DVD Writer Troubleshooting: Finding the Cause of Burning Issues

[ank_gl]

my dvd writer seems to have gone mad. i burned 5 sony dvd's first n they all were fine, then the next one got thrashed and then 2-3 dvd's got wasted. again few next dvd's were fine. all my dvd's were of sony. things continued. now i have about 10-12 fine working dvd's and same number of "REALLY BURNED" dvd's. i even tried some low grade dvd's, they were fine n few sony dvd's got blown up.
i don't think anything is wrong with the dvd's, i mean so many can't go wrong, can they??
is there anyway to find out if my dvd writer is working properly or not

 

[mgb_phys]

Not easily - the writers are so cheap now that it probably isn't worth wasting discs (and data) on a suspect one.

 

[ank_gl]

thats true but i can't just throw away my writer. i ll first atleast try to know, which one is wrong