dance dance revolution 5th mix - rom drive fault code 18E bad

Please can anyone help. My daughter just bought this machine for her daughters 18th birthday. sadly there is a bad 18E error code showing on screen . Ive checked the rom drive but no light is illuminating. so changed the drive with a working model which also showed the same error code with no light illuminating on the rom drive again. so assumeing now no power is getting to the drive. Has anyone any suggestions please. ive checked fuses etc; Im not techanally minded but able to follow easy to read instructions if someone would not mind helping me get my grand daughter her first dance on her 18th birthday present. appreciate all lookersTY.

I think those error codes indicate that one of the chips on the system board is bad. It probably detects this error before it even tries to read the CD-ROM.

What this most likely means is that you will have to replace the system board. DDR games from 1998-2003 ran on Konami's proprietary System 573 board, and these can be found pretty often on eBay. I would look for "system 573" as well as "fisherman's bait", as Fisherman's Bait (a bass-fishing arcade game) ran on the System 573 as well, and if you use its main board with the IO board from your existing DDR machine it should function fine.

A new System 573 will probably run you $200-$500. Alternatively, for around $400, you can send your existing DDR board in to Betson Enterprises (www.betson.com) and they will (or at least they would in the past, I'm not sure if they do anymore) repair the board for you.

Note that this might not be the only option, I know some people here actually own DDR machines of that vintage and would know better what to do.

Can you please post a picture of the error you are receiving?

FlameyBoy is referring to the POST screen where flash is initialized while booting a installed game.


Red is on board flash memory, green is flash card flash memory. If you get a "BAD" error next to either of these you have only a few options, but lets see a picture of the error you have first before I start listing options when that might not be your issue.

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Thank you Flameboy for your responce. I will pass on the info to the daughter as this is something not expected, possible cost wise. Out of curiosity could this have been caused in transit or is there a more common cause. This unit was placed on its back in a vehical to transit to new location. I think what I am asking is what is the possible cause for this result in breakdown. Thank you again Flameboy for your time.
TT

Hi Kon thanks for responce will try to get photo uploaded this will take at least the day sorry. TT

Most likely this issue was not caused by transportation of your machine. The system 573 is very well built and problems like this usually only occur to do the age and how many times the flash had been read. Just like a HDD or any other hardware for that matter, its does have a lifespan for how many uses (or in this case flashes) it can take before it just dies. That is also assuming that the flash is the issue, although I have other thoughts on what the problem may be.

Also as for the drive: you know that not all disc drives are compatible correct? system 573 is very picky with what drive it will work with so most users try to get an LG GDR-8164B disc drive as a replacement as it works with both digital and analog versions of games.

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Thanks Kon.
I was aware of the point you make about disk drive compatabillity but am I correct when I say the Lite would still illuminate? because this is not happening I am assumeing the drive recieves no power. Still waiting on Photo sorry.
TT

The drive light will not always show activity if the drive is not compatible. I had one drive I tested where it completely did not work (and consequently showed no activity light). There is a strong possibility that you just aren't getting to that step of the boot sequence but I will let you know when you post a picture.

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OMG I feel stupid ... Ok I have a photo not sure if quallity good enough,,, but how do i upload???

Go to a site like http://imageshack.us/ and upload the image. After that it will give you links to post the image onto websites. post a direct link image in here.

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Wow if this works it was easy. cheers again Kon.
Hope photo ok Grandson took it. if US will get another.
TT

Hmmmm... Either your on board flash is likely having a issue or your flash card. Let me double check with someone else to confirm. In the meantime open up the back, pull out the system 573 and make sure the flash card is properly inserted and is not locked (write protected via a small tab on the side of the card) so it can be read and written to.

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Cheers Kon;}

Your onboard flash is corrupt/dead as we thought. You can either buy a whole new system 573 mainboard or I can try to edit the disc to ignore this fact and attempt to boot anyways. If you use the disc however, I can't guarantee it will be stable (as in if there is something important that the game needs in that area of flash the game will crash).

With that said you are better off buying a whole new mainboard because if you want to install a new game or play yours you either won't be able to or there will be problems. Also considering you are running 5th Mix I am sure you will eventually want to upgrade the machine to EXTREME.

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Well thank you Kon for your time.
I will check out the cost of a new board but not sure if cost effective for my daughter. I think she may well want to now sell as spares or repairs to try and recoop a small portion of her money back. This was an expensive birthday present which sadly never got used.
Once again thank you for your help in this matter and I wish you good fortune ahead.
TT