My apologies for asking a question that must be impossible to answer. But perhaps there is a "strong likelihood" answer. Blanks: hewlett-packard (blue) CDs Burn speed: slowest available Hardware: BenQ LS DW 1655 (DVD/CD R-RW) Software: Nero 7.5.1.1 Express In burning data, typically OS ISOs, I get 40-50% verification failure, although the burn itself is rated successful 100% of the time. To my surprise, even when I get a successful verification and immediately burn a second disk on the same project (by simply responding Yes to Nero's offer), that second disk is just as likely to fail verification. To check the disks that fail, I look at their OS start-up data, which seems correct. The trouble with this kind of "failure" is that all I really know is that the disk was not considered identical to the original. I strongly suspect my verification failures are "almost perfect" and whatever is wrong is extremely unlikely to ever show up. But I'm not sure. So these verification failures are a sort of logical limbo, and I'm not sure what to do with them. Because they represent half of what I do, that's kind of a messy place to leave things. Do you have suggestions? Thank you.
I hate to say it but I have had the exact same problem historicly and usually what I do is just get an MD5 sum or other sum on the original data, then sum the burned disc myself. I stopped using verification in nero for one reason. Every disc I burned failed verification, but they all worked and matched md5 sums perfectly.
The verification features in most burning programs are absolutely worthless and in no way indicate the quality of the burn. To do that you'd need to compare byte-by-byte the data (DOS' File Compare [fc.exe /b file1 file2] is the best way). MD5 or SHA hashing will also work. To check the burn quality itself, you'd need to run something like Nero CD/DVD Speed which is available free, and look for C1 and C2 errors. I don't know about the quality of HP discs. As a general rule with both CDs and DVDs, make sure each box you buy says "Made in Japan". With DVDs, Verbatim is the one exception to that rule, though I understand Verbatim's CD-Rs aren't any better than most of the other junk brands.
