Saturn Issue - Only 50% of games boot

[Segarally]

I set up my Saturn again today for the first time in about a year and noticed a few games didn't work. That turned out to be half of my game collection not working at all, the others working fine every time. The discs vary in condition from perfect to bordering on abused, but no big damage.

So the games that don't work are. Virtua Fighter, Sega Rally, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Wipeout, Manx TT Superbike.

Games that do work. King of Fighters 95, Virtua Fighter 2, Fighters Megamix, Panzer Dragoon 2, Warcraft 2.

To use an example of what happens. Virtua Fighter : The disc is flawless, I put it into the console and it loads to the settings screen, then it comes up with "Checking Disc Format" before then doing nothing. The game then appears to show as a music disc with Tracks 1 - Time 999:59 showing up. I put the disc into my computer and it reads fine, no issues.

I don't really understand what is going on, the discs appear to be fine and the console works on some games without hitch, repeatedly.. But these games are not running on the system.. It just doesn't seem right that 5 game discs are suddenly not working, I could understand maybe 1 disc going bad but I've never seen this before, and why do they read fine in the PC?


Edit : I've even managed to get the discs running the games on the PC with SSF emulation, running directly from the Sega Rally CD. So why is my Saturn so selective on the games it runs?

[HennessySlick]

Have you considered replacing the laser? Most likely answer is your disc drive is the problem. Only time I've ever had problems reading discs is when the disc drive was the source.

[nevermind]

It's either going to be the laser or even the spindle needs reseating. If the spindle has dropped slightly it can cause this issue. You could experiment by adjusting the pots slightly as well to increase the laser power.