How to Burn Backup Dreamcast Games to a Disc

The Sega Dreamcast was the successor to the popular Sega Saturn game console and was the last console manufactured by Sega.  The Dreamcast, which was released in 1998 before the Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2, and Xbox, offered a fantastic gaming experience but unfortunately was discontinued in 2001.

Despite no longer being manufactured, you can still burn Dreamcast games to discs from digital backups.  This guide will show you how.

Before you get started you will need some other items for this project:

Burning Your Game

To start we will need the backed up game you want to burn.  In this case I will be using the game Ikaruga.  Dreamcast game backups will come as .CDI files usually packaged as .RARs.  Most games will be bootable but if not you will have to make a boot disc using Utopia Boot.

If you have a .RAR  file (or files),  extract them somewhere on your computer.  In this guide I’ll be using 7-zip, but you can use WinRAR as well. You can choose the destination of your files in the extract screen by clicking the ellipses button (. . .)  I recommend extracting the files to your desktop.

dream-extract1

dream-extractScreen

Now, open the DiscJuggler program and click the new task button in the upper left.

dream-discJugNew

A new window will come up, select “Burn Image to Disc” and hit OK.

dream-discJugSelect

In the new screen that comes up you need to select the file to be burned. Browse for your file by hitting the CD/paper icon which is conveniently the browse button.

dream-discJugBrowseIc

Find your .CDI file and hit open.  (One thing I like about storing your extracted files on the desktop is that you can simply drag and drop your file from the desktop to the source bar)

dream-browseIkIcon

Now that your file is in place, hit the Advanced tab and change the Mode from Audio to Mode2.

dream-discJugMode

Lastly for setup, check the RAW write box.

dream-discJugRAW

Now that everything is set up, put your CD-R 700MB disc in (CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW won’t work).  With your blank disc in, the start button should show up and all you have to do is click it to begin the process.

dream-discJugStart

If you are using the DiscJuggler demo, a screen will saying you can only burn up to 700MB and if you want to continue.  Click yes.  Even though your .CDI file may say it is 700+ MB it won’t matter.

When the disc is done burning the CD tray should eject automatically. Now, put the disc in your Dreamcast and play away!


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7 responses to “How to Burn Backup Dreamcast Games to a Disc”

  1. […] reading here: How to Burn Dreamcast Games | Techerator AKPC_IDS += "2758,";Popularity: unranked […]

  2. Crash1525 Avatar
    Crash1525

    Whenever i drag my folder from the desktop to the source bar, disc juggler crashes

  3. james carter Avatar

    I want to install the trial version of Padus Discjuggler ver 6.00.1400. When I try to run the setup, it says I need to reboot. Does it mean reboot the whole system? I don’t want to lose all of my files just to run discjuggler. Is there any way to get around this? Btw, i’m running windows 7 if you need to know.

  4. Buy Blank CD Avatar

    Thanks for sharing this guide with screen shots. This would be really easy.

  5. Quiling Avatar
    Quiling

    Check a tool for converting CDI images to Data-Data format for DC. It’s possible to burn it to CD-R so dreamcast will read it flawlessly in most cases.
    It also able to create multigame compilation CDI images:
    https://github.com/ArtemBogush/DreamcastCdiTool

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