troubleshooting workflows

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Ben Goldman

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Nov 18, 2016, 10:07:44 AM11/18/16
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Hi All,

I've seen a lot of born digital workflows over the years, but I can't recall if I've seen any that focus on what to do when you have a piece of media that is defiantly unreadable. What troubleshooting steps do you all take when you encounter a disk that just hangs when trying to be read, or appears to be unreadable in different processing tools? At what point do you throw in the towel and give up on a disk?

Thanks,
Ben

Tracy Popp

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Nov 18, 2016, 10:14:36 AM11/18/16
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Hi Ben,

I have the benefit of having several different tools including a Catweasel, Kryoflux and FD5025. With 5.25" disks if I'm having an issue and the drive isn't damaging the surface of the disk I'll try another adapter/drive combo and see if that works. If not, I'll contact a vendor and see if they can recover anything. If the vendor can't read the disk that's when I call it dead and done.

I've had cases where the vendor was able to "bake" a disk cookie (the magnetic platter). This practice is something A\V recovery folks may use for magnetic tape which has sticky shed syndrome and can facilitate recovery.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Tracy Popp
Digital Preservation Coordinator
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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