ESR - Unknown Media In Drive

Hello all, I have an ISO of a game that I patched with .24 gui, and when using ESR on my fat PS2 (SCPH-30001) model, it says "UNKNOWN MEDIA IN DRIVE".

This is a 1st class DVD+R Sony disc. I want to say that when I used it on my brother's slim PS2, it worked perfectly, but I will have to verify again soon.

I thought I had it working before in the past on my fat PS2, but I am not sure anymore. The game does work perfect with swap magic 3.6 though.

Any advice? Is something weird with the laser, and that is why I have this error? It works well with swap magic and DVD+R.

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Originally Posted by versatileninja

Hello all, I have an ISO of a game that I patched with .24 gui, and when using ESR on my fat PS2 (SCPH-30001) model, it says "UNKNOWN MEDIA IN DRIVE".

This is a 1st class DVD+R Sony disc. I want to say that when I used it on my brother's slim PS2, it worked perfectly, but I will have to verify again soon.

I thought I had it working before in the past on my fat PS2, but I am not sure anymore. The game does work perfect with swap magic 3.6 though.

Any advice? Is something weird with the laser, and that is why I have this error? It works well with swap magic and DVD+R.

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Since you are using DVD+R it could be a 'booktype' problem. Did you remember to set the 'booktype' to DVD-ROM in your burn program ? And what program is that ?

The best way to check a suspect disc, regardless of its patches, is to use IsoBuster, since this is the only tool I know of which is capable of simultaneously showing both the filesystems of an ESR-patched disc. So you can see both the real game files in the ISO filesystem and the dummy VIDEO_TS+AUDIO_TS folders in the patched UDF filesystem that tricks the PS2 into allowing read access to the burned disc. When you see this there is no doubt that the ISO was patched properly, and if you don't see this but instead see game files in both the UDF and the ISO filesystems, then it means that you forgot to patch the disc.

You can also check it by re-ripping an iso file from the burned disc using DVD-Decrypter, and then dragdrop that iso file onto the already opened window of your ESR patcher. For a proper ESR disc this should give a message stating that it was patched already, and asking if you want to unpatch it. But if you simply get a 'Success' message, that means the ISO was not patched, so you must have forgotten to do that before burning. (It's happened to me several times :p)

Best regards: dlanor

Thanks for your help.

1) I used Alcohol120%, and there is an option to burn the disc as DVD-ROM for DVD+R.
2) I did patch the game, I was well sure of it before I burnt the disc. See below link for the screenshot of the ISOBUSTER. This shows it is patched correctly, yes?

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/1797/isobusterps2.jpg

Any other thoughts? I don't get why patched ESR game won't work with the unknown media error, yet it works perfectly fine with swap magic.

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Originally Posted by versatileninja

Hello all, I have an ISO of a game that I patched with .24 gui, and when using ESR on my fat PS2 (SCPH-30001) model, it says "UNKNOWN MEDIA IN DRIVE".

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what program did you use to rip the orignal iso? or did you download it?

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Originally Posted by versatileninja

Thanks for your help.

1) I used Alcohol120%, and there is an option to burn the disc as DVD-ROM for DVD+R.

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I'm not familiar with Alcohol120% usage for DVD, since I use it only for CD, which I do for its full CloneCD compatibility, invaluable for PS1 backups. For DVD discs I normally use ImgBurn or Nero instead. But I think what you describe is indeed the 'Booktype' setting.

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2) I did patch the game, I was well sure of it before I burnt the disc. See below link for the screenshot of the ISOBUSTER. This shows it is patched correctly, yes?

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Yes, that looks fine. You can see the game structure in the ISO filesystem tree and the dummy DVD-Video structure in the UDF filesystem tree.

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Any other thoughts? I don't get why patched ESR game won't work with the unknown media error, yet it works perfectly fine with swap magic.

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It's a bit surprising really, that an ESR-patched disc works well with other launch methods, as if they simply ignore the fact that the game files are 'missing' from the UDF filesystem. I don't quite get that either, but since I never use 'swap' methods I can't really compare results on this.

However, since you clearly do use such methods it stands to reason that you also have the sensor mods and/or fliptop/ejectkey used in swapping, so if you have used any of these in your ESR boot attempts, then please don't do that. The ESR method relies on the disc being properly identified, and that is precisely what seems to have failed in your case, considering the error message you got.

Btw: I assume you got that message in the GUI version of ESR. Right ?

Another thing that could mess up the identification of the disc is if you have any kind of mod-chip installed (even a non-working one).

You might also want to consider launching one of the other ESR elfs to test this disc.
The 'dvdv direct' variant will activate the ESR driver and directly try to boot the disc.
The 'mcard' variant will activate the ESR driver and then relaunch the main BOOT file (normally uLE), which should allow you to inspect the disc content in the uLE FileBrowser.

Best regards: dlanor

Actually, it's the status returned by mechacon. ESR has nothing to do with it. Simply disc type couldn't be recognized, so most likely it was NOT set to DVD-ROM. There also is a slight chance (I experienced it few times on my consoles, but mostly with crap media or crappy burners), that the lower areas of the disc, where udf descriptor and dvdvideo structure is found, are hard to read for your laser. This makes mechacon unable to determine the disc type. This might cause the same error. The reason it works with SM is that it doesn't have to recognize either disc type nor udf structure. The mechacon activation is done by original PS2DVD disc (SM) and then you just swap (this makes even DVD+R work on consoles that do not support DVD+R, obvious).

Anyway, as far as this status is concered, there is nothing I can do. It's not about the ESR but about your disc and your console (kind of "hardware not software").

Thanks for the help. Although I find it very strange that some people come here with a strong conviction that I screwed something up (such as not setting DVD-ROM booktype), I assure you I did not. I am just as computer savvy as many of the people here, and such a statement that I did something wrong just does not vibe with me very well.

Anyway, below is a screenshot of my alcohol 120% setting before I burnt the disc:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/8241/alcoholv.jpg

I took dlanor suggestion, and I tried the other 3 variations of the ESR.elf files, and none of them worked. Once I got a pink screen and it just hung there, but when I tried the same .ELF file again, I couldn't get it.

I suspect it is just a combination of the quality of my DVD disc, or perhaps something to deal with the mechacon on my fat PS2.

No worries though. Later this week I wil have access to a slim PS2, and I will be able to confirm to you guys which is the culprit, the hardware, the disc, or both. Thanks.

may i ask at what speed did you burn the disk? it has been shown in the past that a combination of disk type, burn speed and your PS2's laser health combine to allow use. maybe you need to try burning slower or even faster? i see you are using sony disks have you tried a -r disk? it might be more reliable with your setup.

What Game you trying to boot?

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I have an ISO of a game

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and my question still isn't answered. how did you rip or acquire this ISO?