For casual users, you need a VA0 or a VA1 model Dreamcast to run DreamShell, because the startup CD (in my case) is a MIL-CD format. One of my VA2 models is from December 2000, and it was in late November 2000 they changed the BIOS to prevent MIL-CDs from loading. VA2 models from October 2000 work just fine though with DreamShell (which I also have). I wrote all about this for the Console Mods Wiki, because the VA2 is an enigma for many. So for simple terms: • October 2000: Yes • early November 2000: Yes • late November 2000: No • December 2000: No • 1st quarter 2001 (this batch appeared in Japan only): No With that said, November 2000 is a 50/50 chance of working with DreamShell or burned games, so you need to look at the motherboard or just try of luck. No batch, however, can run GDEMU because all VA2's use a PS1-style drive with ribbon cables & wires, which GDEMU doesn't have.

Thanks, for helping me steer clear.

bought this last month, didn't come with any setup instructions, thought you just drag games onto the SD card and thats that. so glad you made a video on it. its ashame it doesn't work well though, bit of a waste of money. just going to buy the GDEmu now.

I wish i had this guide in the npast. I suffered so much in making this work and learnt the sd card had to be formated not only in fat32 but a specific other thing as well the alocation unit size. I needed this in order to backup my vmu saves

thx for this video. very quick and helpful :3

Past Steve would love this future we have.

Thanks for sharing this mate. Never knew this device existed. Shame about the lag on some of the games. I think will stick to burning games on CD since they are inexpensive.

Very interesting, is there a way to boot directly on SD adaptor with SD card without CD? (like a Satiator for a Saturn). Thank you!

Just purchased a GDEMU and a Dreamcast serial port adapter. I put the disc image of Dreamshell on my GDEMU and it gives me quick access to backing up my VMU saves(thanks to your other video).

Can gdi files insert to Dreamshell 4.0 ?

Great video! Thank you for this. Any recommendations on SD cards to use? I’ve tried three different ones and none have worked. All formatted to Fat32, two by default and one with the GUI exe. Two micro and one regular

I was using this for the past 3 days and it was working just fine but now when i tried using it today everything works fine then after it reads the sd and goes to load to the next screen i get stuck on a black screen any solutions? Update I removed my vmu from my controller and tried it again and it loaded up like it usually did all the way,the odd thing is it was working just fine with my vmu in my controller before I just hope it continues to work like it was before. Also thanks for the tutorial really was nice of you to put this up

How do we do with games with several CDs ?

Do i need to copy the whole order to the sd card, or just the gdi files for Games?

I was hoping you wouldn't need a working disc drive in order to use this adapter, but the disc drive needs to work in order to run Dreamshell. Looks like GDEMU is the option to use if your disc drive doesn't work.

My cd rom is not reading disc anymore. So maybe this is mot a solution to me. GD Emu looks the best choice.

Hi, there. What can I do if I get stuck on the screen shown at 4:32?

up to how many gb sd card supports

I have not been able to run a single game on mine. Every game I have goes to a black screen after selecting them. The VMU does happen to load the images on them how ever, and I think the gens4all emulator can load genesis games off the SD card. I also couldn't use the microSD card slot for some reason, but could use the same microSD card in the standard slot with a adapter which could be adding limitations of resistance in crappily made adapter.

tried soul caliber, but got stuck at the character select stage

I only have VA2 DC and it sucks there's not many options with these consoles 😭

what did you use to create your isos? i can get games onto the sd card, everything is recognized but when i select any iso game. i get code like those old 90s dos loading windows, and then error mounting message. any suggestions or links?

I am following this to the letter and when I boot my disc the black screen identifies the fat 32 formatted card capacity but doesn't detect the fat32 file system. The system then goes off to menu where my options are RAM and CD. I can move up and down but I can't select anything. I formatted the 32 gb SD using windows fat32 option. Any Ideas?

have anybody found a solution to fix glitches?

Cool vid bro, only thing is that when I try to boot up sonic adventure it just goes to a black screen. It shows the coverage before I click it. Is it slow to load? Perhaps the format my rom was in? Thanks

Came here because I heard this thing has a new mod that allows it to run in-game mods by using this for cache. I guess the dreamcast can't do that as is because the ram is too low

Half-Circle Forward, downloaded NEO XYX cdi iso and not working with iso loader what is wrong?

Where are you finding your SDISOs? I’ve had an SDiso reader for a min but can’t find anywhere to DL them

I just bought mine yesterday with the cd and the sd adapter for 15 bucks on ebay.

i’have sucses install gnemu like video. but my problem now is game play with lags, do you know solition thats proble?

How do I add a ssd or hdd in place of gdrom? I've seen that online around just not sure how go about it. Thank you!

My dreamcast is Japanese NTSC-J will it work NTSC-U USA?

Is it possible to use a 128Gb SDXC Card formatted in Fat32 with 32Kb allocation cluster? I can't figure out how to manage it, Dreamshell doesn't recognize SD Card and initialize MBR on it.. (already tried with "Gui Format" by GBATemp)

Doesnt seem to work ill have to get a gdemu

I try do your guide but my dc can't load boot loader. I stucked at select boot screen. That screen want me to select boot from ram or cd but I can't select anything.

hi well the only "good point" of this adapter is to be able to make a gdrom bakckup...but the serial port of the dreamcast is damn slow

how hard is it to burn a dreamshell disc? or something equivalent

games files have to be on cdi or gdi format?

it says the name is too long asks me if i want to skip some folders when i try to drag it to the sd card

Can i save game on it or i have to put the vmu?

Hmm, do you reckon this would work on my Dreamcast which is really bad at reading disks? After about 15 minutes to an hour it usually crashes to the boot menu because the CD drive is failing to read anything. Would it have the same problem with this kind of setup?

i think if you use an original micro sd card and strong like sandisk it should run fine

Mine always stops at loading Dreamshell. It says boot from sd card or ram.......... what do I do next??

Will this work for cdi files or just gdi?

A console comes up every time I go to boot a game, something about it not being able to mount the GDI. I have the exact files & followed the steps exactly but it just won't boot into any games for some reason. Anyone else have this problem? I have what seems to be the exact disc & card reader, console is a model 1.

I have a 128 micro SD card, is that too large? Because my PC won't give me the option to change format to FAT32.

Where I can dowload gdi files for this device? And what kind of SD I need? 32gb is ok?

Does this work on VA2 dreamcast?

does this work with japanese dreamcast?

And if the lenz not work it won't be boot?

this is cool not really a Sega guy but I really am into Xbox and PlayStation

Does this work with a Model 2 Dreamcast?

can it run shenmue 2 and skies of arcadia fine i know that skies of arcadia runs terrible on mil cds

Can you take out the disc after loading the sd?

Did it work on a pal Dreamcast ?

Thanks for the review. Definitely a pass due to the bottle neck of the serial port

Just purchased every game i tried lags bad,sticking to discs.

Where can i get the Games for SD Card?

Had this console new about 20yrs ago and got a boot disc that run back up discs can I still get this and how do I get the discs? Please help an old man out here😂

The port isn't made for that amount of data to be transferred.

That looks like an interesting opportunity for me to be able to put my DC back into operation, my reader is unfortunately quite raped and doesn't work too well anymore, I still have many original games at home and could finally play DC again. I wanted to get a General Obsolete Dreamcast but I know that the reader is the biggest weak point because he likes to detach himself very strongly over time and at some point cannot read the GDroms properly and that is with some titles that I would like to play again too bad.

Can it also play other games on the SD card from other consoles?

I got a question, is this region free?

Yikes these are not good for fighting games at all thanks for covering this!

Thanks for the review Device is garbage, First thing you should have mentioned in the video.

mine keeps sending me to the boot loader menu V2.4 boot from Ram and Boot from CD I press any of them and nothing