AIDA Capture Lab is a service of AIDA (a collaboration between Amsab-ISG, ADVN, AMVB, Letterenhuis, VAi, Archiefpunt and meemoo) and the result of the project Digital Repair Cafe. In this project, funded by the Flemish government, a central service to capture data from obsolete media was developed. The service is now operated by meemoo, Flemish institute for archives.

Obsolete media are all the media containing digital data that still work technically, but which can no longer be read by modern computers. Examples include 5.25-inch floppy disks, zip disks, magneto-optical disks and various tape formats.

Contact Maarten Savels (Amsab-ISG) for more information about the Digital Repair Cafe project. Contact meemoo for information about the workflows and manuals of the capture lab.

Manuals

Identifying media

• Handleiding verouderde dragers herkennen (dutch)

Capturing content

Included: setup and workflow

• 3.5 inch high density diskettes
• 3.5 inch single density or double density diskettes
• 5.25 inch floppies
• DDS tapes
• hard disks
• jaz disks
• magneto-optical (M.O.) discs
• memory cards
• optical discs (only data - no audio cd’s)
• SuperDisk disks
• travan tapes (only setup - workflow still in progress)
• zip disks

Deliverables

• Form for registration of old media (dutch)
• Overview of the obsolete media of the partners
• Overview of our drives
• Presentation Identifying old media (dutch)
• Presentation workshop Capturing content of obsolete media: part 1 & part 2 (dutch)
• Setup and workflows for capturing various obsolete media are included in the manuals