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How to Access Data on CD-ROM

General 

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Handling - Do not touch the bottom of the cd. Handle the CD with thumb in the middle and fingers on the sides.

CD drive letter - F or in some cases, D

To access:

• click on the start button and choose Windows Explorer
• click on drive D or F (which ever has the icon of a cd-rom drive)
• look for an *.exe file or application and double click on it

Particular Datasets and Programs

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NLSY / NLS CD-ROM's

For Win 95 machines:
• put cd-rom in drive
• On the two Win 95 PC's in 806 Oswald Tower, there is a program icon on the desktop called NLS Investigator.  Double click on this start the program.
• Within the NLS Investigator window, select the drive D (or possibly F)
• There are three windows:
• Contents - allows you to search variables for a particular words and then brings up variables in the variable window
• Variables - allows you to select variables
• Text/cdbk - doesn't work yet  (NLS Investigator was just released)
• the software operates a little slowly, so be patient
• if you double click on the variable, a window will pop up with a codebook description of the variable
• after slecting variables you can review them or extract them.  Review, deletes all the unselected variables.  To extract the variables, set up your own data area on the C drive by making a directory with your userid (ex. C:\lisa).  You can also choose the format for the extracted data (delimited, SAS, SPSS, etc...).
• You can also save your tagged variables to make changes in the future
• For more information - check out the User's Guide on-line.

For Win 3.X and DOS machines:
NLSY Work History r2.0

• click on the Start button, under programs, choose a DOS window
• type 'cd workcd'
• type 'workcd'
• at the main screen choose 'Create/SAVE an extract file'
• type 'D:\youruserid' for your extracted data to be saved at this location
• continue with extraction instructions in the NLSY Work History 'User's Guide' on page 8
NLSY Youth r7.0
• insert cd
• at c prompt type 'd:'
• at d prompt type 'md youruserid' return - this will setup a data directory for your extracts
• at d prompt type 'c:'
• at c prompt type 'NLSDBA'
• at the menu change your output location to D:\youruserid (F2)
• read extraction instructions in the NLSY Youth 'User's Guide' starting on page 7
For the remaining NLS / NLSY cd's use the above instructions. If you have problems, please email the Data Archivist.

COUNTY AND CITY PLUS, 1993

• at c prompt type 'cd searcher'
• then type 'searcher'
• SELECT Geographic Area
• arrow down and hit enter to mark (* will appear)
• after marking desired geographic area(s), choose F5 Reduction Search
• hit Esc to return to Main Menu
• SELECT Report Items
• arrow down and hit enter to mark (* will appear)
• hit Esc to return to Main Menu
• under OPTIONAL CHOICES:
• CHANGE type of Output to Data Disk File
• EXECUTE Report
• type in filename including path when prompted
• Don't forget to remove cd from drive :)

WARNING: Bridget Gorman discoved the following error on the CD. When choosing Labor Force variables, DO NOT hit F3 (select whole table) or program will crash and you'll have to start over...

AMERICAN FAMILY DATA ARCHIVE

• at c prompt type 'cd roar'
• type 'roar'

NCHS CD-ROMS UTILIZING THE "SETS" PROGRAM

-Working with SETS help page

Last modified: 11/01/06 | Contact Webmaster