Best method to keep sanctity of music files during transfer to external HDD?

This is an OS independant question to everyone...
here's my situation -
I've been ripping my cd collection onto my mac as well as windows machines. However, I now want to create a backup of my music on an external hard drive through usb/ firewire ... my question is - is there a possibility that transferring an mp3/ flac file across usb/ firewire could introduce errors in the file? .. in other words, could transfer of a music file across the usb/ firewire cause a loss of fidelity in the music .. especially if this transfer is done many times?
if error corrections are not possible through usb/ firewire, is it a good practice, hence, to transfer the mp3/ flac as a zip file since a zip file would have inherent error correction?

Any info on this would be greatly appreciated ...

 

Any errors or corruption would cause an error and prevent the files from being copied. As a double check method, you should compare the size of the files of the original ones and the copied ones.

 

Unlikely but not impossible would be my guess (USB data packets contain CRC codes, I would expect firewire to do something similar).

If you want to make sure the files haven't changed, checksum the files yourself while they're still on the source drive, copy them to the external drive, then verify the saved checksums against the files on the external drive. To do this across multiple OSs use something standard like md5sum instead of proprietary applications.

 

the md5sum option sounds promising! .. .. thanks!

--------
i just did a check on firewire ... error correction is not present in a certain isochronous mode wherein data tx takes place between devices like a camcorder and the computer; however, how am I to deduce whether data transfer occuring between my laptop and external HDD is occurring with error correction ON? (this would obviate the necessity for me to run md5sums each time i'ld transfer data between my laptop and ext. HDD)

Similarly, are there any resources pointing to usb and its error correcting capabilities?

 

Here's a program that handles errors and recovery in Windows: http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php