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When you open an .iso file with e.g. 7-zip, the tool lets you test the ISO file, just like you can test any RAR or 7Z or ZIP file that the file is still ok.

If that test finishes successfully, does that mean the .iso file data and all the files within the ISO disc image are fine and not corrupted (bitrot)?

I am a bit confused because elsewhere I saw it mentioned that the ISO (raw disc image) format doesn't contain any data integrity checksums, so I am unsure what the 7-zip tool is testing while testing an ISO disc image file.

timppu
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1 Answers1

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The tool lets you test the ISO file

The test is (probably) meaningless as they are raw disk images (7zip will notice only if there are bytes missing at the end of the file according to a comment on a related question's answer).

As you point out, there is no way to directly check integrity as ISO-9660 does not support any data integrity verification.

You should use a separate hash to verify ISO files:

All the official Windows ISO images will have an SHA-1 hash listed somewhere online which you can then compare against to see if the one you downloaded is identical to the original.

Source 10 Tools to Verify File Integrity Using MD5 and SHA1 Hashes • Raymond.CC

Further Reading

DavidPostill
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