Testing cd drive. Useful programs

Drive testing programs

CD-R Identifier is a program for identifying the original manufacturer of CD-R/RW discs and the type of active layer. Works with most CD-R/RW recorders.

CDCheck (www.elpros.si/CDCheck) is a program that allows you to detect bad sectors on CD/DVD media. Moreover, not only errors, it also prevents the occurrence of bad sectors and restores files. This utility can check any CD/DVD and show you which files are damaged. The program also implements a quick comparison mode, which allows you to check whether the recording on a CD / DVD media went through with or without errors. Possibilities for working with hash functions are implemented. The hash function allows you to make a small cast, a checksum of the data that needs to be controlled and subsequently check their integrity. In addition, the program gives detailed information about the disk itself: manufacturer, type, capacity, etc.

DVD Identifier (dvd.identifier.cdfreaks.com) is a utility designed to check and determine the type of disc. It determines the parameters of DVD+R/+RW and DVD-R/-RW discs and provides information about DVD-RAM. DVD Identifier should first of all be recommended to owners of DVD burners who want to know all technical information about the DVD disc intended for recording data. The program displays information about the manufacturer, type of DVD, speeds at which recording is possible, etc.

DVD InfoPro (www.dvdinfopro.com) is a utility for testing and getting detailed information about CD/DVD drives. In addition, DVDInfoPro allows you to test CDs and DVDs installed in the drive, as well as quickly erase and format DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW discs. Almost all types of drives are supported, including DVD+R DL (Double Layer).

Nero CD-DVD Speed ​​(www.cdspeed2000.com) is a program designed to test the speed of the combination "optical drive + media disc", as well as perform various diagnostic and support functions.

Nero InfoTool (www.cdspeed2000.com) is a program designed to display detailed information about CD/DVD-ROM drives from various manufacturers. Despite the rather modest size of the distribution, Nero InfoTool can provide information about both software and hardware components of the system. The utility shows the maximum read (write) speed of the drive, the type of DVD regional protection, BIOS version, amount of RAM, processor data. Information is also provided on various programs for working with CD / DVD-ROM drives: CloneCD, CloneDVD, Nero Burning ROM, PowerDVD, Alcohol 120%, etc.

Roadkil's Disk Speed ​​(www.raadkilnet/program.php?PragramID=13) is a utility designed to test the reading speed of devices, including a floppy drive and CD drives. Testing the selected local disk lasts approximately 20 seconds. The disk is polled, the speed parameters are determined in the linear and random read modes, and the total access time is calculated. Additionally, the utility displays information about the total amount of data read during testing, the analysis time.

The laser disc has undergone significant changes since its inception, evolving from a 650 megabyte CD to a large Blu-ray capable of storing up to 50 gigabytes and more. However, despite such obvious progress, the optical media has not gotten rid of many of the problems and shortcomings that have plagued it from the very beginning. For example, after burning another disc (even if the recording drive that was used was completely new), it is impossible to say with absolute certainty that all the data was correctly copied to the disc. Another inconvenience of working with optical media is related to the growing volume of information. It has become much more difficult to navigate on which of the disks to look for a particular program or document. And, finally, the most important "minuses" of a laser disc are data loss due to mechanical damage (scratched disc surface) or as a result of a write error. However, so far there is no serious alternative to optical media, so it is necessary to look for ways to solve these problems, at least partially. Utilities with which you can evaluate the status of disks and recover data from them will be discussed in today's review.

CDCheck 3.1

Developer: Mitja Perko
Distribution size: 1.5 MB
Spreading: shareware
Interface: English It is possible to draw a conclusion about the state of the disk "by eye" only when obvious mechanical damage, indicating careless handling of the media. The more scratched and dirty the working side of the disk, the higher the likelihood of failures when reading data from the media. But even if no cracks or scratches are found after the most thorough inspection, this does not yet indicate that the data from the CD/DVD will be correctly read by the device. Recording errors can also occur as a result of a software failure or due to the failure of the recording device. Many people use a simple way to determine the quality of a recording - the media to be checked is inserted into a DVD drive, after which the data from it is copied to HDD. The logic of such a "test" is simple - if the data is copied, then the optical disk is in perfect order. In fact this is not true. The fact that the data was copied to the hard disk only indicates that some information was read by the drive, but the fact that the copy process is completed does not guarantee that the data on the hard disk is completely identical to the data that was written to the media. You should also not rely entirely on comparing the sizes of the original and copied files - even if they match, the data may differ. It is inconvenient to manually compare data, especially when there are a lot of files on the media, so it is best to control the quality of recorded discs using special utility, such as CDCheck. One of the main functions of this utility is to determine the integrity of the data on the media. For this purpose, the program generates a checksum for files and folders, a code that is unique for a particular case, by which one can judge the reliability of a data copy.

CDCheck works with different types checksums - MD2, MD4, MD5, Adler32, CRC32, SHA (1, 256, 348, 512), Tiger (128, 160, 192), etc. Before burning a disc, the program can analyze the contents of the future media for compatibility recorded on CD /DVD data with ISO image standards. Data verification can be performed both by checksum and by the "source-copy" principle. At the end of the check, the program can launch an external virus scanner by checking the contents for viruses. CDCheck allows you to set the priority of a job, and also has the function of data recovery by repeatedly reading disk sectors. Upon reaching a certain percentage of reliability, which can be set in the program settings, the data can be considered restored.

By processing the data with the CDCheck program, you can monitor the detailed statistics of the process: the average speed of reading data, the estimated time of data processing, the number of files and folders checked. The utility supports command line and provides detailed information about the CD/DVD/BD media being used.

DiskInternals CD & DVD Recovery 3.5

Developer: DiskInternals Research
Distribution size: 3.5 MB
Spreading: shareware
Interface: english The Lost Data Recovery Tool is one of a number of different data recovery tools offered by the developers of DiskInternals Research. This program can work with any optical media: from CD-R and DVR-R to dual-layer discs and DVD-RAM. CD & DVD Recovery finds "missing" files written in ISO9660, UDF and Joliet systems. This data can be recovered even if the data was written to the disk in multisession mode.

The operation of recovering damaged or deleted data is greatly simplified thanks to step by step wizard which is included in the program. Following his instructions, you must select the media whose contents are not available, and then specify the parameters of the files to be restored. So, for example, for a more accurate data search result, you should determine the approximate size of the files being reanimated, as well as indicate the approximate time of their creation. These criteria are of particular importance when analyzing a rewritable disc that has many "traces" of old information once recorded on the medium. CD & DVD Recovery determines the location of the lost data on the disc and can work with long file names. The program provides access to files from any track, even if the session on the disk was not correctly closed.

CDRoller 8.0

Developer: Digital Atlantic Corp.
Distribution size: 6 MB
Spreading: shareware
Interface: english The problem of unreadable disks has led to the emergence of a mass of utilities created to solve it. Some programs are designed to test the quality of recording media, others - to read the surviving information. Typically, this uses the method of multiple reading, when the program tries to copy the data from the damaged disk as accurately as possible. However, in practice, these utilities are not always able to save the situation. For example, if the copied file is large and contains one or more unreadable fragments, then such data may not be suitable for further use.

The simplest example of such a situation is a damaged DVD with a movie recorded on it. As you know, the content of the DVD-video format usually looks like the Video_ts folder, where the menu and navigation files are located, as well as large files with the .vob extension, which contain video and sound. If the unreadable area of ​​the disk is in the place where the vob file was recorded, this file will be partially damaged, resulting in the loss of a large fragment of the video. You can partially restore the remaining video. First, you can use additional tools that can fix errors in the code of the video file. However, if the damaged area is large, then such utilities will not be able to cope with the recovery. Other programs capable of fixing the video file will use re-compression, which will inevitably lead to loss of original quality. The CDRoller utility can solve this problem faster and more efficiently than many other programs. After copying readable data from such a disk to the hard drive, CDRoller will analyze the vob file and divide it into separate fragments (movie scenes), saving them in the MPEG format familiar to the DVD video standard, without quality loss. In this case, you can simply exclude the scene with the fragment where the defect is present, and record new disk with surviving data.

Thanks to the built-in burning module, the procedure for burning a disc can be performed directly in the CDRoller. The program allows you to burn recovered files and folders, videos, as well as ISO image files.

The tool for cataloging discs built into the program uses the so-called short images (Short CD/DVD Image). In fact, these are not real images, but only data about the contents of the indexed disk - a list of all files and directories on the disk, with the structure preserved. Each time a new disc is read, the program can automatically create such a short image and write it to a certain folder, thus making up a library of all discs. In the future, if you need to quickly find specific file, you can search the entire image library using CDRoller. The data search tool is very flexible, search query can be refined using various search criteria. For example, you can set the minimum and maximum size searched file, define the subject of the search (for example, only folders, files, or both), indicate the date of creation, etc. Another feature of CDRoller is the ability to work with audio CDs. Despite the relative durability of audio CDs, sometimes one tiny scratch is enough to stop a CD player from playing a certain track or even recognizing the disc. In order to save the recording, the program uses digital data reading (Digital Audio Extraction). During the audio reading process, the CDRoller can use jitter correction, as well as apply sector rereading to detect errors or loss of synchronization. Readable tracks can be immediately converted to various formats digital sound- WAV, MP3, MP2, OGG, etc. The program can encode audio CDs on the fly, without creating an intermediate WAV file. In order to evaluate the quality of the optical media, CDRoller performs a series of tests (the test can be launched by selecting a drive from the list of available devices and using a keyboard shortcut), choosing a test method depending on the type of recorded data. The program checks file system ISO 9660, and also performs a disk surface check, after which it displays a detailed generated report on various media properties - the number of detected sessions, the program in which the recording was made, the size of the file allocation table, the list of unreadable folders, etc. d.

Please note that this check cannot be applied to disks with the UDF file system. Error detection on optical media with such a file system is performed automatically. This data recording format is actively used various models DVD camcorders, DVD recorders, and packet writing applications such as Roxio Drag-To-Disc and Nero InCD. Users who have to deal with such discs often encounter a situation where the captured and recorded video does not play back. Typically, data write errors occur during session close. They can be found when working with devices of the most different manufacturers- Lite-On, Thomson RCA, Philips, Panasonic, etc. In most cases, CDRoller allows you to partially or even completely restore this data.

ISOBuster 2.5

Developer: Smart Projects
Distribution size: 4.8 MB
Spreading: shareware
Interface: English This program is a versatile data recovery tool. Many users consider this utility to be the best tool for "fixing" unreadable data from optical discs, and, I must say, not unreasonably. The program is regularly updated, and the long list of its features grows from version to version. On the this moment IsoBuster can revive data from almost any media, including BD and HD DVDs.

The secret of IsoBuster's popularity lies primarily in the fact that this program understands all existing file systems that are used today for writing data. The utility works with the contents of images, with its help you can mount images and extract data from them, as well as directly run files. The program supports all formats popular programs for burning discs such as CDRWin, CloneCD, DiscJuggler, BlindWrite, WinOnCD, NTI, Plextools and many more. IsoBuster can also be used to create an exact image of the source disk, and the image can be written to .iso, .bin, .tao formats, created with cue markup and an .md5 checksum to determine data integrity.

The program allows you to check the status of the media (in this case, you can not even extract the data to the hard drive) and can compile lists of files containing reading errors. If the program detects bad sectors when reading a disk image, IsoBuster can collect statistics on bad areas of the disk and save it to a separate file. In the event that restrictions are imposed on the file system (for example, FAT), the created image files can be split into parts, the size of which is specified in the IsoBuster settings.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, there is no such way that would guarantee one hundred percent data protection on optical media. Therefore, there is nothing left but to handle the disk more carefully and always keep a backup copy of it "in reserve". Well, if, despite the precautions taken, the trouble still occurred, the files from the disk are not copied or are not visible at all - it's time to try one of the described utilities for recovering information from the media. We wish you to use these programs only out of curiosity, and not out of necessity.

Video editors, converters, DVD burning.
Program Overview

Programs for testing CD/DVD/Blu-Ray discs (part 1)

When we hear the phrase "counterfeit products", the first associations are with DVDs and movies. Unfortunately, when buying a DVD disc, we can almost never guarantee its quality. In this regard, the question arises of testing this disc. There are many both paid, for example, Nero, and free utilities to check the quality of DVD discs. One of them - VSO Inspector Vso-Software allows you to determine the characteristics of your CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drive, get information about the inserted disc (both blank and recorded), and perform surface analysis for read errors.

Free program VSO Inspector fully Russified, has a volume of about 3 MB, works with all operating systems Windows before 7 inclusive. You can download the latest version of the program from the download page of the developer's website by clicking on the link Download Latest version.

Program installation VSO Inspector runs as usual, and before completion you will be asked to familiarize yourself with the main features of testing disks. The main window of the program is shown in Figure 1:

Fig.1. The main window of the disk test program VSO Inspector

Bookmark Device the main parameters of the disk drive (disk drive) are displayed: general information, options, the ability to read and write various disks, etc. (Fig. 1).

Next bookmark, Carrier, will provide information about the CD / DVD / Blu-ray disc (blank) inserted into the drive: media type, manufacturer, number of layers, maximum read / write speed, etc. - Fig. 2:

Fig.2. Disk parameters tab (blanks)

Bookmark Scanning you can check the quality of the discs: perform a surface scan and test the files if the disc contains recordings. The testing process is reflected in the diagram and numbers in the corresponding colored cells: Good, Bad and Errors. To select a test, check the box next to the desired item and click the button Start. In the presence of errors and bad sectors, testing the disk surface can take a long time - see Figure 3.

Fig.3.

At the end of the scan, a summary of the test results is displayed, which can be saved as a file - button Save. Unlike similar programs, VSO Inspector allows you to check not only the quality of the surface, but also errors in the information already recorded on the disk - point File testing. In addition, you can view detailed information on each sector of the disk - tab View sectors(Fig. 4).

Fig.4."View disk sectors" tab

Thus the program VSO Inspector- a good tool for testing disks. It should be borne in mind that the presence of errors on a rewritable CD / DVD does not mean that they should be thrown away. Sometimes after performing a full (not quick) erase, for example, using a program Nero, the errors disappear and the disc can be used again.

Displays various information about installed CD/DVD drives, their characteristics and media read/write capabilities various types. In addition, VSO Inspector can scan disks for errors and check the readability of data written to them. Free. (gcontent)Download VSO Inspector (/gcontent)

Nero CD-DVD Speed

Version: 4.7.15
Size: 807 Kb
Status: free
(gcontent)Download Nero CD-DVD Speed ​​(/gcontent)

A free utility that is part of the paid Nero. In the indisputability of the results of the benchmark test for quality assurance optical drive more than one generation of testers was convinced.

The program can test how well the drive copes with reading and writing disks of various types, how much time it spends searching for blocks of information, how fast it can transfer data, how much it loads the central processor, how much it takes to spin up and stop the disk, is everything in order with the interface .

are present and additional information, but they are of less interest. The report on the work done is presented in the form of a visual graph, on which problem areas are immediately evident. In addition, the utility is able to check the quality of the discs themselves at the same time and try to collect basic information about them. AT latest versions support for Blu-ray and HD DVD has been added and optimized, but this will not be as relevant in the coming months. You may have a legitimate question, why do you actually need to test your drive? I will answer.

For example, it is far from uncommon when a drive ideally records discs of only one type (for example, everything is in order with DVD + R, but DVD-R - through a stump deck). Having found out this not the most pleasant fact, you can choose the type of media that suits you.

There are dozens of manufacturers of recordable DVD-/+R discs on the market, or, to put it simply, DVD discs.

There is practically no difference between negative and positive discs, all modern writing and reading devices have learned to correctly understand both formats, so in this article we will simply consider most of the cheapest discs that can be found in computer stores.

So, in my small test lab, there were blanks from sixteen different manufacturers.
All discs are sold in the so-called technological packaging, that is, on a spindle, and if you buy just a couple of pieces, then without packaging at all.

Testing consisted of three stages: the first - visual inspection disc, the second - recording on drives Pioneer DVR-111D, Pioneer DVR-110DBK and NEC 4571, and the third stage - quality analysis using the CD / DVD Speed ​​program from the Nero 7.0 Platinum kit using the same burners, as well as, for control an old LG combo drive, model GCC-4522BB, was taken.

Thus, it took me 3 discs of each model, plus 2 more, in reserve, in case any disc was burned incorrectly, to try to find out what it depends on and try to burn it again.

In general, a stack of 80 discs was formed on the table, all drives were installed in the computer: 2 pieces per IDE channel, both pioneers settled down as masters on different channels, the only NEC was on the Primary Slave, and another Slave, this time the Secondary was old LG.
And the data for recording was taken from hard drive SATA, released by WD, which says WD1600JS on board.

Who we are acting as testers is already known, now more specifically about the test subjects.

A-media DVD+R 8x

The edges are well finished, no burrs were found anywhere.
The design of the disk is made inversely, that is, the letters of the inscriptions are the upper, mirror-like coating of the disk.
The lacquer coating of the upper surface of the disc leaves much to be desired.
It is very thin, and quite a large number of Inscriptions and patterns that are not varnished at all, clearly do not add reliability points to the disk.

I didn’t like the fact that there is no area for custom inscriptions, that is, you will have to write with a marker what is written on the blank over the pattern.
According to Nero Info Tool, the manufacturer of the disk is some MCC 003, and the write speed is no less than 12x.
Surprisingly, the entire brethren of burning drives confirmed this and expressed their full readiness to burn the disc at this particular speed, but the inscription on the disc said that only 8x and nothing more.

I had to spend one extra sample and try to record at 12x.
And I must say it turned out quite well, although the difference in recording time compared to 8x was a little more than a minute, and this affected the quality of the recording for the worse.
The old LG man seriously thought about this experimental disc a couple of times, but in general he managed to read the disc completely, that is, not a byte of data was lost, but I will not advise anyone to overclock discs from this company.
There is no point, the 8x disc recorded excellently.

All burners read the disc without problems, the reading schedule was absolutely smooth, LG had a couple of barely noticeable dips in the region of 60% of the disk, but they practically did not affect the final reading speed.
There is also an interesting inscription - produced under the control of Mirex.
Mireks can see few of her own blanks, she also controls other people's.

Gembird DVD-R 8x

But this is the first time I come across blanks on which Gembird is written.
Quite a long time ago, a fan of this company was buzzing in the case and I really wanted to know - the disks of this company are of the same quality or they have learned how to produce high-quality things.
Although manufacturing is a big word, it's definitely an OEM product, on which Gembird only writes its name and website address.

The edges of the disc are poorly processed - bumps are visible to the naked eye, but the varnish coating is much better than that of the previous test subject.
And the varnish was not spared, and there are much fewer unprotected areas on the upper surface of the disk.
And they took care of the user by drawing a few horizontal lines, although the varnish coating is such that if you write something with an ordinary alcohol marker, you will have to carefully put it on the table and do not touch it for half a day, otherwise the inscription will be smeared.

The real manufacturer is abstract TYG02.
It is very interesting that original, and not OEM, blanks will appear in this test?
We'll find out further.
This disc is obviously not intended for fans of overclocking, as 8x is written on it, the disc will be recorded exactly at the same speed.
As for the quality of writing and reading, they are on top.

In terms of recording time, the disc really loses to A-media, but the latest LG found several blots in the recording, which cannot be said about Gembird, the reading schedule was perfectly even, although in average speed reading lost 0.05x, although this can easily be attributed to an error, but the fact remains.
Let's go further.

Mirex DVD+R 8x

But with these blanks I experimented the most.
After I got tired of the warning about the lack of space on the hard disk, I used up a package of these disks of 25 pieces.
True, all the blanks were recorded with the help of the 100th Pioneer, and after six months everyone is alive and well.
In addition, they are still successfully sold in stores, so it was not difficult to buy heels of these discs.

And on sale you can find several varieties of these blanks, although they do not differ in anything except color, so everything that will be said applies equally to the entire series.
The performance did not let us down, the edges of the disk were processed evenly, I even brought a magnifying glass to the matter of examining the disk, but still no burrs were found.

The lacquer layer, although quite thin, covers most of the disc.
And here the producer of a blank forces to reflect.
First of all, who did produce the disc?
Because ATIP didn't say a word about it.
Now you won't surprise anyone with the speed of 8x, and the disc refused to accelerate, which is probably for the better, because, as we have already seen, this can significantly worsen the quality of the recording.

And on an 8x disk, it is written just fine with a decent speed and read at the same good speed.
All drives successfully coped with the recording, and even the old LG did not find anything to complain about here.

Mirex DVD-R 8x

When I first saw this disc on the counter, I mistook it for a red version of the previous model.
But if you look closely, you can still find the difference.
For those who read "Murzilka" in childhood and successfully completed tasks to find some differences there, this task will not be difficult.
And the difference here is only one and it lies in the “-” sign, where it was “+”.
But if you arm yourself special programs, the list can be expanded.

These discs are stamped by a fairly well-known company - FUJIFILM, which has replaced some nameless manufacturer here.
The edges are well processed, but it is difficult to call them absolutely smooth, some irregularities were found.
Pro external design already mentioned in the previous paragraph.
The disc records well.
As 8x is written on it, it will be recorded at this speed.

In terms of recording time, it is a typical average, and one of the leaders in terms of recording quality - the schedule for reading all discs is perfectly even.
The general verdict - the disk can be bought.
Nothing unusual can be expected from him, and the overall impression is positive.