many as 98).

If dcdumper fails to run with an error complaining about MSVCP100.DLL being missing, install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86) to fix this issue.

Method 2: DiscImageCreator

The other way to dump the HD Area is with DiscImageCreator.

• Insert the Audio Trap Disc to an HD Area compatible drive
• In command line, cd (change directory) to the folder containing "DiscImageCreator.exe"
• Run DiscImageCreator.exe stop [DriveLetter]
• Remove the top off the drive
• Insert the GD disc and run: DiscImageCreator.exe close [DriveLetter]
• Then run the dumping command: DiscImageCreator.exe gd [DriveLetter] foo.bin [DriveSpeed(0-72)] /c2 (Note #1: " /c2" is only for use with compatible Plextors. Note #2: Adding the command "/be pack" [can sometimes/always?[1]] be helpful when dumping.)
• Dump multiple times until you get an error-free dump (check the Command Prompt output after DiscImageCreator finishes dumping)

Submitting your dump info

Here's an example submission: [2]

We'll presume you've used Disc Image Creator for you dump in both LD and HD Areas.

Open your "!submissionInfo.txt" file from both your LD and HD Area dump. Copy in the additional track information from your HD Area !submissionInfo.txt file into your LD Area !submissionInfo.txt file in three sections:

• "DAT"
• "Cuesheet". When combining Cuesheet data for LD and HD Areas, paste "REM SINGLE-DENSITY AREA" at the top of the cuesheet, and "REM HIGH-DENSITY AREA" in a new line after the LD Area cuesheet into, then finally the HD Area cuesheet text.
• "Write Offset"

Fill in Ring Code data and any relevant Comments. Post on the Redump "New Dumps" subforum.