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I have two sets of discs which are mirrored copies of each other. Does an algorithm exist which could verify if the copy made is same as the original?

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What kind of discs? CDs? DVDs? Hard disks? –  slhck Jan 31 '12 at 10:00
"Read a block from disk 1 into memory" "Read the same block from disk 2 into memory" "Compare the two" "If not equal or read fails due to no more data, then disks are not identical, so abort" "If at the end of both disks, disks are identical" "Repeat for next block" There's your algorithm. –  Michael Kjörling Jan 31 '12 at 10:13

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There are various utilities which will calculate you a checksum; if the checksum differs, then the data is different, and the checksum will detect random errors. An example is MD5, and there are various utilities which will compute MD5sums for you.

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