Newer Non MIL-CD DCs and Workaround
Some newer DCs have their BIOS programmed to prevent booting CD(R)s which have audio (audio boot data in this case) before the game data (formally known as the MIL-CD format, informally as the audio/data selfboot layout). Not nice, especially considering nearly all previous games - including ECHELON rips - work like this. When buying a Dreamcast, look for Dreamcast units manufactured BEFORE October 2000. There have been some units manufactured in Oct. 2000 and Dec. 2000 with the new BIOS revision that will not work with CDR's. Note that how recently you bought it and retail box type (regular or Smash Pack) do not matter, only the manufacture date of the unit, which should be visible through a small window on the Dreamcast retail box. Also identified as not working with the audio/data selfboot layout games are the Sakura Taisen and Hello Kitty special edition Dreamcasts available in Japan.
Many people have reported that there are plenty of units in the Oct 2000 - Dec 2000 timeframe that play the audio/data selfboot layout games just fine... thus the only way to check is to buy the unit and take it home and try it.
Note for Japanese DC owners (from OEM of dcwarez): My Jap DC refuses to boot the data/data selfboot format unless the total image size is below 70 minutes. Thus releases such as San Francisco Rush 2049, Deep Fighter & NFL2K1 don't work on my DC. (I have been able to get most of them to work though, by converting them to the old audio/data selfboot format.) According to Xeal this is a known problem with early Japanese models, which may explain why groups rarely use this format. It is also my experience that newer units won't boot the data/data format if the total image size is above 82 minutes (thus making it impossible to selfboot games like Sonic Adventure without ripping something out).
Addendum: Echelon's releases of NBA2K1 and NFL2K1 (and SFRush2049, of course) are already in the data/data selfboot format... other Echelon releases that use the data/data selfboot format are unknown.
The data/data selfboot solution (No modifications to console needed):
Right, so you've got your CD written and you want to make it selfboot and work on your new Dreamcast. Here goes...
- Rip the CD with DiscJuggler to a CDI file.
- Go in to a DOS/Command Prompt and using CDIRip, rip the CDI file so that a .CUE and .BIN file are created.
- You can delete the .CUE file. Download a free copy of ISOBuster from the net and extract the files to a directory from the .BIN file.
- Using IPBIN4WIN, create an IP file which corresponds to the game. It normally needs to be pointing at the 1st_read.bin file, or perhaps a different file if it is a WinCE game. A WinCE game can be detecting by checking if it has a 'WinCE' directory on the CD. If so, make sure you take this in to account when creating the IP file.
- Now you'll need a tool called 'mkisofs'. It is included in the selfboot toolkit. Create an ISO from the files you have extracted, and the IP.BIN in the root directory. Make sure you use an offset of 0,0 *NOT* 0,11700.
- Then you'll need to use Xeal's amazing 'Bin2Boot' tool on the ISO, which creates a selfboot CDI which puts the game data BEFORE the audio boot data. A miracle. Now the game works. It's been tested on a real non-CDR boot DC (one of the first in the UK) and it works fine.
