What to Do!


Tutorial Home >Music and Video >Digital Music >Archiving Digital Multimedia >How do I keep my archives safe?
Tutorial Home >Music and Video >Digital Video >Archiving Digital Multimedia >How do I keep my archives safe?
Tutorial Home >Music and Video >Digital Music >Archiving Digital Multimedia >Safekeeping >What to Do!
Tutorial Home >Music and Video >Digital Video >Archiving Digital Multimedia >Safekeeping >What to Do!

  Step 1:  Recopy

Open a Report
Before your archive disk becomes unreadable, you need to recopy it to a fresh archive. It's best to just schedule the operation like scheduling an oil change every 3000 miles. Put a date on your archive so you can know when to recopy.
  Step 2:  Symptoms of bad flexible magnetic media

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The earliest symptom of failing magnetic media is a clogged head. Unless you're working in a really dirty environment, head clogs come from the magnetic oxide disintegrating on the disk or tape. Clean your heads and IMMEDIATELY recopy your archive.
  Step 3:  Symptoms of bad rigid magnetic media

Open a Report
One symptom of a failing hard disk is a series of bad sector error. You'll suddenly get a message that a file is corrupted. Run Scandisk or another disk utility to correct the error, then immediately recopy the archive to another disk. Unfortunately, you may lose some files in the process, so recopy BEFORE this happens.
  Step 4:  Symptoms of bad optical media

Open a Report
If you have a CDR/RW that suddenly won't work, it may have begun fading. Try different CD drives because some are more sensitive. If you find a drive that works, IMMEDIATELY recopy the archive.