Stuck with the Insert boot media message on a Megatouch Gold

[MTPPC]

I just picked this thing up and it has no CD in the disk player. I think I'm looking for megatxlg.chd to make a new disk, but I'm not ever sure if that will do it. Help out a merit noob and tell me what to look for. Can I put a better software kit into it and do I need hardware keys to do anything. How can I check if I have a dongle. I don't even know where to look. TIA for any help at all.

[mahkeymike]

take pics so we can tell if you have key or chip. And if its cd or hard drive based. ed12 and lilshawn know these old machines better then me. I know force and ions inside and out.

[lilshawn]

the gold was cd based. (i belive the "Gold XL" was harddrive based)... you'll have to try and source a disk someplace. if you have a CHD, you'll have to find out if it's a CD image that was converted for copying onto a hard drive (which some people did because the CD where slow to load and notoriously unreliable) or a straight raw CD image or an image made to work with mame.

you may have an XL image there too, which is not going to work if you have an older CD based gold machine. (non-XL)

[ed12]

merits never used a dongle
they are key based
it look's either like a button bat. or a dallas chip.
if u open the back and it has a cdrom in it ? then shawn is right..from your post i read it dose in fact have 1,with-out the cd-rom and u need.it will not boot >the control sector sit's on the cd<..

on the i/o board >header board< u will note either a black thing that look's like a button bat with a handle,or a dallas chip,these are very very bad fault's,and in fact your "key"

now boot media says it cannot find it's o/s >operating system<as was stated to u
find the disk..if not burn it as a "data" disk
it will not like iso at all
try to avoid dvr's,they are to data intense for these work horse's of a mother-board,

also i will add do not get slap happy with the ram..the board is running max at 512k

the harddrive is truly olny used as a buffer in these games
it collects data,time,merit 6 star data and store's it
very low layer of the hard-drive is used,but olny in the gold and ruby,i never
seen a max with a running cd-rom as the game..shawn can step in here on that point..

if u get the disk >mine are canadian and of no use to u as a american or other<
or i would up-load it to dropbox for u..
it should say game "disk"
that is the game

ed

[MTPPC]

This gold is CD based. A friend mailed me half a dozen game disks, but none work. The machine is now booting after reseating the expansion cards and U12.

It gets to "invalid key" message while trying to load megacdll.exe and thefiles.dat.

It does not have the spoon shaped key, but has a chip in that spot that says

SA3033-01
R00
C1999 MII

I think this chip is the key, but I'm not sure where to go from here. I really just want it up and running the cheapest way. Reccomendations?

[lilshawn]

yes, this is the security chip. sa3033 it is indeed an XL gold. be sure the eeprom on the board has "SA3014-04" on it in position u12 i belive??

try changing out the CD rom drive. they where pretty crusty to begin with...i could only imagine 20 years would make it worse.

i belive they (CD XL GOLDS) could be converted to hard drive units.  i don't recall the specifics but i think you had to replace the eeprom (security chip stays the same.


if someone has mame'd the gold, you can rip the CHD you have onto a hard drive, burn the eeprom and have it work.

[MTPPC]

I don't really want to convert it to a HD if the CD-ROM will work. I just wish I could find that CD. Are you telling me if I find the gold CHD for mame I can just dump that on a CD and go? Here's a picture:

[ed12]

thats country -01 so i do not believe my gold cd will work
as u would need my country code on the security chip

ed

[lilshawn]

the "CHD" is a raw data dump of a harddrive.(stands for (C)ompressed (H)unks of (D)ata) you can use a program (chdman.exe) to rip the HD into a CHD and alterantively, take the same program and use it and the CHD and re-create that drive again... kind of like an ISO.

problem is, i don't know what they did to change the Gold system from running off a CD to running off an HD. perhaps nothing. i'm not entirely sure. it's been a LOOOOONG time since ive had to deal with anything XL. i know it was done because the CD's where unreliable as all hell. especially with all the smoking going on in the bars, they didn't last long.

if you have a gold CHD dig yourself up a 700mb or larger HD and rip the CHD onto it and try booting it off the drive.

http://www.thekillerinstinctproject.com/kiproject/chdman.html

[MTPPC]

THanks for the tips. The problem is I can't find the gold chd anywhere. No one has it on the torrents so I guess I'm SOL.

[lilshawn]

maybe try typing into google "megatxlg.chd". it's the actual name of the dump. you might be able to find an illicit site that has a torrent that has some seeders on it... I'm not suggesting it's a correct thing to do, but if there are no other options left. I dug through my box of megatouch disks. nothing. 

failing all that, you might have to go by way of replacing the key and going to platinum version.

[MTPPC]

Thanks for all your help. I've already surfed the torrent seas and it looks like there are no seeders for at least a year or two. I'll just sit on it for a while and see if anything pops up. I saw there was a disc on ebay a couple weeks ago for $40.

[ed12]

shawn i came back with a wack of them
cd's
some seen to be for a hardrive
some are for a cd drive olny
my concern is the key code >01< verues >33< canada
if u or makeymike know the walk around i will up-load them as iso's

there in my box of fool's right now

ed

[MTPPC]

I graciously was given a double platinum mobo and disk drive. It's booting and stuck at: Invalid Key for Version PG3004.01 V2.00 5/15/01.

Anyone have a spare key that will work with this version?

[ed12]

MTPPC
dd u get the disk's >cd's< with this game ?
as that # look's like a usa copy and not a canadian
with that error
u have a few choices up here.
one is to clean e buttom key holder,
and re-adjust its spring latch to lock in tighter.
another is getting usa s/w

ed