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But what I can't figure out is when the discs were scratched. Could I burn to a scratched disc?

I don't know about DVD-R, but on CD-R:

- Yes you could burn to a scratched disc and the burner wouldn't know the difference. Only by running a second "Verify" pass would you know whether or not your burn was good.

- You can see where the burn was made on the surface of the disc by looking at it. For instance, if you burned only 50 percent of the disc capacity, then you'll see the inner 50 percent of the recording surface has a different sheen to it. If there was a scratch or dust on the surface at burn-time, you'd see that the recording media has a "shadow" of the unburned area beneath the scratch or dust.

Like I said, I don't know if the above applies to DVD-R, but I could always tell on a CDR whether the damage was pre-burn or post-burn.
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Tony Fabris