newbie with md5 problem. please help!!

hello all,
probably a simple answer to this but i cant see it. any help woulld be appreciated. I've downloaded an iso and i've got a text file of the corresponding md5 file. i've read the download FAQ which tells me what an md5 file is for, and because im in XP i've downloaded md5summer to check it.

ive read and followed the documentation: i create a new md5sum file from the iso and i save that on my desktop. then i chose 'verify sums' in md5summer and selected the md5 i just created from the iso. but then i get an text error message saying the iso does not exist. what have i done wrong? and where does the md5 text file from the knoppix site come into it? how precisely is the text file md5 'checked' against the iso?


i know all this stuff is very transparently obvious to most of you here, but half an hour ago i had no idea md5's existed. Help!

Thanks in advance,

Gilbertt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gilbertt

what have i done wrong?

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After reading your post I have very little understanding of why you are doing what you did. While md5summer will let you create another md5 file from the iso, you should not need to. Md5summer should check the existing file against the iso (assuming both are in the same directory) and give you a yes or no ansxwer if they match.

The difference between creating a new file and checking an existing file with md5summer is the choice of using the Create Sums or Verify Sums buttons. Or you can just create the relation between md5 extensions and the md5summer program; that way whenever you click on a file with an md5 extension, it will open md5summer to open the md5 file (much in the way files with a .soc extension are usually opened by Word or files with a .txt extension are opened by a text editor such as notepad).

If you have already created another md5 file and now have two md5 files, the original that you downloaded and a new one that you created, you could just look at both of them (they are text files with an md5 extension). If they show the same md5 checksum then the file is good. But this is doing it the hard way.