GD-ROM Dumping Guide

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(So I've got a GD. What now?)
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* A Windows PC
* A Windows PC
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* A [[GD Dumping Guide#Compatible drives|compatible drive]]
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* [[GD Dumping Guide#Compatible drives|Compatible drive(s)]]
* An empty CD-R or CD-RW disc
* An empty CD-R or CD-RW disc
* [https://github.com/saramibreak/DiscImageCreator/releases DiscImageCreator]
* [https://github.com/saramibreak/DiscImageCreator/releases DiscImageCreator]

Revision as of 20:43, 21 March 2018

WORK IN PROGRESS

This is a step-by-step guide designed to be easy to follow so that you can make reproducible, good dumps of your GDs to the Redump standard.

Contents

What are GDs?

GDs—or 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. It is special compared to its relative—the CD—in that it contains both a low density (LD) and a high density (HD) area. To get a good dump, you need to extract them both from the disc.

How do I know if I have a GD?

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 CDs. Check for the GD-ROM logo on the disc or check the reflective side of the disc for a visible LD–HD divide if you are unsure.

So I've got a GD. What now?

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

Dumping the LD area

This is the easy part. Make sure you have a compatible drive and have downloaded DiscImageCreator.

  1. Open up the folder where you downloaded DiscImageCreator (DIC).
  2. Extract the DIC zip into a new folder.
  3. Enter the folder in which you extracted DIC and open the Release_ANSI folder.

Dumping the HD area

Submitting your dump info

Compatible drives

GDs are strange in that they contain two distinctly different areas of data. What this means to you is that you will have to dump the disc's LD and HD area separately. Unfortunately, this also means that you will need special hardware.

For dumping the LD area, the same rules apply as in dumping a CD, as they use the same technology. A list of compatible drives for dumping LD area is found below (and a more up-to-date list can be found in the CD Dumping Guide.)

Brand Model
Plextor PX-704
Plextor PX-708
Plextor PX-712
Plextor PX-714
Plextor PX-716
Plextor PX-755
Plextor PX-760
Plextor Premium
Plextor Premium2
Plextor PX-4012
Plextor PX-4824
Plextor PX-W5224
Plextor PX-W4220T
Plextor PX-32TS
Plextor PX-32CS
Plextor PX-83CS
Plextor PX-85CS
Plextor PX-63CS
Plextor PX-65CS
Plextor PX-43CS
Plextor PX-43CE
Plextor PX-43CH
Plextor PX-45CS
Plextor PX-45CE
Plextor PX-45CH
Plextor DM-3028
Plextor DM-5028
Plextor DM-3024
Plextor DM-5024
Plextor DM-3021
Plextor DM-5021
Plextor DM-3020
Plextor DM-5020

But for the HD area the process is different, and you need one of the following drives:

Brand Model
Lite-On LH-18A1H
Lite-On SOHD-167T
Plextor PX-W4824TA
Plextor PX-W4824TU
Samsung TSSTCorp SH-D162C
Samsung TSSTCorp SH-D162D
NEC CDR-1901A
Lite-On LTD-165H
Lite-On SOHD-16P9S
Samsung TSSTCorp TS-H353B
LG GCR-8522B
Plextor PX-708A
Plextor PX-755SA
Samsung TSSTCorp TS-H353A
Samsung TSSTCorp TS-H352C
Samsung TSSTCorp TS-H192C
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