It would be easy to check the wire for a short. Take your meter and set it for continuity and touch the leads to the positive and negative. It should beep if there's a short. To check for a broken wire, twist one end of the wire together and check for continuity again. If the meter doesn't beep the wire is broken.
How do you check for damaged wire in walls? HELP
I have lost the same channel on an amplfier twice now. It runs to a rear surround that was installed last year by me. Pulling the cable was difficult (hard to pull) I was afraid that I may have damaged the wire. I hooked it up and it worked great. I have done a ohm resistance test that reads .008 on both rear surrounds. I am not sure if this test will tell me if the wire is damaged. If anyone has any ideas as to any other tests I can do before I attempt to run anther wire it would be much appreciated