MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
SALVAGE OF WATER DAMAGED COLLECTIONS
MAGNETIC MEDIA: COMPUTER DISKETTES
NOTE: THE TEXT OF THIS PAGE IS BEING REVISED
| Priority: | Prolonged storage in water causes leaching of chemicals from the support. If a back-up copy is available, it is usually better to discard the water-soaked original. |
| Handling Precautions: | |
| Preparation for Drying: | Store diskettes upright without crowding, in cool distilled water until you are ready to attempt data recovery. Remove the disk from the jacket by cutting with non-magnetic scissors along the edge of the jacket. Carefully remove the diskette and agitate the exposed disks in multiple baths of cool distilled water to remove all visible dirt. |
| Drying Methods: | Dry with lint-free towels (cheese cloth). Insert disk into an empty jacket made by removing a new disk. You need only prepare one new jacket for each five to ten disks since the same jacket can be reused several times as you copy the material from the old disk to the new disk in the computer. Most diskettes can be salvaged unless the diskette itself is magnetically damaged or warped. The water damaged disk placed in the new jacket is inserted into a disk drive. Copy to a new disk and once verifying that the information has transferred, then discard the damaged disk. |
Minnesota Historical Society Disaster Preparedness Plan 6/93