Unearthing Texas' Digital Archeology Records

The overarching goal of my capstone project is to facilitate access to files currently stored on a collection of approximately 200 floppy discs for the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL). To that end, I have developed a multi-step workflow starting with converting data from the floppy discs into “.e01” disc image files using BitCurator. Disc image files are subsequently scanned through Autopsy’s digital forensics platform which generates human-readable text that can be transferred into a modern Excel spreadsheet. Disc image files, their associated digital forensics reports, and the reformatted data are then uploaded to a shared UTBox folder along with institutional metadata. The overall outcome of the endeavor has been providing TARL with accurately reformatted files that are accessible with modern software while also retaining all of the original data for their repository.