A little off topic here, but I have a question about MD5...
I like to make backups of my hard drive with Norton Ghost.
I set it to split the files at 700 MB and backup to another partition.
Later, I burn the files to CD-R.
My question is - if I check the file on the hard drive and CD-R, and the checksum & MD5 are equal, is it safe to say the file transfered to the CD-R without any errors?

Thanks,
Val.

> checksum & MD5 are equal, is it safe to say the file transfered to the CD-R
> without any errors?

CRC32 and MD5 aren't 100% safe to identify a file. Neither is SHA1. But the chance that 2 files aren't equal if crc32+md5 match is nearly 0.

So I'd say it's safe.

Roman Scherzer
ClrMamePro

> > checksum & MD5 are equal, is it safe to say the file transfered to the CD-R
> > without any errors?

Don't forget that they were originally designed for the very purpose of checking that a file was copied/transferred safely so it is very unlikely that a bad copy will have the same CRC. It's just the use that our community put checksums to that is dubious:

"Here's a random file from I don't know where, do you recognise it?" ;)

> > > checksum & MD5 are equal, is it safe to say the file transfered to the CD-R
> > > without any errors?
>
> Don't forget that they were originally designed for the very purpose of checking
> that a file was copied/transferred safely so it is very unlikely that a bad copy
> will have the same CRC. It's just the use that our community put checksums to
> that is dubious:
>
> "Here's a random file from I don't know where, do you recognise it?" ;)
>