Testing DVD writing drive

[John Abreau]

I've heard good things about Virtual CD, at http://www.virtualcd-online.com/
It's apparently a utility for XP that pretends to be a CD/DVD burner, but
actually reads and writes iso files.

Using this, you could create the recovery discs as iso images and verify
whether the software to create the recovery discs is the culprit. The iso
images shouldn't suffer from hardware or media defects, so if they
fail to verify, that suggests that the problem is wiith the software to
create the recovery discs.

If the iso images are OK, the next step is to burn the iso images to disc
and see if that works. If that fails, it's either a hardware problem or
defective media. If you're using really cheap DVD media and it's more
than a few months old, there's a good chance the media is the problem.



On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 11:15 AM, Laura Conrad<sunny-O0WJhd4tT3hg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> I got my new computer, and the first thing I tried to do was to make a
> set of recovery disks.  It keeps failing; it writes the first disk and
> then tries to verify it and says it doesn't verify.  I've made 3
> coasters this way.
>
> I'd like to figure out whether this is a hardware problem, in which case
> I should deal with it while it's under warranty, or a software problem
> with the writing and/or verification of recovery disks.  Does anyone have a
> good method for testing a DVD writing drive?
>
> I'd like to get the recovery disks made before installing Linux, so the
> ideal answer to this question wouldn't involve Linux at all, but I can
> probably install Linux without clobbering Windows, or use a Live CD for
> Linux.
>
> It's an HP Pavilion Elite m9517c 2.2GHz Quad-Core Desktop PC w/ Blu-ray,
> running Vista Home Premium.
>
> --
> Laura   (mailto:lconrad-O0WJhd4tT3hg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org http://www.laymusic.org/ )
> (617) 661-8097  233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
>
> What a natural history of religion would show is that the human
> experience of the divine has deep roots in psychoactive plants and
> fungi.  (Karl Marx may have gotten it backward when he called religion
> the opiate of the people.)
>
> Michael Pollan, _The Botany of Desire_
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