I used both ImgBurn and DvdFab Platinum (new version 5) and they both offered a "verify" feature. In all instances with both apps, my external burner (Sony DRX 840U) seemed to hang and spin endlessly. I disabled the feature and was able to get good back-ups. Do we need to enable "verify" and if so, what are the advantages? Many thanks in advance for your help with my very first question on the forum.
It wastes 10 minutes of your life waiting for it to confirm that it actually write the information onto the disk... which seems pretty stupid to me because an error free burn will just complete silently... About the only thing it will show is a faulty disk... but those usually mess up on burn anyway and fail. Turn it off unless you are suspicious of your burner failing or your media being rubbish.
http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=6735&hl=verify I started out using the verify feature and then thought it wasn't worth the time, then I started using it again...I don't know why and it's just a habit now and part of my burning routine. To each his own.
I didn't use verify on my old laptop as it took so long. However my new laptop is more powerful, and much faster, so I've got into the habit of using it now . Errors on a DVD don't always show up when you're burning it, so I think it's useful as a check all the data has been transferred successfully. However, even if the verify is successful, I've found this doesn't guarantee you've got a 100% perfect copy. Small errors like occasional pixelisation can get through the verify process. I've found the only way you can be sure you've got a perfect copy is actually to watch the DVD right the way through--and, of course, that's really time-consuming. But if it's a copy of something important, I always try to do that.
i don't trust verify in any product. i learnt the hard way using Nero (for example) that even a burn that shows as complete does not always equate to a complete burn; inmy opinion the best way to properly check for data integrity is to run a CRC scan ie looks for corruption..
Please forgive my ignorance, but I don't know what a CRC scan is. How would I run such a scan? Thanks.
CRC stands for Cyclic Redundancy Check ie corruption. one program you can use comes free with Nero (Nero CD-DVD Speed) but if you haven't got Nero you can download CD-DVD Speed on it's own - http://www.cdspeed2000.com/ then run the disc that burned successfully (but failed verification) thru CD-DVD Speed's ScanDisc (CRC check). Hopefully this will come up with zero CRC errors (CRC error are corruption). If this would be a movie disc, further proof of data consistency would obviously be to watch the film thru, and also to copy from that disc to your hard drive via simple Windows copy/paste. Assuming the CRC scan comes up 100% clean and also the copy/paste works without errors, i'd say the burn has actually worked successfully and would also be further proof that the verification process is pointless and plain inaccurate. If the CRC scan finds anything (and for example, it's a movie disc) you'll find skipping/pixelation at the points shown by the CRC Scan
Verify is a worthless option unless you are burning something important like backed up files or a Linux install CD. For regular burning it doesn't help you much. Like creaky said, a CRC scan will work the best to check for corrupted files on the CD. Otherwise just burn at a slow speed to aviod errors.
