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How to see tell-tale signs of a bad disc

Although it is not a scientific means of finding flaws in media, simply viewing the burned side of a disc can reveal potentially flawed media. Bad spots and thin areas of dye can easily be seen by the naked eye.

This is a typical disc, a good burn with zero visible flawsin the dye.	This disc shows signs of a bad dye spread or dye melting. In most cases, this is a guaranteed bad burn, and will be entirely unreadable near the middle of the disc.	This disc show blemishes on the dye. It was either a faulty disc or it had dirt/lint on it while being burned. These areas are normally damaged.

How to detect bad discs with software

This guide assumes you have any version of Microsoft Windows and a good DVD-ROM drive on your computer. It requires a quick install of the free diagnostic utility Nero CD-DVD Speed from www.cdspeed2000.com.

Discs may be "bad" for a few reasons. The most common ones are:

1. The disc is fine. It's your player/ROM that's being uncooperative.
2. The disc has a bad spot on it and is defective.

Use this tool to check out the disc integrity:

Start Nero CD Speed and go to EXTRA and then select SCANDISC

This window will appear:

Enable SURFACE SCAN only and then click START.

When it is done, red means the disc is bad, yellow means it may or may be bad at that spot, and green means good. Please note that these are READ TESTS, and some of this may depend on the quality of the reading laser/drive. This is why good drives are important (and not some $20 Mad Dog special). Good DVD-ROMs include Pioneer, Sony, LiteOn, LG, NEC, BTC ... just to name a few. Bad ones include Hitachi, Mitsumi, Panasonic and others.

EXAMPLE: This is a typical bad disc, a scan of a MATRIX-brand DVD: