How do I check if a disk burnt properly?

[hop-frog]

I am using NTI CD-Maker 2000 Standard to burn Linux ISOs (on Windows). I have had trouble installing distributions from recently burnt disks, but difficulties with older disks. I am trying to determine if the CD recorder (on the Windows machine) is improperly burning the ISOs, if the blank CD-Rs are bad, or if my CD-ROM (used to install on the Linux machine) is broken.
- Checking the MD5SUM proves that the download was successful, but I have no way to check if the data was burnt onto the disk correctly.
- I do not use the computer while it is burning.
- Screensavers and other applications that could interupt the burn are turned off.
- I have tried burning at 1x, 2x, and 4x.
- A red light came on sometime during the burn.

How do I check that these CDs are burnt properly?

[rdeschene2]

If you have access to a Linux system, you can try using the following suggestion. I have never done this myself, honestly. Does the CD-writing program you are using in Windows not have a "verify" checkbox or option ?

2) verifying the filesystem layer

A quick check is to mount the CD and to use star to read all files on the filesystem.

mount -r /dev/cdrom /cdrom (modify for your OS)
cd /cdrom
star -cPM . >/dev/null

If no errors can be found, all files are readable.

star can be found on ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/star


You also may want to compare the filesystem on the CD with the original data. This can be done with star too.

(cd /master_for_cd; star -cPM .)|(cd /cdrom; star -diff -v)

[XiaoKJ]

K3b will check the disk for the md5sum. Just verify the disc after burning.