Continuing the project I began with my last post, yesterday I took a few samples of 3.5″ floppies from the Westheimer Literary papers in the hopes of imaging and preserving their data. This time, I was working with our new intern, Clair. Clair is working on the Baker College records, and she had a stack of floppies and CDs that needed some attention, so this was a good time to train her with using Bitcurator. As I expected, things did not proceed as smoothly with the 3.5″ floppies.
We used a USB supported iomega floppy drive. None of the Westheimer discs were readable, and I was worried the problem might be the reader, but then one from the Baker College records still worked!
Westheimer floppies did not mount
With Clair in the driver seat, we imaged the disc, extracted metadata, and compiled the reports. The disc contained a readable doc file, a College Master’s reflection on the responsibilities and pleasures of his job.
Summary: the plug-and-play iomega floppy drive works, and Bitcurator did a great job with imaging the disc.
What's in Woodson 