Saturn SAROO isn’t booting

TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24

The Little Fella in your CD-ROM Drive
The Little Fella in your CD-ROM Drive
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Hello! I’ve finally decided to join the magic that is ODE’s with the relatively cheaper option that is SAROO. While I only had an hour and a half with it today, as I’ve had to leave for a vacation, I was met with severe issues.

THE PROBLEM:
My cart would have the red light flash and also a green light, which indicates power was going to it, but it never booted. I also tried a 4MB Expansion game in the CD drive, and it spat out the “insert ram expansion” error on me. It seems the SAROO itself just wasn’t booting.

USEFUL STUFF:
Here are screenshots of my SD path:

Screenshot_2025-12-12_at_4.03.31_PM.png
Screenshot_2025-12-12_at_4.03.52_PM.png
Screenshot_2025-12-12_at_4.04.02_PM.png


Here’s the link I bought it from:
I just found this on AliExpress: $71.21 | Saroo ODE Sega Saturn Optical Drive Emulator, SD HC TF Card Reader, Replace CD Laser Lens, DIY Console Mod 1.37 https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqFsDnn
(Boy, I sure do love that it defaults to a massive ad for AliExpress when I give people a link. -_-)

My console is a Japanese model 2. I’m unaware of which motherboard revision, which I’ve just been made aware may be a concern. I’ve done a thorough scrub of the contacts of both cart and system, as well as checking a different cartridge I use on my Saturn. The Action Replay worked like it always has, which singled out that at least the cartridge slot works fine.

CONCLUSION:
My end goal is to workshop this with people over the next week, getting a plan of action for when I return home from my trip. I’ll be kinda boned if it’s an issue with the system itself, but if it’s not than I hope this thread will be what I need to get my SAROO up and running.
Post automatically merged:

IMPORTANT STUFF I FORGOT TO ADD:
I downloaded the 0.8 firmware that TPUnix put out earlier this week, as I wanted to be on the most recent firmware. I’ve found very little documentation of that firmware online, so that was, in hindsight, probably a bad move. I also grabbed the “game covers” .zip file from the 0.7 update, since that file wasn’t contained in the files for the 0.8 update.
 
Last edited:
I've avoided the Saroo for a few reasons, but mainly for a lack of build quality. There's not really a reputable seller you can get these from, so the build quality is going to be all over the place. All I can say is I hope you didn't get a bad one. ::sailor-embarrassed
(also your link doesn't work, it gives me this)
1765600677411.png
 

Here is a reputable seller/build of the Saroo, it is the one that I personally have. I found that the Saroo doesn't play nice when a disk is inside of the console. It could also depend of the sd card you have in it, I have a SanDIsk Extreme 128 GB and it seems to work well.
 

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