I don't own a DreamCast, so you'll have to forgive me if this is unhelpful, but from some basic research I discovered this:
"The Sega Dreamcast CD's are actually GD-ROMs, sort for Gigabyte Disc, holding maximum 1 GB of Data instead of the standard 650-700 Mb. Developed by Yamaha, the GD-ROM is a proprietary format which works by packing the pits on the disc closer together to store more data. Along with more storage the GD-ROMs provide an extra level of Copy Protection as they cannot be reproduced using a standard CD-Writer."
This article also goes on to explain why you get a small chunk of the disc when you put it in a normal CD reader:
"The are 3 distinct area's when you look at the bottom of a GD-ROM disc.
The low-density inner track (dark gray) contains about 35 Mb (4 mins) DATA which is also accessible by normal CD-Readers.
The outer track (light gray) contains about 1 Gb (112 mins) DATA but is written in a high density format which can NOT be accessed by normal CD-Readers."
So it sounds like in order to accomplish what you're trying to do, you'll need either a serial cable from the PC to the DC, or the broadband adapter for the DC. Of course, this would also require you to dig out the DreamCast itself and set this all up to rip the games, which may or may not be more trouble then it's worth - that's up to you.
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by: BarthaxPosted on 2008-04-15 at 01:14:01ID: 21356826
You are correct - the drive in the Dreamcast uses two distinct speeds - the inner most part (the part you have successfully replicated) is a normal CD but the outer part is burnt at half speed & normal drives will be unable to read that portion. Hence, they can't be copied by normal CD drives. The format of these discs is called GD-ROM.