Paper - iPRES 2012 - Digital Curation Institute, iSchool, Toronto

This paper provides a practical example of digital archeology and forensics to recover data from floppy disks originally used by CTOS, now an obsolete computer operating system. The various floppy disks were created during the period between the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s containing different types of text, data and binary files. This paper presents practical steps from two different approaches, the tools and workflows involved which can help archivists and digital preservation practitioners recover data from outdated systems and media. While the floppy disk data recovery was a full success, issues remain in filetype detection and interpretation of non-ASCII data files of unknown or unsupported types.

iPRES, iSchool, Toronto, Canada, digital archeology, floppy disks, data recovery

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"iPres 2012 - Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects." Editors: Reagan Moore, Kevin Ashley, Seamus Ross

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"iPres 2012 - Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects." Editors: Reagan Moore, Kevin Ashley, Seamus Ross

140 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S3G6

Digital Curation Institute, iSchool University of Toronto