-If you ever encounter a situation where "well, this volume might contain valuable data" is a thing, try to make a forensically-sound copy first;
-Depending on the exact source media, this might be a very specific process. Don't skip on it, though.
But, once you have an accurate copy of the source media, feel free to run any non-destructive experiments that you'd like. After, of course, publishing the source media for fellow enthousiasts...