I made my first slipstream with WIndows XP Pro and SP2. It appears to have worked correctly. I used autostreamer to do it for me.

Is there any way to test the disk to see if it will likely work or do I just need to dive in and do the install?

Well, the slipstreamed disk should be bootable. Does it boot?

Other than that, try it with PEBuilder. Make sure you either use rewritable CDs or have a stack of blanks one, NO one ever makes just one CD. Especially when starting out.