Japanese Saturn CD-drive issue.

I have a Japanese V-saturn and I think that the CD-rom drive is not working. It starts up, gives the reading disc message. But when I check the CD drive is doesn't sound like it spins, does not recognize any discs (saturn or a regular CD) Check disc and it does not spin at all. Anyone help me? Can I replace the CD-rom drive if it's bad? Where can I get one? Thanks all.

Hmm heres the problem. When you try to replace CD-rom drives in a Saturn you can get problems with incompatability. I have 3 different types of Saturns. Old US august 1996, newer US October 1996 and a see through blue Japanese skeletal made in 1997. The cd-drives were not interchangable. You got two models that have a crystal on the cd board and two models without the crystal on the cd board.

Of course I guess you could remove just the black casing part from the boards and maybe switch out just those parts. I say just get another Saturn, I bought a US one for $20 console only, then just you could just switch the casings and never know a difference (except when you boot up and also region code will be different, but you can just use a Pro Action Replay 4in1). There is an e-bay seller that sells defective Saturns for $5 but I bet all of them are defective because of the motor or lenses.

***Try this, open system, check the ribbon cable if it is inserted tight. Also if you happen to have a mod chip inside it, then I bet its fried (It's somewhat common). Take out the mod-chip and reconnect the ribbon to system.

I fixed a supposed "broken" Saturn that wouldn't load CD's one time by simply putting some grease on the laser mech's slider bar. Also, I'm sure cleaning the lens helped too. If your Disc spindle is broken, you may try taking it apart and lubricating that too with some ball bearing grease.

Even if the lens was bad the drive should still spin, but if the drive doesn't spin the laser doesn't matter. There is a small button that gets pushed in when you close the cd top on the saturn, when this button is pressed down by the cd door the drive will spin. When the button is not pressed down and the door is open the drive will not spin. I don't have my saturn in front of me but turn on your saturn then open the cd door and find the button and push it down manually. If the drive still doesn't spin it could be the switch has worn out in which case you will have to take the unit apart to test that switch. And why the units apart if you take a battery why the unit is off and run the battery directly to the cd drive motor to see ifi the motor still good.

Thanks guys. I can now try and trouble shoot it. I have a mod chip inside. You said that it could possibly cause it to stop working? I didn't put the chip in, is there anything special I need to do? I had it done when I lived in Chicago....I'm in Arizona now...so I'm along way from there. Thanks for your suggestions. I'll let you know what I figure out.

The modchip is easy to remove. Just unplug it from the mother board on the far right of the system, then unplug the ribbon cable connected to it. I assume you got it from Jandaman or Racketboy. There will be a blue and a red wire, so just desolder those from the system not the modchip. After that just take the end of the ribbon cable that was hooked to the modchip and put it in the system motherboard. Here are some links on how to install, just match you model of the modchip and reverse the instructions.

V1 modchip http://www.robwebb.clara.co.uk/shop/saturn/saturnchipguide.htm

V2 modchip http://www.robwebb.clara.co.uk/shop/saturn/saturnchipguide2.htm

If that fixes your problem then get another modchip from this guys website http://www.robwebb.clara.co.uk/shop/saturn/saturn.htm , he is the only one who sells the V2 if that is the model you have. If the V1 is what you have then get it from racketboy or jandaman.com.

I got it fixed. Thanks for the links to the walk through. The connector to the 5v power supply had come loose. So it would spin the CD rom drive. I reconnected it and it works perfect! Thanks