Is there a reliable way to scan or verify Playstation discs without just playing the game completely through?

Question

I have a large Playstation (PS1) collection, purchased almost entirely second-hand. I usually play the beginning of a game to make sure the disc works, and have caught a few duds that way. On multi-disc games, about all I've been able to do is make sure the other discs load and ask me for the first disc. I've had no way of knowing whether or not some data damage might exist on the rest of the first or additional discs.

I've purchased two semi-rare games which should arrive soon (I say "semi-rare" because they're easily found -- just not in the quantity that matches the demand) -- Suikoden 2 and Persona 1. I'd really like to find a way to verify these discs (and, in fact, my entire collection) entirely. Does software exist to do this? I have Ahead Nero for CD creation, but it's an older version and doesn't appear to have any sort of disc verification ability. I have the ePSXe emulator, but prefer to use my real PS2 or PS3 to play these games instead (and, it doesn't appear to have any disc verification built in, anyway).

Is there a reliable way to verify or scan these dics for data damage or "unintentional" bad sectors?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

why do you have to verify them often? the more you try to scan them, the more they become prone to damages because you use them just to "verify". Just leave them alone and use them only when you want to. They wont get damage if you just keep them safely.

Answer 2

Just put the disc in your pc, and bring up the disc utilities for your operating system. Then run a check for bad or unreadable sectors on the disc. You don't have to actually play the game.

If you don't have one of these utilities, they should be easy to find with a major search engine. There's plenty of them, they run the same kind of diagnostics more or less that are run on hard drives for bad blocks. In fact just run a search for "cd diagnostic utility" and I bet you'll find one for free download.