Guide to Providing Access for Outdated/Provisional Born-Digital Files

Part Five – Interesting/Problematic/Outdated Files

In the event you process a patron request and find that some of the files cannot be viewed on Box, you may need to use other programs to view the files.

If you open a disk and see that the files appear to be program files (see image below), refer to the Problematic Media Processing guide for further instructions. If they're not program files - just files you can't view - keep reading.

AutoCad/.dwg

Files with the .dwg extension must be accessed in the program DWG TrueView in Windows. To access these, follow the guide through Part Three. Then:

1. Open DWG TrueView. If a box pops up warning you about screen resolution, press okay. The program will still open.
2. Click "Open Files" and navigate to your new folder with the .dwg file(s).
3. Select those files and open them in the program. They should render on the screen.

WordPerfect & Other Outdated Files

If files will not render with modern software, they can be viewed in Autopsy. This program is in Windows.

1. Open Autopsy and select “New Case.”
2. In the Case Name field, type (AIP number)_autopsy” (i.e., 2017009_02_069)
3. Fill out optional information, if desired.
4. Select “Finish.” This creates the card database.
5. A box should appear reading Add Data Source. If it does not, click the Add Data Source button in the top left corner of the screen.
   
6. Select the data source type. For disk images, select “Disk Image or VM File.” For extracted files, select “Logical Files.”
   
7. Select your data source. You can add multiple data sources to the same case. When you click “Finish,” the file(s) will begin loading into Autopsy.
   
8. Once the files is finished loading, browse through the output on the left hand side of the screen. To view the disk image/file structure, click under the filename under Data Sources. This allows you to view every available file.
   NOTE: If you click on a file and only the hex string is rendering, make sure the files are 100% finished loading into Autopsy (indicated in the bottom right hand corner). This can take a while!
   
9. Clicking on files renders them in the bottom screen. This way, you can view files like .wpd and .jpg directly from the disk image or extracted file.