Understanding ISO

[ShinRa]

So here's the thing. I recently went through a neurotic period where I was worried about not being able to play any of my old games. So what did I do? I ripped them to ISOs. Short but sweet question:

If I have a perfect working ISO, can it become corrupted?

If I have a corrupted ISO, can it be repaired or do I have to re-rip them?

Mind you there is nothing illegal about this, so if you understand ISO better than me, please let me know.

 

[Higlac]

You don't really care about data unless it's backed up in at least three separate locations on at least two different storage mediums.

As for your questions: Yes and re-rip them.

 

[Krynn72]

So here's the thing. I recently went through a neurotic period where I was worried about not being able to play any of my old games. So what did I do? I ripped them to ISOs. Short but sweet question:

If I have a perfect working ISO, can it become corrupted?

Yes.

If I have a corrupted ISO, can it be repaired or do I have to re-rip them?

Its possible to repair it, but its also possible it can't be repaired. Try this. http://www.ehow.com/how_7256734_repair-damaged-iso-file.html

 

[ShinRa]

Yes.


Its possible to repair it, but its also possible it can't be repaired. Try this. http://www.ehow.com/how_7256734_repair-damaged-iso-file.html

Your brief but absolutely appreciated "yes" I take means that like any file, if a harddrive develops bad sectors the ISO can become corrupt. What I meant was if an ISO itself can just become corrupt on its own either from use or from not being used.

I ask this strange question because as Higlac said, I store my stuff on several HD's so I just wanted to make sure that the problem would be contained within that harddrive and the ISO on the other harddrives would still be functional.

 

[Krynn72]

We had a bunch of iso files here at work that got corrupted somehow, and nobody is sure how. They were just on an "ISO Hard Drive" that we only access when we need to burn a disk. So still yes. However the chances of duplicate files all going bad at the same time is unlikely. Are they all giving you that problem? It may be something you're doing when trying to access them that makes you think they're corrupt? What exactly are you trying to do with the ISO files, and whats your process for doing it?

 

[ShinRa]

We had a bunch of iso files here at work that got corrupted somehow, and nobody is sure how. They were just on an "ISO Hard Drive" that we only access when we need to burn a disk. So still yes. However the chances of duplicate files all going bad at the same time is unlikely. Are they all giving you that problem? It may be something you're doing when trying to access them that makes you think they're corrupt? What exactly are you trying to do with the ISO files, and whats your process for doing it?

Perhaps I was pre-emptively being neurotic once again. There's actually nothing wrong with any of the ISOs yet, but reading about corrrupted files and bad ISOs scared me into making this thread.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

You could create parity files for each of your ISO images, using a program such as QuickPar which I admit I haven't tried out, only just Googled for it. You create the file and store it alongside your original source, and when you get into one of your ZOMG MAH DATA moods you can run the program again to verify the integrity of the ISO. I would bet that you can specify the size of the parity data file so you can increase its recoverability at the tradeoff of additional storage space. Since parity files were originally invented (AFAIK) to provide integrity to Usenet-distributed archive segments typically of around 100MB each, I'd go with that size. Parity files are good to recover an entire lost segment of data of the same size as itself, which dwarfs the size of any hypothetical hard drive sector you might lose.

 

[ShinRa]

You could create parity files for each of your ISO images, using a program such as QuickPar which I admit I haven't tried out, only just Googled for it. You create the file and store it alongside your original source, and when you get into one of your ZOMG MAH DATA moods you can run the program again to verify the integrity of the ISO. I would bet that you can specify the size of the parity data file so you can increase its recoverability at the tradeoff of additional storage space. Since parity files were originally invented (AFAIK) to provide integrity to Usenet-distributed archive segments typically of around 100MB each, I'd go with that size. Parity files are good to recover an entire lost segment of data of the same size as itself, which dwarfs the size of any hypothetical hard drive sector you might lose.

That sounds really promising. I'm going to look into that. Do you think that's a better method than just making 2-3 backup copies of the uncorrupted ISO (given that I have the storage space to do so?)

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

That sounds really promising. I'm going to look into that. Do you think that's a better method than just making 2-3 backup copies of the uncorrupted ISO (given that I have the storage space to do so?)

That seems like an irrationally inefficient way to spend your time and storage, IMO. I've had three hard drive crashes (sector corruption that makes the computer unbootable) in the decade and a half I've been responsible for my own computer, and I've been able to recover 95% of all my porn favorite games and important documents using proprietary Windows software like GetDataBack or Captain Nemo. Try the parity files; I doubt you'll even need to rely on them.

 

[ShinRa]

That seems like an irrationally inefficient way to spend your time and storage, IMO. I've had three hard drive crashes (sector corruption that makes the computer unbootable) in the decade and a half I've been responsible for my own computer, and I've been able to recover 95% of all my porn favorite games and important documents using proprietary Windows software like GetDataBack or Captain Nemo. Try the parity files; I doubt you'll even need to rely on them.

Thanks. I'll take your advice seeing as it's about 100 gigs of ISOs. O_O

I have backup copies, but I think going forward the parity route will do just fine. Again, like you said, I'll most likely not run into such an issue anyway.

 

[Maestro]

I thought this was going to be a guide to understanding ISO standards or something, not about .iso files.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

I thought this was going to be a guide to understanding ISO standards or something, not about .iso files.

Me, too, actually. It was a very confused click.