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Data Recovered From Space Shuttle Columbia HDD

Posted by timothy on from the gary-sinise-was-not-involved dept.

WmHBlair writes "Data recovered from a 400MB Seagate hard drive carried on the Space Shuttle Columbia has been used to complete a physics experiment performed on the mission in space. The Johnson Space Center sent the recovered drive to Kroll Ontrack in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Considering the shape the drive was in (see picture in the linked article), it could indeed qualify for the 'most amazing disk data recovery ever.'" Update: 05/08 12:51 GMT by T : Reader lucas123 points out a piece at Computerworld with a series of photos of the recovered drive.

274 comments

  1. Yup... by Raineer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Data recovery has come a long way, keep this in mind when not using proper deletion techniques! Would have been nice to see a picture of the HDD though, to get a full understanding of the recovery.

    1. Re:Yup... by DanWS6 · · Score: 0

      What are proper deletion techniques?

    2. Re:Yup... by failedlogic · · Score: 1

      I think this is a valid question. I'm looking to trade in a computer (and keep the HDD inside) to increase the resale value. There seems to be conflicting information and the 40 over-write techniques, depending on the drive, algorithm etc. might not erase all the information. This seems to be, in part, because even when erased the head might not overwrite the same spot the data was on.

      That said, I usually chuck out HDDs after I give it some serious abuse and a couple of wipes using some software. I'm not confident its erased though.

    3. Re:Yup... by Devout_IPUite · · Score: 1

      Actually, once you finally see the picture you might say "Actually, that doesn't look too bad". I mean, the drive is still in one piece, straight, and devoid of any knife wounds. I'm sure you could make it look worse and still have it recoverable by the FBI.

    4. Re:Yup... by VMaN · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here is a picture for you:

      http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hard-drive-recovered-from-columbia&sc=rss

      I'm pretty sure it's the one from the shuttle..

    5. Re:Yup... by Wrath0fb0b · · Score: 5, Informative
      There are a number of standards for secure deletion of magnetic media, but basically writing over it a few times with a random pattern should be sufficient. A lot of people claim that the Gutmann method is superior but that was based on an older encoding scheme that presupposed you knew about the physical layout of the data -- modern drives are permitted to shuffle your data however they want (e.g. sectors can be mapped arbitrarily to the physical platters). Gutmann himself no longer recommend his eponymous method:

      In the time since this paper was published, some people have treated the 35-pass overwrite technique described in it more as a kind of voodoo incantation to banish evil spirits than the result of a technical analysis of drive encoding techniques. As a result, they advocate applying the voodoo to PRML and EPRML drives even though it will have no more effect than a simple scrubbing with random data. In fact performing the full 35-pass overwrite is pointless for any drive since it targets a blend of scenarios involving all types of (normally-used) encoding technology, which covers everything back to 30+-year-old MFM methods (if you don't understand that statement, re-read the paper). If you're using a drive which uses encoding technology X, you only need to perform the passes specific to X, and you never need to perform all 35 passes. For any modern PRML/EPRML drive, a few passes of random scrubbing is the best you can do. As the paper says, "A good scrubbing with random data will do about as well as can be expected". This was true in 1996, and is still true now. Source: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html, emphasis added.

      A good general explanation is given by the RCMP (what the hell mounties have to do with computers, like most of Canadian society, is entirely beyond me) http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/tsb/pubs/it_sec/g2-003_e.pdf

      If you have the practical need to nuke a drive, used DBAN: http://dban.sourceforge.net/
    6. Re:Yup... by jlindy · · Score: 4, Funny

      What are proper deletion techniques? 7 pass DoD... 35 pass Gutmann for the truly paranoid.
    7. Re:Yup... by Raineer · · Score: 1

      Well, seeing as how this thing was burnt to a crisp in the photos I saw the site before the slashdotting set in, there were no pictures of the HDD, just the ship itself. There is not really proof positive that the drive was burnt to a crisp.
    8. Re:Yup... by Raineer · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here is a picture for you: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hard-drive-recovered-from-columbia&sc=rss I'm pretty sure it's the one from the shuttle.. Thanks! And from that image it does not appear anything happened to the platters.
    9. Re:Yup... by eln · · Score: 1

      Yes, that first picture is the one from the article, and it actually answers a question I posed in my earlier post because the second picture is of the platters. The platters, other than some dust, look remarkably intact. Given the overall good condition of the platters, it's not that impressive that they could recover the majority of the data, although the fact that they got 99% of it (from your link) is pretty cool.

    10. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the 2nd picture on the site (click "next") shows the platters. A bit dusty, but largely intact. So probably not the most spectacular recovery effort ever.

    11. Re:Yup... by Devout_IPUite · · Score: 1

      If you do a reasonable scrubbing of the drive with random data, the FBI can still tell what was on it before. The person who buys your computer will likely not have the same forensics teams at their disposal that the FBI does though, so to a common individual, that data is gone.

    12. Re:Yup... by dAzED1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      nothing happened to the platters...with the exception of the violent crash (head-to-platter damage) and, more importantly, the extreme heat.

      Short of that though, yeah - platters were just peachy.

    13. Re:Yup... by blueg3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is not actually true. Any ability to read data once the entire disk has been overwritten with random data a single time is purely theoretical -- no forensics or law enforcement group can succeed in practice.

    14. Re:Yup... by bsDaemon · · Score: 3, Informative

      http://www.blocksandfiles.co.uk/contentimages/small/Challenger_drive.jpg

      that photo is clearly linked to the article above -- which also doesn't even seem to actually be slashdotted... totally a fritter.

    15. Re:Yup... by onescomplement · · Score: 5, Informative
      I've used OnTrack numerous times and they really know their stuff. I know there are other recovery services out there but these folks have earned my business.

      Basically, you pay a bench fee to get the drive examined, and then they send you the costs for recovery - for a desktop HD $500-$1500 depending on the problem. The cool part is that they send you a manifest of the recoverable files/directories so you can make an informed decision.

      And they _can_ perform miracles. Including dealing with bent platters. Just depends on what you want to pay.

      I must say it's been a great instructional tool for people who've neglected backups. They become wild operational militants after these episodes.

      Just remember that the ONLY way to ensure data cannot be recovered on a HD is to raise the drive temp past the Curie Point for the magnetics. (A charcoal BBQ works really well for this. Just pull the electronics and wrap the drive in heavy foil unless you like the smell of roasted phenolic.)

      Even if you "format" a drive it means that the waveforms coming off the heads can be interpreted as a certain, predictable value - but also remember that at root, it's an analog system and so artifacts from the prior contents are around, it's just a question of finding and interpreting them... That's why the DoD and other "erase" things are so comprehensive. Trying to obliterate all artifacts.

    16. Re:Yup... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      I thought we were discussing a drive from the Columbia re entry failure, not the Challenger explosion. The picture is just some toasted HD. Not clear at all where it came from.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    17. Re:Yup... by bsDaemon · · Score: 0

      Well, its the one they are showing on the website with the article. That's the best I can do.

    18. Re:Yup... by Daimanta · · Score: 2, Insightful

      [citation please]

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    19. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you overwrite your old data with all-zeroes or ones or even maybe a repeating pattern, the FBI just might be able to recover it.

      If you overwrite it with random data, it's purely theoretical. No one has even demonstrated it in a lab.

    20. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is not actually true. Any ability to read data once the entire disk has been overwritten with random data a single time is purely theoretical -- no forensics or law enforcement group can succeed in practice. Do you have anything to back that up?

      Specifically: Any ability to read data once the entire disk has been overwritten with random data a single time is purely theoretical. Oh yeah? What theory? ... no forensics or law enforcement group can succeed in practice. Again, source?

      Why was this modded Interesting otherwise?
    21. Re:Yup... by bigredradio · · Score: 4, Informative

      You must be new here.

      --
      Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
    22. Re:Yup... by Kjella · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure I've seen examples of them doing just that, though if it matters it shouldn't matter. If you needed something gone you'd first have it encrypted in the first place and secondly you'd use one of the many many free or commercial tools that do it properly.

      No, you won't do it with a software tool though but if you stick that $100 HDD under a $100,000 electron microscope in a clean room and read it very thoroughly, checking the edges for head drift etc. I wouldn't put money on that.

      My home computer has full disk encryption just by saying I want it and providing a password. Our partially rolled out company platform has full disk encryption, we're not in some special security-minded field either just a normal IT-oriented company. Everyone and anyone that would consider the possibilty that someone would do that kind of recovery has probably been encrypted for years.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    23. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I saw them do it on CSI, and TV never lies.

    24. Re:Yup... by rthille · · Score: 5, Interesting


      I've got a friend/co-worker/gun-nut who never returns a drive with his data on it. Work gets laptops back, sans drives. He takes them out to the range with a high-powered rifle and puts rounds thru them.

      Me, I just use OS-X's write-random 7-times. But if blocks got remapped because of io-errors in the drive, that might be enough for the truely paranoid. If I were that, I'd use my oxy-acetylene torch and just melt the platters to slag, after pulling the magnets out to play with.

      --
      Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
    25. Re:Yup... by RealGrouchy · · Score: 2, Funny

      And from that image it does not appear anything happened to the platters. Well, other than smoke getting in their eyes...

      - RG>
      --
      Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
    26. Re:Yup... by avandesande · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the burden of proof lays on the outrageous claim, not the reasonable assertion.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    27. Re:Yup... by Swampash · · Score: 5, Funny

      Here is a picture for you:

      http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hard-drive-recovered-from-columbia&sc=rss

      No, I'm pretty sure that's just stock photography of an IBM Deskstar after one week of use.

    28. Re:Yup... by Kral_Blbec · · Score: 1

      Nothing *physically* damaged the platers. As in cutting.It might just be me, but shotgunning and shredding the platters, even without any magnetic wiping, would be a lot harder to recover than heat damage.

    29. Re:Yup... by freeweed · · Score: 2, Informative

      (what the hell mounties have to do with computers, like most of Canadian society, is entirely beyond me)

      Uh, the RCMP is Canada's version of the FBI. Large-scale criminal investigations tend to involve computers these days.

      Unless you meant that Canadians don't need computers in general...

      --
      Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
    30. Re:Yup... by citylivin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "My home computer has full disk encryption"
      Hopefully its not a windows machine, as I read last week that microsoft provides a FOB that decrypts automagically, windows partitions for law enforcement purposes.

      --
      As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
    31. Re:Yup... by dpilot · · Score: 1

      But does that look like one of the chips ripped out of its SMT solder joints, in the second picture?

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    32. Re:Yup... by arth1 · · Score: 1

      I've used OnTrack numerous times and they really know their stuff. I know there are other recovery services out there but these folks have earned my business.

      They are also the ones whose business model appears to rely on sending "articles" and "success stories" to various publications, hoping that a lazy journalist will publish it as if it was editorial material, and not straight from their marketing department.

      This is only one of the many cases where OnTrack has managed to do just so.
    33. Re:Yup... by Khyber · · Score: 3, Informative

      The picture *IS* the 400MB seagate drive. I can tell by the traces and the dimensions of the drive (which there is a ruler at the bottom of the image - it's not a 3.5" factor drive, it's 5.25")

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    34. Re:Yup... by Tango42 · · Score: 1

      You would hope they park the heads properly before re-entering the atmosphere... you're meant to do it simply before turning off the computer...

    35. Re:Yup... by leenks · · Score: 2, Funny

      7 pass DoD... 35 pass Whitehouse... ;-)

    36. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, like American society makes Soooo much more sense. Here you are with 50 little Republics and you still can't stop that war criminal Bush!

    37. Re:Yup... by zippthorne · · Score: 1

      To prevent access by a "common individual" just write all zeros (or any other character you choose) to the drive. Everything else requires special equipment.

      And "custom firmware" is without a doubt special equipment that a "common individual" would not have access to.

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
    38. Re:Yup... by zacronos · · Score: 1

      If they can do something no one else can do, something that no one else even knows is possible in practice, you think they're just going to tell everyone? Yeah right. If they can do it, that fact would be classified. That's modus operandi for the US government (except when they're trying to show off). For something to be used against criminals and terrorists, you can bet your bottom dollar they'd keep it secret, in hopes that will lull people into lax security.

      I'd also be willing to bet that, whether they've done it or not, they've spent more time and money on trying to do it than every other company, university, hacker, and law enforcement group combined; the fact that no one else can do it doesn't convince me they can't.

    39. Re:Yup... by Minwee · · Score: 1

      Remember, up here in Canada we all live in igloos and club baby seals for a living. Every now and then we pile into the dogsled and sneak across the border to visit our more civilized neighbours, but that's the only chance we ever have to see a "computer".

    40. Re:Yup... by anothy · · Score: 1

      Every now and then we pile into the dogsled and sneak across the border to visit our more civilized neighbours...
      the Russians?
      --

      i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
    41. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WOW you guys must really like your child porn. What on earth do you need to do all that for outside of crime or government? If its about identity theft they already have your info from your health company or work.

    42. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      High heat will *destroy* magnetic data... The magnetic material will lose its coercivity at certain temps... MO drives used that principle

    43. Re:Yup... by giminy · · Score: 1

      There was success at my university. Dr. Jabbour at Syracuse I believe was able to determine previous data using an tunneling electron microscope and statistical inference (random data versus patterned will still leave a patterned magnetic imprint or some such, which I don't claim to know anything about). Of course, I can't find any reference to his stuff on the Goog...maybe it got yanked ;-).

      --
      The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
    44. Re:Yup... by Leebert · · Score: 1

      Hopefully its not a windows machine, as I read last week that microsoft provides a FOB that decrypts automagically, windows partitions for law enforcement purposes. You read wrong. It's only a collection of forensics tools.
    45. Re:Yup... by billcopc · · Score: 1

      If by "tell what was on it before", you mean "fabricate evidence and manipulate the prosecutors", you're absolutely right.

      The truth is it's near-impossible to prove what was not on the drive. They can "recover" as much as they need to incriminate whoever they want, and if that fails, well there's always a good ol' bullet to the head.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    46. Re:Yup... by jomegat · · Score: 1

      It prolly didn't need to be "ripped" out. Solder melts at a fairly low temperature (between 90-450 degrees C according to Wikipedia). I'm sure it got at least that hot during reentry.

      A friend of mine once removed all the memory chips from an eval board he had bought and replaced them with higher capacity chips - only he put them on upside down (he went by the location of the bypass caps rather than the pin 1 indicator on the silks, and they bypassed the ground pins rather than the power - I had never seen that on any other card, nor have I seen it done that way since). I watched as he turned the power on and let the smoke out. Putting them on upside down reversed Vdd and Vss (power and ground), and they got hot enough that the solder reflowed. Five of the eight chips fell off and were recovered from the backplane of the PC he had plugged it in to. He had the power on for less than 5 seconds.

      So yeah - no ripping necessary.

      --

      In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they're not.

    47. Re:Yup... by Sensible+Clod · · Score: 1

      That's just what they want you to believe...

      --

      The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
    48. Re:Yup... by MadnessASAP · · Score: 1

      Nah, Thermite would do the trick, in this case only the exterior was damaged the platters were still for the most part intact and hadn't gotten hot enough to erase the magnetic domains. Thermite on the other hand will reduce both the drive and the platters to a puddle of slag with absolutely no hope of recovery.

      --
      I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
    49. Re:Yup... by plover · · Score: 2

      Just record over the same spot for 18 minutes. It worked for Nixon!

      --
      John
    50. Re:Yup... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Funny

      The picture *IS* the 400MB seagate drive. I can tell by the traces and the dimensions of the drive (which there is a ruler at the bottom of the image - it's not a 3.5" factor drive, it's 5.25")

      You can tell the make and model of a nearly completely trashed hard drive.

      I'm not sure whether I should be impressed or if I should merely feel sad for another wasted life ...

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    51. Re:Yup... by jonadab · · Score: 1

      > Just remember that the ONLY way to ensure data cannot be recovered on a HD
      > is to raise the drive temp past the Curie Point for the magnetics

      Actually, I'm pretty sure grinding the whole thing to the fine consistency of talcum powder works also.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    52. Re:Yup... by Lisandro · · Score: 1

      He takes them out to the range with a high-powered rifle and puts rounds thru them.

      Ah! Finesse!

    53. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      just write all zeros (or any other character you choose)

      Okaaayyy... Gosh. Can't make up my mind!

      But besides ones, any other characters you can possibly suggest?

      .. No pinoqachole was harmed during this post.!

    54. Re:Yup... by ozbird · · Score: 1

      The infamous "Deathstar" drives at least had glass platters; they look cool with the platters wiped clean - literally (pity about the data loss.)

      I doubt a Deskstar would have "bounced" as well as this Seagate drive did.

    55. Re:Yup... by Eivind · · Score: 1

      There's no reason to be paranoid. In practice, a single overwrite with random data is sufficient to ensure that nobody will read it. There are theorethical attacks that -may- in -principle- be able to do it, but they are just that -- theorethical.

      Yes, if there was stuff on the hard-disc where you had honest reason to fear that the NSA would spend a hundred man-years and a shitload of money to get some glimpses, you migth worry.

      But for ordinary run-of-the-mill data, that's just not gonna happen.

      Overwriting the entire platter with random data, and thereafter selling the disk on Ebay or whatever is in practice perfectly safe. The main pitfall is making sure that you actually do write over the entire platter (not just all files, for example, because areas of the disc which don't hold files -now- can and will still hold fragments of or entire files from earlier.)

      cat /dev/urandom > /dev/sda

      Will do you nicely.

    56. Re:Yup... by conureman · · Score: 1

      Appears it got pretty hot, I see a loose IC floating around in there. (picture 2)

      --
      The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
    57. Re:Yup... by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      This is exactly what I mean -- it can be done once, with enormous resources in a scientific environment. It's not a technique that can be actually used by police forensic analysts in investigations.

    58. Re:Yup... by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      You're aware that "criminals" are primarily investigated under local government, not federal government, yes? The NSA certainly could have the capability to do this, but there's almost no chance they've made it fast or cheap, so the number of drives they could use it on is incredibly small, if it all. Local police, regional police forensic labs, and organizations like the FBI do not have this capability.

    59. Re:Yup... by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      Nobody that's used it has reported that it has these magical features. Just looks like a collection of forensic tools with a UI.

    60. Re:Yup... by zacronos · · Score: 1

      You're aware that "criminals" are primarily investigated under local government, not federal government, yes?

      Yes, but most criminals aren't going to be worth the time and expense for this sort of data recovery. Among those that are, I bet a higher proportion are within FBI jurisdiction than the general mass of criminal investigations.

      The NSA certainly could have the capability to do this [...] organizations like the FBI do not have this capability.

      You seem to be making a lot of statements as if you have 100% confidence. Unless you've got a Top Secret security clearance and you work for the FBI or the NSA in this area, the truth is that you just don't know. What's to say the capability wasn't developed by the NSA and then given/traded/contracted to the FBI?

      Look, I'm not saying I'm confident the FBI has this capability, or even that I think it's likely; I'm saying that while you seem to think it is absolutely impossible, I see plenty of reason to think it might be possible. Maybe it's just my inner skeptic being aggravated by absolute statements, but it seems pretty silly to say unequivocally "the FBI can't do this".

    61. Re:Yup... by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      I don't know anyone in the NSA, but FBI computer forensic examiners don't use this technique and consider the practical usefulness of the technique to be laughable.

      "Among those that are, I bet a higher proportion are within FBI jurisdiction than the general mass of criminal investigations."

      To be fair, it wouldn't even have to be within FBI jurisdiction; if a local criminal was really important enough, the evidence could be transferred to a federal forensic lab.

    62. Re:Yup... by colourmyeyes · · Score: 1

      Edwards said the Seagate hard drive -- which was about eight years old in 2003 . . . Yeah, I misread the summary as "400Gb" drive, and was baffled as to how even NASA got their hands on one of those in 1995.
      --
      My grandmother used anecdotal evidence all the time, and she lived to be 120 years old.
    63. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I haven't owned a hard drive that requires parking since 1990.
      You might consider upgrading to some modern equipment.

      And if you check out the new link on the master page it looks like the platters did take a bit of a beating.

    64. Re:Yup... by Tango42 · · Score: 1

      Are you sure they don't require parking? It's not simply that it does so automatically?

    65. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They can, and they do.

      I suggest you do some research starting with past /. discussions on the topic.

    66. Re:Yup... by jimicus · · Score: 1

      Are you sure they don't require parking? It's not simply that it does so automatically? It is on modern hard disks, but I wouldn't be 100% certain when it's 400MB.

      Doubtless someone with a better recollection than I can clarify.
    67. Re:Yup... by Chris+Shannon · · Score: 2, Funny

      A good general explanation is given by the RCMP (what the hell mounties have to do with computers, like most of Canadian society, is entirely beyond me) Mounties are our computer people who specialize in hard drives, hence their name.
      Makes sense, doesn't it?
      --
      "Follow me" the wise man said, but he walked behind.
    68. Re:Yup... by Khyber · · Score: 1

      I had a very wasted life. I learned to read circuit diagrams before I learned to read English. I spent so much time in computers that I had practically no social life whatsoever. ;)

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    69. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your original claim was " no forensics or law enforcement group can succeed in practice "

      Now you've changed your tune and admitted that yes, this can be done, and possible already is being done.

      So now I'll examine your new claims.

      1. "Local police, regional [...] and the FBI do not have this capability".
      -I'll need to see your security clearance before I believe you have that knowledge.
      -Most city, county, and state police use a central state facility for forensics. In many cases they send them to... the FBI.
      -The FBI most certainly have a data facility.

      2. " almost no chance they've made it fast or cheap".
      - We'll start with your claim that it isn't cheap.
      http://www.labx.com/v2/adsearch/detail3.cfm?adnumb=356848
      Is a link to a site selling an electron microscope for $6,000. (this gives a ballpark figure for the base cost of the technology)
      I would bet that a 1/2 million would be much more than necessary to occupy a good facility with some high-speed scanning equipment and a handful of analysts.

      -Now for your claim it is not fast. This is a relative value. What do you define as fast? A minute? An hour? A year? I'd bet you they could strip a 300gig HDD in 6 months or less.

      3. You claim that 'criminals' are not usually investigated by the feds. Again, you fail to post a link showing what % of computer-related crime is investigated by whom.
      So I'll make a similar claim : I'm saying that the majority of computer-related crime investigations involve at least one federal agency, and/or make use of a federal lab.

      So to sum it all up, you have been talking, er posting, out your ass.
      Put up or shut up.

    70. Re:Yup... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are also the ones whose business model appears to rely on sending "articles" and "success stories" to various publications, hoping that a lazy journalist will publish it as if it was editorial material, and not straight from their marketing department. You mean their whole marketing model appears to rely on word of mouth and press releases regarding their real world successes? That sounds a hell of a lot worse than those people who just use paid advertisements on TV!

      Honestly, I recommended Ontrack to clients for years and there's no other data recovery service I'd recommend. For simple recovery, you can use their EasyRecovery software. For anything else from a server damaged in a fire to a large RAID gone crazy, Ontrack has usually been able to help.
    71. Re:Yup... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1
      In other words, you've done something useful with your life. You should be ashamed of yourself...

      (I'm still actually impressed).

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    72. Re:Yup... by fishbowl · · Score: 1

      Why do you, I mean your friend, bother to return the laptop at all? It's okay to steal the drive, so why do you feel obliged to return any of it?

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    73. Re:Yup... by rthille · · Score: 1

      Well, if Doug were to walk away from the company at this point, we'd be in a serious world of hurt, so I don't think the company cares about $200 for a hard drive. It's probably less that the bar bills he submits for a week trip.

      --
      Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
  2. Fastest /. effect ever ! by UberHoser · · Score: 1

    Seriously. We are talking less than a min here.

    --
    Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
    1. Re:Fastest /. effect ever ! by Tackhead · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Seriously. We are talking less than a min here.

      At least the pic of the server is still intermittently retrievable!

    2. Re:Fastest /. effect ever ! by gatzke · · Score: 2, Informative
      Opened it in about 30 tabs and a few loaded...

      Most amazing disk data recovery ever

      It was one of the most iconic and heart-stopping movie images of 2003: the Columbia Space Shuttle ignited, burning and crashing to earth in fragments.

      Now, amazingly, data from a hard drive recovered from the fragments has been used to complete a physics experiment - CXV-2 - that took place on the doomed Shuttle mission.

      Columbia's fragments were painstakingly and exhaustively collected. Amongst them was a 400MB Seagate hard drive which was in the sort of shape you think it would be in after being in an explosive fire and then hurled to earth from several miles up with a ferocious impact.

      The Johnson Space Centre workers analysing the shuttle crash sent it off the CVX-2 (Critical Viscosity of Xenon) experiment engineers, who sent it on to Kroll Ontrack in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to see if the data, any data, could be recovered. For researcher Robert Berg and his team it was the only hope, a terribly slim hope, of salvaging significant data from the experiment looking at Xenon gas flows in microgravity.

      The Kroll people managed to recover 90 percent or so of the 400MB of data from the drive with its cracked and burned casing. Now, a few years on, Berg and his team have analysed the data and reported the experiment and its results in the April edition of the Physical Review E journal. These showed that, rather liked whipped cream which changes from a fluid to a near-solid after being whipped or stirred vigorously, the gas Xenon change its viscosity from gas to liquid when similarly treated in very low gravity. The phenomenon of a sudden change in viscosity is called shear thinning.

      It was a highly complex experiment needing prologed and detailed analysis of the data on the hard drive to discover the shear thinning effect. But it, like the drive, was eventually found. So ends a twenty-year research project and in doing so helps bring to a finish the dreadful story of the Columbia Space Shuttle mission.
    3. Re:Fastest /. effect ever ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Great, so it was you that finished off the server. gatzke effect. Not really got the same ring to it.

    4. Re:Fastest /. effect ever ! by TubeSteak · · Score: 3, Informative

      http://i29.tinypic.com/6h2vll.jpg

      Data recovered from Seagate drive in Columbia shuttle disaster

      posted on 06 May 2008 20:05
      Most amazing disk data recovery ever

      It was one of the most iconic and heart-stopping movie images of 2003: the Columbia Space Shuttle ignited, burning and crashing to earth in fragments.

      Now, amazingly, data from a hard drive recovered from the fragments has been used to complete a physics experiment - CXV-2 - that took place on the doomed Shuttle mission.

      Columbia's fragments were painstakingly and exhaustively collected. Amongst them was a 400MB Seagate hard drive which was in the sort of shape you think it would be in after being in an explosive fire and then hurled to earth from several miles up with a ferocious impact.

      The Johnson Space Centre workers analysing the shuttle crash sent it off the CVX-2 (Critical Viscosity of Xenon) experiment engineers, who sent it on to Kroll Ontrack in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to see if the data, any data, could be recovered. For researcher Robert Berg and his team it was the only hope, a terribly slim hope, of salvaging significant data from the experiment looking at Xenon gas flows in microgravity.

      The Kroll people managed to recover 90 percent or so of the 400MB of data from the drive with its cracked and burned casing. Now, a few years on, Berg and his team have analysed the data and reported the experiment and its results in the April edition of the Physical Review E journal. These showed that, rather liked whipped cream which changes from a fluid to a near-solid after being whipped or stirred vigorously, the gas Xenon change its viscosity from gas to liquid when similarly treated in very low gravity. The phenomenon of a sudden change in viscosity is called shear thinning.

      It was a highly complex experiment needing prologed and detailed analysis of the data on the hard drive to discover the shear thinning effect. But it, like the drive, was eventually found. So ends a twenty-year research project and in doing so helps bring to a finish the dreadful story of the Columbia Space Shuttle mission.

      [Chris Mellor, editor.]

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    5. Re:Fastest /. effect ever ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This was a good day to have mod points.

      If you're going to rate a post as "Redundant", please be courteous enough to check the time stamps first. The parent post was modded redundant because there is a higher post with the same information. But the posts were only 6 minutes apart.

      If a post is redundant to another post that is an hour old, then yes, the later poster deserves to be modded down for not RTFF. But if multiple people post the same information within 10 minutes, that can't be avoided, and you shouldn't punish their reputation when they're trying to be helpful.

      Modded +1 underrated, just to keep the guy's karma in tact.

    6. Re:Fastest /. effect ever ! by cadeon · · Score: 1

      Is that the right picture? The name of the file is "Challenger_drive.jpg" - but we're supposedly talking about a drive from Columbia-

      Also that drive looks like awfully old technology- I know that doesn't mean much in government, but it looks like a drive that would come from Challenger... The corrosion looks like seawater corrosion, too, which would also indicate Challenger.

    7. Re:Fastest /. effect ever ! by SleptThroughClass · · Score: 1

      We're talking about Columbia; Challenger didn't reach microgravity so no experiment was done. Maybe the file name refers to the drive challenging the recovery team.

    8. Re:Fastest /. effect ever ! by Jupiter+Jones · · Score: 1

      It was a highly complex experiment needing prologed and detailed analysis of the data on the hard drive to discover the shear thinning effect.
      They were using Prolog?

      No wonder it took them so long.

      JJ
    9. Re:Fastest /. effect ever ! by aquarajustin · · Score: 1

      That looks like a 3.5" PATA drive to me. 3.5" drives didn't reach 400MB until about 1990. Since the Challenger disaster was in 1986, the possibility that this drive was from Challenger is extremely low. Typo at best.

    10. Re:Fastest /. effect ever ! by cadeon · · Score: 1

      If it was from Challenger, then there's no restriction on size. It could have been a 40mb drive.

      From the looks of the drive, it kinda looks like an ESDI drive to me. I dunno though, after all, it's torn up pretty bad.

      I agree that it's likely a typo, but it's certainly an ambiguously confusing one.

  3. Zero Comments by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Zero Comments and it's already throwing 500 errors. Jeeze.

  4. I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by catdevnull · · Score: 4, Funny

    I will probably never use the term "crash" to describe a hard drive failure again.

    I'll bet Ontrack made a fortune off of this recovery, too.

    --

    I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
    1. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by theodicey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, they probably did it for next to nothing, anticipating all the free press coverage they would get. This very "press hit" on slashdot is a good example of what they were aiming at. (Although in this specific case, they deserve the good press they're getting.)

    2. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by joeytmann · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Ontrack has been doing this type of recovery for years. A couple of times I have asked for quotes, just to even look at the drive was like $1,000US. Can't remember how much it was per MB to retrieve the data. I know they have recovered data for machines lost in hurricane andrew, servers sitting in water for months. They were in Kuwait after the 91 gulf war recovering systems there. I think the only way to not have Ontrack recover a drive is to literally melt the platters.

      --
      Insert funny smart-ass comment here.
    3. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by bkr1_2k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Actually, they probably did it for next to nothing, anticipating all the free press coverage they would get. "

      Don't count on it. First off, they probably didn't even know if they could recover the data. Second, they would have no way of knowing for sure that NASA would release the information about them providing the data recovery services. Third, they very likely wouldn't have known whether or not the data (if recovered) would be used for anything in the future. Fourth, there are very strict rules about government agencies doing business where they don't pay for services, especially with potentially classified data on the drives.

      I would bet very strongly that they got well paid for this recovery.

      --
      "Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
    4. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by davidsyes · · Score: 1

      My mind saw a Spoonerism within about 1/2 second of reading the data recovery company's name:

      "Troll on Crack"... ... damn Spooner, and my penchant for seeing Spoonerisms so quickly...

      --
      Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
    5. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...
      Fifth, Profit!!!

    6. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by JoshRosenbaum · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think the only way to not have Ontrack recover a drive is to literally melt the platters. I think this is false. I sent a hard drive to them and they sent it back (and made me $100 poorer) and told me they couldn't recover anything.

      The story of the drive: I had my computer (tower) at a party in college and one of the sides was off. I also had one of my storage (not boot) hard drives (which contained various art, pictures, and other valuable stuff to me) laying on the bottom of the 'puter. A buddy came flying out of a door, hit my hand which contained my beer and the beer went flying into the case and all over my hard drive. Needless to say I was pretty well "gone" at that point and toweled the inside/drive off, but left it running. At that point my computer was the party machine pumping loud music and it couldn't be stopped. :P Anyhow, let's skip to the next morning where I go and power down the computer and check out the drive. Well the chips on the controller card were fried. (Physically melted.) :(

      So the moral of the story is that if you want to make your data unrecoverable, have a party. Space shuttle explosions will not do the trick. Oh, and backups are good. :) And probably about 20 other morals too. :P

      Needless to say, I sort of hope that one day I will find a company that can recover the data, because if they can recover a hard drive from a space shuttle explosion, you'd think a little beer would be nothing. :P
    7. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by Jurily · · Score: 1

      So the moral of the story is that if you want to make your data unrecoverable, have a party. Space shuttle explosions will not do the trick. That was so Douglas Adams-like, it's perfect for a sig. Thanks.
    8. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by finalnight · · Score: 0

      "Actually, they probably did it for next to nothing, anticipating all the free press coverage they would get. " Don't count on it. First off, they probably didn't even know if they could recover the data. Second, they would have no way of knowing for sure that NASA would release the information about them providing the data recovery services. Third, they very likely wouldn't have known whether or not the data (if recovered) would be used for anything in the future. Fourth, there are very strict rules about government agencies doing business where they don't pay for services, especially with potentially classified data on the drives. I would bet very strongly that they got well paid for this recovery. Ontrack has it posted on their site: http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/
    9. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by fbjon · · Score: 1

      Eh? Sounds like all you had to do was get an identical drive from somewhere and swap the controller card.

      --
      True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
    10. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by JoshRosenbaum · · Score: 1

      I actually tried this method. However, the drive was a few years old already and it was another year or two before I found something on ebay that was the identical drive. However, the firmware versions on the controller cards were different, so that may have been why it didn't work.

    11. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by BizzyM · · Score: 1

      "Actually, they probably did it for next to nothing, anticipating all the free press coverage they would get. " Don't count on it. First off, they probably didn't even know if they could recover the data. Second, they would have no way of knowing for sure that NASA would release the information about them providing the data recovery services. Third, they very likely wouldn't have known whether or not the data (if recovered) would be used for anything in the future. Fourth, there are very strict rules about government agencies doing business where they don't pay for services, especially with potentially classified data on the drives. I would bet very strongly that they got well paid for this recovery. 2 words: government contract. In an organization such as NASA, I'm sure they have data recovery services on tap and don't really go out 'shopping' for them when a situation arises.
    12. Re:I've had some drives crash on me, but.. by bkr1_2k · · Score: 1

      Again, don't count on it. I'm guessing you've never worked on a government contract, or for a government agency. It's just not like that.

      I have several friends working at NASA and it's not a "normal" service to have an open blanket contract for because drastic failures don't occur enough to warrant it. And, again, blanket POs aren't the norm for government contracts because they have to be shopped around, by law, if the contract is expected to be over a certain dollar amount. Even the ones that are well below that dollar amount (I don't remember the exact number) are generally shopped around because the purchasers in the accounting group pretty much force it with an annoying policy of sole source justification requirements and the like.

      You can be fairly sure NASA doesn't have data recovery services "on tap" simply because it is a rare need.

      --
      "Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
  5. Good thing, too! by greyspectre · · Score: 5, Funny

    Their server is shooting flames as I type this, but they have the technology to recover their site!

  6. I just hope by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

    that blocksandfiles.com's server can be recover their files after this /. article. :P

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  7. Mounting Brackets by camperdave · · Score: 1

    Those are some serious mounting brackets holding that drive in place. Quarter inch bolts? That's ridiculous.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    1. Re:Mounting Brackets by eln · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think when you're intending to launch something into space using a couple of giant rockets, you might be concerned about vibration shaking normal bolts loose.

      As for the condition of the drive, it's hard to say. The exterior was obviously fried, but it was still basically drive-shaped, and from the picture it's impossible to say how damaged the platters were. If the outside was messed up but the platters were still intact, I would think recovery would be fairly simple. Would have been nice to include a picture of the interior of the drive, or maybe even multiple pictures as they took it apart.

    2. Re:Mounting Brackets by Smidge204 · · Score: 1

      There's three pictures in total. One of them was of the inside of the drive and it didn't look scorched at all - there was some kind of metallic spray pattern on the inside but other than that the platters were still shiny and the ribbon cables undamaged.

      It's more remarkable that the drive survived so well than it was to recover data off of it. New marketing gimmick for Seagate?
      =Smidge=

    3. Re:Mounting Brackets by vecctor · · Score: 3, Informative

      The second photo on this link shows the inside of the drive:

      http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hard-drive-recovered-from-columbia&sc=rss

      (Link stolen from another post in this thread)

      --
      Why, yes I have been touched by His noodly appendage. And I plan to sue.
    4. Re:Mounting Brackets by vwjeff · · Score: 2, Informative

      Here's an internal view of the drive: http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/400-MB-Seagate-Drive-Survives-the-Columbia-Space-Shuttle-Disaster-4.jpg

    5. Re:Mounting Brackets by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Informative

      http://www.sciam.com/media/inline/BAA76AE9-F23C-1819-08D80B3BC4D83163_2.jpg

      There we go
      =Smidge=

    6. Re:Mounting Brackets by dAzED1 · · Score: 1

      did you...look at the same picture?

      (looks at it again)

      umm...ok, I have a healthy platter on my desk. The shuttle platter varies in colors - half the platter is black. None of it is shiny. Metallic spray? Looks more like ashes to me; probably from the little black sheet that often rests under the cover and acts as a gasket.

    7. Re:Mounting Brackets by MarcQuadra · · Score: 1

      They mention that it's mounted to a cold-plate. My guess is that without airflow (these experiments are in sealed canisters, not sure if there's normal air, nitrogen, dry air, or some other medium in there), there's not much opportunity for cooling. The thick bolts and metal might be to conduct as much heat away from the drive as possible.

      It might not just be for the drive's sake, it's possible that this experiment was temperature sensitive as well.

      --
      "Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
    8. Re:Mounting Brackets by Tackhead · · Score: 1

      There's three pictures in total. One of them was of the inside of the drive and it didn't look scorched at all - there was some kind of metallic spray pattern on the inside but other than that the platters were still shiny and the ribbon cables undamaged.

      What's interesting about that pic is the upside-down surface-mount chip sitting on the orange ribbon cable, and the matching (empty) solder pads underneath it.

      I was about to speculate that the heat of re-entry melted the solder, but there's at least one are other surface-mount component immediately adjacent to the chip, and it's still attached to the same ribbon cable. (On the other hand, that small discrete part, likely a resistor or capacitor, would be more likely to adhere to the ribbon cable due to surface tension of the solder, which might not be the case for the heavier chip.)

      On the gripping hand, maybe the photograph was taken immediately after the chip was desoldered using hot-air equipment. (Since it's upside-down and I don't have any pictures of hard drive internals handy, I'm not sure what the chip is, nor if there'd be any value in removing it. A flash device might hold useful data such as bad block maps and/or SMART-related drive operating parameters, etc...)

    9. Re:Mounting Brackets by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 1

      umm...ok, I have a healthy platter on my desk.

      For the record, this is what a healthy platter looks like.

      --
      Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
    10. Re:Mounting Brackets by juhaz · · Score: 1

      It's not black, and yes, it's shiny, it looks black because it reflects something dark. It's pretty obvious if you look at the very top, slightly left from the center at the white thingy and it's mirror image.

      The bottom right quarter actually looks a lot worse off.

    11. Re:Mounting Brackets by zienth · · Score: 1

      That chip probably has something to do with running the servo-coil that positions the head. Everything dealing with data would probably have been on the external circuit board.

      I doubt they removed that chip while the board was still in the enclosure, right next to the drive platter. I'm sure they would avoid doing anything that might have any chance of stressing the disk. Blowing air hot enough to melt solder a few inches away might just be enough to make a barely recoverable byte become unrecoverable. Or it might blow dust around hard enough to make a scratch. Or someone working that close to the disk might touch it accidentally. Even though none of those seem like a high probability, why take the risk? They'd have to remove the platters from the spindle at some point, why not wait to remove the chip until after the platters are removed, so there would be zero chance of damaging the platters while removing the chip? I suspect that chip came off due to heat and vibrations during the reentry.

      And I suspect the little SMD resistor (SMD resistors are commonly black with white numbers, SMD capacitors at that size are usually brown and seldom labelled) stayed put because it weighs almost nothing and was held in place by the surface tension of the two relatively large solder blobs, while the chip weighed a lot more relative to the amount of solder holding it in place.

    12. Re:Mounting Brackets by lhaeh · · Score: 1

      That chip is there to up the tiny signals from the heads into something that the drive's chips on its main board can use. It is close to the head both to keep it isolated from EMI by remaining in the metal case, and to keep the wire length short in hopes of preventing signal loss.

      The metal dust in there seems to be from them using a high speed cutting tool to open the case. This seems insane to me, but they obviously know what they are doing.

    13. Re:Mounting Brackets by ColaMan · · Score: 1

      Something to remember is that you can't rely on simple convective cooling in orbit. In microgravity hot air doesn't 'rise' anywhere in particular, it just tends to stay where it is. So things generally have to be fan-cooled or cooled by some other (usually active) means.

      Hence the cold plate to transfer the heat to something else.

      --

      You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
      There is a lot of hype here.
    14. Re:Mounting Brackets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're not seeing huge bolts, just large heads that held rubber vibration isolators. It appears some of the rubber actually survived. The drive appears to be mounted via the four allen head screws. What would be interesting to find out is if they were isolating the drive from the spaceframe's vibrations, or vice versa.

  8. I wonder if... by Transplant · · Score: 1

    I wonder if Kroll Ontrack will be used to recover the hard drive from the web server that obviously just melted from the /. effect? Seems like a great way to drum up business!

  9. Amazing data recovery! by InvisblePinkUnicorn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow! They recovered 400MB of data when all they had to work with was "500 Internal Server Error"?! Unbelievable!!!

    1. Re:Amazing data recovery! by Kenoli · · Score: 1

      They apparently had some piles of ash to work with too.

    2. Re:Amazing data recovery! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, really. I wish people would submit links to the original story, instead of linking a blog that happens to refer to it. The blog server is often incapable of handling the load. And the blogger often gets the story partly or completely wrong. AND sometimes there is no story, just blog rumors.

    3. Re:Amazing data recovery! by beav007 · · Score: 1

      And the blogger often gets the story partly or completely wrong.
      That hardly matters when the summaries are usually so inaccurate.

      In any case, nobody Rs TFA, so no-one is the wiser.
  10. Preparing for slashdot effect by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    So someone put together a story on spectacular hard disk failure, space shuttle, physic experiments and heroic success, and decided to host this on anything less than an industrial-strength web server? The only thing that could have made for a quicker or larger slashdotting would be if somehow it also involved big guns and Natalie Portman (with hot grits, petrified).

    Seriously people. Show some foresight here. At least the editors should have shown some mercy.

    Soooo.... anyone got a coral cache of it?

    --
    Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    1. Re:Preparing for slashdot effect by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

      I checked; CC has cached... the 503 error.

      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
  11. another link by Bazards · · Score: 5, Informative

    Article on softpeida about it with pictures. http://news.softpedia.com/news/400-MB-Seagate-Drive-Survives-the-Columbia-Space-Shuttle-Disaster-84826.shtml

  12. another link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    Here's another source
    http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/06/hard-drive-recovered-from-shuttle-columbia-used-to-complete-expe/

  13. More Links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Alternate feeds for the story:

    http://news.softpedia.com/news/400-MB-Seagate-Drive-Survives-the-Columbia-Space-Shuttle-Disaster-84826.shtml
    http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/194388/space-shuttle-hard-disk-survived-crash.html

  14. Most amazing data recovery ever? by mykepredko · · Score: 1

    I don't know if this would qualify for that simply because the article doesn't show what the platter(s) looked like after the accident. I'm sure the drive was under tremendous stresses, but I would be surprised if they significantly exceeded that of an aircraft accident followed by fire (and I know disks are recovered in these circumstances).

    I'm not saying this to put down the skills of the data recovery team, just to say without seeing the condition of the platters with, ideally, pictures showing typical disks that come in for recovery that I wouldn't think that this would be an extreme case.

    myke

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    1. Re:Most amazing data recovery ever? by tinkerghost · · Score: 1

      There are a bunch of links, posted up higher ... the pic that grabbed my attention was the one showing the platters, with an IC chip that had sheared off due to the stresses. You have to hit something pretty damn hard & fast to have inertia shear off an IC chip with 48+ pins.

    2. Re:Most amazing data recovery ever? by mykepredko · · Score: 1

      Thanx for the pointer to the photographs - I didn't see the link when I originally put up my post.

      I think the best shot to look at is Page 7, the side view of the platter and the 24 pin chip shows the best detail (or what I can see):
      a) The top platter seems to have dirt/grit on it. If you look at Page 5, you'll see an area at the top where it seems to have been wiped away.
      b) The top platter seems to have two divots in it on the right side.
      c) The chip pads on the PCB look undamaged and have visible solder (you can see the convex shape of the solder) on them.
      d) The chip's pins are not bent or deformed.

      I don't think you can assume that the chip was removed due to sheer; the expected sheer force of a large SMT joint is on the order of 8kg and the mass of the part would around 15g. Thus, to sheer the chip off, you would require 192kgf and, taking the mass of the chip into account, the acceleration would be more than 12,000m/s^s or more than 1,300g - at this level of acceleration, I would expect there to be a visible distortion to the chip's pins as well as to the disk's platters and the case itself.

      A much more likely explanation for the chip being removed is either that the chip desoldered itself due to the heat of re-entry. This makes the most sense to me because of how intact the pins look as well as the solder pads on the PCB. I should point out that there is a mark on the far right hand corner of the chip which could indicate an impact which knocked it off the PCB, although the lack of damage to the pins/pads (I would expect some pads to be ripped off the PCB) makes this less likely than the heat of the accident causing the chip to desolder itself.

      myke

      --
      Mimetics Inc. Twitter
  15. workaround to get into this website to view it by PhreakOfTime · · Score: 4, Informative

    Almost looks like the site is denying visits when the referer is slashdot.org. With the below method, I was able to read the full article with no problems.

    To get in, simply copy the link in the story into a new browser window and hit enter to come into the site with no referers.

    Hope this helps

  16. Way to go guys (and gals) by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now look what you've done. Wasn't it bad enough the shuttle burned up? Now you've gone and burned up the server trying to show us pictures of the mangled hard drive from the burned up shuttle.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  17. Impressive... by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 1

    Link to TFA is a 404, and clicking the homepage link returns a 500, and there were only three posts when I clicked on the article.

    Not worried about data recovery though; I make a point of using shred with -n 50 on the rare occassion that I would care if someone stole my hard drive. Other than that, most of my internet logins are stored in an encrypted kde wallet and that's good enough for me. I don't see anything on my computer as warranting an Ironkey that doesn't leave my person...

  18. RAID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps in the future important space experiments should use RAID-1 or better? Would've gotten near all the data then.

  19. Damn, that is one tough drive! by Rearden82 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm amazed that it's still in one piece and recognizable.

    I've always been skeptical when a hard drive's specs mention being able to handle 300 g's. Looks like they aren't kidding.

  20. only 400mb? by name*censored* · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Am I the only one who thinks that it's a little odd that they used a moving parts hard disk drive for such a paltry amount of data? (If it was solid state then it'd be a power of 2, not a round number). Surely even 2003stonauts could have managed to put together more than 400MBs in solid state, thus saving power, size and reliability?

    --
    Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
    1. Re:only 400mb? by thermian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The experiment, and all the hardware, would have had to be tested and verified as viable for use in the experiment. That would have taken at least a year, if not longer.

      I would say it was likely the experiments exact hardware requirements were set in stone a year or two before launch. Flash drives are plentiful and reliable now, but may not have been deemed reliable enough at the time.

      When it comes to space, tried and tested older equipment is better. Just ask the Russians.

      --
      A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
    2. Re:only 400mb? by Gat0r30y · · Score: 2, Informative

      For precisely the reliability issue you bring up - most anything on the shuttle has to go through > 8 years of reliability testing - before it can go up. sooo... 2003-8 = 1995. They probably could have gone with something better than 400MB's - but in 1995 did you have 1/2 gig flash storage devices? Hell in 1995 did you have 1/2 a gig of anything?

      --
      Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
    3. Re:only 400mb? by Kyont · · Score: 1

      My thoughts exactly. I have a thumb drive from about 2003 that holds over 100 MB, and it was a corporate freebie! It is something north of $25,000US per kilogram to send cargo up in the shuttle. Seems like they could have used solid state storage and paid for it many times over in weight savings alone. But, I like happy endings.

      --
      You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.
    4. Re:only 400mb? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NASA was buying 8086 processors off eBay in 2002 according to this article:

      http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CE2DF1739F931A25756C0A9649C8B63

      The Mars rovers are using flash drives AFAIK though.

    5. Re:only 400mb? by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 1

      Why spend extra money on SSD when a mechanical drive will work?

      Also, would they have been able to recover the data if they have used an SSD?

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
    6. Re:only 400mb? by dAzED1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      it takes years before tech is put into the shuttle. The collection of tech was at one point very advanced, but the components themselves are tested for years.

    7. Re:only 400mb? by chile_addict · · Score: 2, Informative

      The experiment relied on telemetry for most of the data. The hard drive capacity was sized to hold only the data between transmissions. According to the journal article written by the scientists: A total of 370 hours of data were recorded (no data rate specified) and 85% of the data had been telemetered before the accident. The recovery allowed them to get the majority of the rest.

    8. Re:only 400mb? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On the other hand, I'm not so sure a flash drive would withstand that kind of accident. I would think flash drives are more susceptible to being damaged in a fire/explosion from the heat. Depending on how much extra protection you would have to use to protect the flash drive it might not be worth it. They may have "lucked out" by using the older technology in this case.

    9. Re:only 400mb? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      I have to wonder if that contributed to the recovery. A modern drive, with a thousand times as much data, would probably have a lot more of the data damaged.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    10. Re:only 400mb? by mapsjanhere · · Score: 1

      In addition, all space hardware usually needs to be radiation hardened. And while flash drives have shown to be astonishingly insensitive to mechanical damage, I have no idea who sensitive they are to radiation damage.

      --
      I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
    11. Re:only 400mb? by dissy · · Score: 1

      but in 1995 did you have 1/2 gig flash storage devices? Hell in 1995 did you have 1/2 a gig of anything? Exactly. My memory of that period was that my machine bought new came with an 80mb (mega) drive, with an optional 120mb, and I purchased an external scsi 1gb quantum fireball drive, which at the time i thought was an insane amount of space i would never fill.

      A 400mb drive seems an exact fit for the time
    12. Re:only 400mb? by r_jensen11 · · Score: 1

      Of course not, why would they? 640K was enough for anybody back then!

    13. Re:only 400mb? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh, 500 MB drives were the standard size in 1995 (about $350).

      I had a 345 MB Maxtor drive in 1993/4 which cost around $300 (still have the drive and it still works; mfr date 12/29/1993).

    14. Re:only 400mb? by Tisha_AH · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Many of the science payloads are put together by universities and private corporations. The shuttle fleet frequently flies with an experiment rack.

      Experiments must fit within the constraints of the rack (power, size, cooling requirements). If you participated in any university based science programs you understand the limitations of funding. Creating a whiz-bang, cutting edge data storage technology is usually low on the list.

      The Xeon gas experiment probably had most of the work done on measurement instrumentation and software. IT hardware is off the shelf as much as possible.

      No one plans on the shuttle turning into a meteorite. I bet that the principal researcher was not going "gosh, I hope they can save my data" when they saw the pictures over central Texas.

      --
      Tisha Hayes
    15. Re:only 400mb? by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 1

      Another question is why didn't they down-link the data immediately after collection? Surely they have enough bandwidth to ISS to allow this.

    16. Re:only 400mb? by Nullav · · Score: 1

      Perhaps NASA has just come to expect (plan for) various catastrophic failures? A flash drive would have likely been crumbs after a crash. (Then again, if this were the idea, why not use multiple hard drives?)

      --
      I just read Slashdot for the articles.
  21. Re:First post by trolltalk.com · · Score: 4, Funny

    You call THIS "recovered"??? More like "Houston,we have a problem ..."

    Error Executing Database Query.
    Data source rejected establishment of connection, message from server: "Too many connections"

    The error occurred in /home/httpd/customtags/parameters.cfm: line 22
    20 :
    21 :
    22 :
    23 : SELECT tag, value FROM parameters
    24 :

    SQL SELECT tag, value FROM parameters
    DATASOURCE blocksandfiles
    VENDORERRORCODE 1040
    SQLSTATE 08004

    Resources:
    Check the ColdFusion documentation to verify that you are using the correct syntax.
    Search the Knowledge Base to find a solution to your problem.

    Browser Opera/9.23 (X11; Linux i686; U; en)
    Remote Address 70.49.63.152
    Referrer http://blocksandfiles.com/article/5056
    Date/Time 07-May-08 07:30 PM

    Stack Trace
    at cfparameters2ecfm1715857017.runPage(/home/httpd/customtags/parameters.cfm:22) at cfApplication2ecfm1592932022.runPage(/home/httpd/vhosts/blocksandfiles.co.uk/sitedocs/Application.cfm:17)

    com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.MySQLNonTransientConnectionException: Data source rejected establishment of connection, message from server: "Too many connections"
            at com.mysql.jdbc.SQLError.createSQLException(SQLError.java:921)
            at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.doHandshake(MysqlIO.java:1055)
            at com.mysql.jdbc.Connection.createNewIO(Connection.java:2749)
            at com.mysql.jdbc.Connection.(Connection.java:1553)
            at com.mysql.jdbc.NonRegisteringDriver.connect(NonRegisteringDriver.java:285)
            at coldfusion.server.j2ee.sql.pool.JDBCPool.createPhysicalConnection(JDBCPool.java:562)
            at coldfusion.server.j2ee.sql.pool.ConnectionRunner$RunnableConnection.run(ConnectionRunner.java:67)
            at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

    --
    Kevin Smith on Prince
  22. Wrong Shuttle or wrong image name? by Thornburg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If this experiment was on Columbia, why is the image called "Challenger_drive.jpg"?

    Challenger was many years earlier...

    1. Re:Wrong Shuttle or wrong image name? by sxltrex · · Score: 2, Informative

      The data recovered was from an experiment. I'm pretty sure they didn't have much time to perform experiments on Challenger's last flight.

    2. Re:Wrong Shuttle or wrong image name? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Human error? The next Conspiracy fad? Both?

    3. Re:Wrong Shuttle or wrong image name? by omnipresentbob · · Score: 2, Funny

      Because they were/are challenged?

    4. Re:Wrong Shuttle or wrong image name? by PCPackrat · · Score: 2, Informative

      Since the Challenger blew up before that kind of hard drive technology existed(1986), I'm pretty sure it's a mistake in picture naming.

    5. Re:Wrong Shuttle or wrong image name? by God_TM · · Score: 2, Informative

      According to logic, the image must be named improperly. Challenger blew up before going into space, and would have no data to recover from any experiments performed in space. Another possibility is the image is from the Challenger disaster as Columbia's drive photo wasn't available/released, but they threw in that photo as it's from a Space Shuttle disaster (ie: close enough).

    6. Re:Wrong Shuttle or wrong image name? by wjsteele · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, the Challenger didn't blow up. The external tank collapsed due to the solid rocket motor burning through the external hydrogen tank. As the hydrogen tank collapsed, the mass of the shuttle was greatly reduced, which caused an acceleration of the entire vehicle assembly. That acceleration drove the remaining portion of the hydrogen tank into the oxygen tank causing it to also collapse. As the same time, the srb burned through it's rear attach point to the external tank, causing it to loose lateral stability. That instability allowed it to rotate (out of sync with the rest of the shuttle stack) which further weakened the external tank structure.

      As the external tank collapsed and the srb rotated, it rotated the shuttle so that it was no longer aligned with it's nose pointed towards the direction of travel. The aerodynamic forces became so extreme, that it overwhelmed the shuttle's structure.

      The shuttle was literally torn apart due to the aerodynamic forces. The explosion actually occurred after the collapse and breakup as the escaping oxygen and hydrogen ignited.

      Bill

      --
      It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
    7. Re:Wrong Shuttle or wrong image name? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If this experiment was on Columbia, why is the image called "Challenger_drive.jpg"?

      Challenger was many years earlier...
      I'd be surprised if they had time to do any experiments too!
    8. Re:Wrong Shuttle or wrong image name? by jeephistorian · · Score: 1

      Wow. Simply Wow. Didn't know that. Thanks!

      --
      Huh?
  23. Mirror by trolltalk.com · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.networkmirror.com/N132udsTg07EUt3b/blocksandfiles.com/article/5056.html

    --
    Kevin Smith on Prince
  24. Try this article. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Virgin article about the same thing, but not violated by /.

    Yet.

    http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hard-drive-recovered-from-columbia&sc=rss

  25. Its not fair by Layer+3+Ninja · · Score: 1

    Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@blocksandfiles.co.uk and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error. ...yeah, its our fault your server exploded...tee hee

    --
    Power corrupts. Absolute power...is even more fun.
  26. More Informative Article at Scientific American by coasterfan · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here's the link: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hard-drive-recovered-from-columbia&sc=rss

  27. Warranty? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good thing the hdd has a 60 month warranty. NASA can save $75 after Ontrack is done.

  28. Erm... picture says 'challenger drive'... by thrill12 · · Score: 1

    ...not Columbia drive. It seems this is about another tragic shuttle incident, but not about the Columbia... Would also explain the 400MB drive capacity...

    --
    Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
    1. Re:Erm... picture says 'challenger drive'... by ceejayoz · · Score: 2, Informative

      Uh, 400 megabyte 3.5" hard drives in 1983? I don't think so...

    2. Re:Erm... picture says 'challenger drive'... by querist · · Score: 1

      It was the Columbia.

      The Challenger exploded on take-off. The crew never had the opportunity to conduct any experiments on that flight. (I watched the explosion happen live on TV when I was in college.)

      The Columbia, if you remember, exploded on re-entry, so the crew had time to conduct experiments.

    3. Re:Erm... picture says 'challenger drive'... by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      Maybe he means the other, top-secret, tragic shuttle incident.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    4. Re:Erm... picture says 'challenger drive'... by argent · · Score: 1

      That would be the original shuttle "E", Enterprise? They replaced with a mock-up after it disappeared while they were testing an electromagnetic reentry shield over Philadelphia.

    5. Re:Erm... picture says 'challenger drive'... by JeepFanatic · · Score: 1

      Even if it were from the Challenger, the year would be 1986. I'm betting somebody just goofed on naming the image.

  29. From Sci American.... by CBob · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hard-drive-recovered-from-columbia&sc=rss Has a more robust site and the orig tale.

  30. What about the temperature of re-entry? by Weaselmancer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd say that's the part that makes this impressive. Re-entry is known to be pretty darn warm. And heat will scatter magnetic domains. Heat up a magnet - it's not a magnet anymore.

    Either this HD was in the center of a ball of stuff and didn't get very hot, or Seagate has some seriously awesome engineering going on.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
    1. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by hackstraw · · Score: 1


      G-forces demagnetize things as well, so thats a double whammy.

    2. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by tekiegreg · · Score: 1

      Well I can see the heat not being an issue, granted that there probably was the shuttle material protecting the hard drive until it was a bit lower in the atmosphere, but IANAPhysicist.

      I still can't explain though how the drive stayed in one piece from a free fall a couple miles up, granted I've had a drive take a 12 foot fall to hard tile and be irrecoverable by even professionals (true story!)...that was certainly not a soft landing...

      --
      ...in bed
    3. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by Locutus · · Score: 1

      from the picture you can still see a green PCB and the circuit traces. I forget what temp PCBs burn at but is sure looks like it's in pretty good shape( the PCB ) so I would guess one of the reasons data was recoverable was that it didn't get too hot.

      Good story though.

      LoB

      --
      "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
    4. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by NoPantsJim · · Score: 1

      I've never heard that before but you've made me extremely curious.

      Got any information on just how it actually does that?

      --
      Name...That...Autocomplete!
    5. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by Tetsujin · · Score: 1

      I'd say that's the part that makes this impressive. Re-entry is known to be pretty darn warm. And heat will scatter magnetic domains. Heat up a magnet - it's not a magnet anymore.

      Well, you figure the shuttle was at the end of its 10 minutes of "peak heating" by the time it started to break up, and there was a fair deal of structure (shuttle's frame, the module in the storage bay, etc.) around the hard drive taking most of the force of the sudden deceleration as the shuttle lost its ability to control its descent - I don't expect the hard drive itself would exactly take the worst of it, you know? While the shuttle was still in controlled flight, its temperature was actually falling by the time of the breakup.
      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
    6. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 1

      I've never heard that before but you've made me extremely curious.

      Ditto. But I do recall when I was young being told not to drop magnets as they loose their magnetism a bit.

    7. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by enoz · · Score: 1

      This is one of those old science experiments that you would see on children's TV. It is very easy to test, all you need is a nail, a hammer and a magnet.

    8. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I've never heard that before but you've made me extremely curious.

      Funny about that - because it's about the Curie temperature :)

      In short shock waves moving through a material raise the local temperature enough so that the material is briefly non-magnetic, and when the magnetic domains reform the chances of them being the same as before is small. It's not the g-forces really but the sudden stop at the end.

    9. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by jms · · Score: 1

      Orbiter -- around 80,000 kg.
      Hard drive -- around 1 kg.

      The surface of the orbiter gets intensely hot because the orbiter has to dissipate an enormous amount of heat energy through its surface in order to deorbit.

      Once blown free of the shuttle body, the hard drive had orders of magnitude less energy to dissipate. It would have slowed down quickly and would have been tumbling through the air so the generated heat would have been dissipated more evenly than the orbiter, where much of the heat is concentrated on the nose and thin wing leading edge.

      The PCB might have acted as a heat shield and protected the platter enclosure while the drive slowed down from reentry speed to free fall speed, or the charring could have come from exposure to fire during the explosion.

      I'm glad the data was recovered. I think the shuttle crew would be pleased. It enhances the legacy of the mission.

    10. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      G-forces demagnetize things as well wonder if that'd be worse with today's drives, since all the little bit dudes are standing up now instead of laying down.
      http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/research/recording_head/pr/PerpendicularAnimation.html
    11. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by jd · · Score: 1
      Depends on the terminal velocity (and don't anyone say 110 cps), the nature of the impact (going through the roof of a building would probably be different from hitting a really deep snowbank, the sort where people have fallen from aircraft from a mile up, hit and survived) and the angle of descent at time of impact (forwards velocity would affect the casing first, the platter much later).

      However, the magnetic fields are certain to have been weakened and disrupted. How much is unclear, but probably by a fair bit. Knowing by how much would give a better understanding of how recoverable the layers of magnetic fields on a hard drive are. If it is possible to recover extremely weak magnetic fields, possibly with stronger random magnetic fields superimposed, then you know multi-layer extraction is possible. Which, if Seagate can do, does raise interesting questions about missing e-mails on corporate (eg: Microsoft) and Governmental hard drives. IFF multi-layer recovery was used, THEN multi-layer recovery can be used elsewhere.

      If, however, it was just physical damage, then that doesn't apply. Still, 90-99% seems damn good for what can only be described as the ultimate in hard disk crashes.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    12. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by Eivind · · Score: 1

      You're silly.

      Are you suggesting that -small- objects should survive re-entry *better* than large objects ? Because that sure as hell seems to be what you're saying.

      A small object has a much LARGER cross-section-to-mass ratio (because cross-section scales with the square of the size whereas mass scales with the cube of the size), so it will experience a much LARGER deceleration than a large object. The practical result is that SMALL objects that enter the atmosphere will burn up whereas large ones can get trough.

      The disk survived because most of the deceleration had already happened by the time the shuttle broke apart, it was protected by the structure of the shuttle (including the heat-shield) for most of re-entry.

      Drop a unshielded HDD into the atmosphere at orbital velocity, and you'd be left with a clump of slag, if that, more likely it'd completely disintegrate.

    13. Re:What about the temperature of re-entry? by jdavidb · · Score: 1

      I just had a smile cross my face as I envisioned a great Seagate ad campaign based on this, and then I suddenly realized that would probably be in very bad taste.

      --
      Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
  31. Link to xenon experiment's extract by jdmonin · · Score: 5, Informative

    For anyone curious about the actual experiment whose data was recovered:

    The abstract for the science experiment is at http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v77/e041116 (or in the table of contents issue is http://scitation.aip.org/dbt/dbt.jsp?KEY=PLEEE8&Volume=77&Issue=4 ).

    "We measured shear thinning, a viscosity decrease ordinarily associated with complex liquids, near the critical point of xenon. The data span a wide range of reduced shear rate ... The measurements had a temperature resolution of 0.01 mK and were conducted in microgravity aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia to avoid the density stratification caused by Earth's gravity."

    1. Re:Link to xenon experiment's extract by Overzeetop · · Score: 1

      Are you involved? I remember the original CVX flew on TAS-1 about a decade ago on a Hitchhiker I was involved with. The CVX assembly was done mostly with the engineers who were in (what was then) 720.

      --
      Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    2. Re:Link to xenon experiment's extract by jdmonin · · Score: 1

      No, just a curious observer; I found it by googling the journal name in the blocksandfiles article, and digging from there.

    3. Re:Link to xenon experiment's extract by Overzeetop · · Score: 1

      It was a neat little experiment. There were usually between 5 and 12 experiments on each mission we flew. They didn't get much press as we were always a secondary payload, but they did all sorts of zero-G research with them, from solar constant observations and laser mapping of ocean wave heights, to superfluid helium transfers (a precursor to the ability to "refill" satellites in orbit). Fun stuff, for a science geek.

      --
      Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    4. Re:Link to xenon experiment's extract by Reweth · · Score: 1

      As a scientist myself, I've got access to the full text of the article, and I must say, it made me angry. The researchers didn't even mention the fact that the crew died to get their data. All they said is "Thanks to the crew of STS-107". Yeah guys, 7 people just DIED to get you that data... maybe you could be a little more thankful in the acknowledgements? As a field biologist, I often brave injury to collect data, and I'd sure as HELL be dedicating the work to anyone who even HURT themselves getting it.

    5. Re:Link to xenon experiment's extract by Faux_Pseudo · · Score: 1

      It isn't accurate to say they died for this data. This was one of many things done on that mission. Could they have acknowledge that the crew they are thanking is dead? Yes. Was this project their only reason for going into space? No.

      --
      Ascii artist &
  32. Data Replication by Spudster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm somewhat amazed that a vehicle as well connected as the shuttle doesn't mirror its data to the ground controllers. In the event of a failure, an alternate copy of the data would exist and millions of dollars worth of experimental data wouldn't be at risk. On-track does however rock (Until you get the bill)!

  33. so which was it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1st article says 90%, 2nd says 99% and third says 85% of the data was recovered...am I supposed to take an average? And the softpedia article trying to compare a shuttle accident to a hard drive shredder is just ridiculous. The "science and tech" media has just sunk a little lower....

    1. Re:so which was it? by 3t3rn4l · · Score: 2, Funny

      They were unfortunately unable to recover the exact percentage. :(

      --
      "Everything right is wrong again, just like in a long, long trailer." --They Might Be Giants

      --
      Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt. (When catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will
  34. And the scientific article on CXV... by JustinOpinion · · Score: 2, Insightful
    And, for anyone interested (and who has a subscription), here's the article in Physical Review E that describes the scientific experiment and analysis of the recovered data:
    Robert F. Berg, Michael R. Moldover, Minwu Yao, Gregory A. Zimmerli Shear thinning near the critical point of xenon, Phys. Rev. E 77, 041116 (2008) doi 10.1103/PhysRevE.77.041116.

    In the article, they mention a bit about the data recovery:

    During the mission, the apparatus recorded 370 h of data, of which 85% were downlinked for real-time analysis. Fortunately, the hard disk drive was recovered from Columbia's debris in a condition that made 99% of the data available for analysis. Also quite interesting is an off-hand comment they make about the sample cell they used:

    Seven months after the Columbia disaster in 2003, the meniscus height was remeasured in the recovered sample cell... This suggests that in addition to getting the hard drive (and the data off the hard drive), the Columbia debris search also found the sample cell for their experiment, which allowed them to make some additional measurements for their data analysis. This is also quite impressive!

    The data-recovery aspect is quite interesting. So is the fundamental science. They had to run the experiment in micro-gravity to eliminate the density stratification that occurs for any liquid or gas subject to gravity. Shear thinning is a well-established and fairly well-understood phenomena in "complex fluids" (e.g. mixtures of solvents and polymers, like paints, lubricants, etc.); but it is quite interesting to have measured the effect in a pure one-component atomic gas. It's hard to imagine a simpler fluid, and yet it exhibits this interesting viscosity effect!

    I'm glad that this scientific experiment was salvaged from the otherwise tragic final mission of Challenger.
  35. Re:First post by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1, Insightful

    WTF? ColdFusion and Java? To serve a single static page?

    And is it just me, or is that a SELECT statement without a WHERE clause?

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  36. Warranty Void by winphreak · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Product warranty is void if any seal or label is removed, or if drive experiences shock in excess of 350 Gs"

    --
    "I'm a well-wisher, in that I don't wish you any specific harm."
  37. How hard did it hit? by Darth_brooks · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I need a physics geek. Assume a 1kg weight, and assuming it was just "dropped" from 100,000 feet (that was roughly the altitude Columbia was at when things went sour), how fast would it have been going when it hit the ground? Obviously, this drive must have come down inside a much larger chunk of debris based on the shape it was in. I'm just wondering about how many G's it really took on impact.

    My assumption is that the drive probably wasn't going all that fast (in comparison to the 13,000 mph it was moving at on initial re-entry) when it hit.

    Of course, I wouldn't want to be standing under it when it hit the ground...

    --
    There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
    1. Re:How hard did it hit? by JSBiff · · Score: 1

      A couple points - first, kg is a unit of mass, not of weight (yes, sort of a minor difference, but in physics is an important distinction; mass is an inherent property of any object, weight is a Force acting on that object). 2nd, I suspect that, from that height, the object would reach it's terminal velocity. I think it might be hard to 'guess' what the terminal velocity of the hard drive would be.

      For those unfamiliar with terminal velocity - as any object's speed through air increases, so does air resistance. When you reach a certain point, the Force of Gravity is perfectly matched by the resistive force of air resistance, so the Net Force on the object is 0. When the net force acting on an object is 0, then it's accelleration is 0 (that is, it continues to move at the same speed but does not get any faster).

      Because of this, I don't think it's really possible to get any good estimate of how fast the drive hit the earth, without knowing about the drag of the drive's shape. Hard-drives, being fairly dense, with a relatively small surface area, would have a fairly low amount of drag, but it would eventually reach terminal velocity.

    2. Re:How hard did it hit? by Darth_brooks · · Score: 1

      That was what my rough high school physics mind was telling me, that it would have decelerated to terminal velocity before impacting the ground. That makes me wonder if it took more or less than the advertised "impact rating."

      In this case, I'm also assuming that because it's an older drive, it probably doesn't have the same tight tolerances that a more modern drive has to live up to in order to cram all those bits in.

      --
      There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
    3. Re:How hard did it hit? by kylehase · · Score: 1

      Well the computer had sudden motion detection "designed to help prevent disk failures if the computer is dropped or undergoes severe vibration."

      --
      You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
  38. :( sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kinda sad that we've had enough spectacular shuttle failures to get them confused.

  39. Maybe adds a little more meaning by dreamchaser · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At least the astronauts didn't die in vain. I mean, they didn't anyways since they all know there are risks, but recovering useful data from the drive adds maybe a tad more meaning to the loss.

  40. I heard it was 70-80% success by peter303 · · Score: 1

    Many of the results were telemetried before the crash.

    1. Re:I heard it was 70-80% success by Telepathetic+Man · · Score: 1

      99% of the data on the drive was recovered actually.

      Here is a non-slashdotted article (so far).
      http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hard-drive-recovered-from-columbia/

      --
      Just because you can, does not mean you should.
    2. Re:I heard it was 70-80% success by peter303 · · Score: 1

      I was talking about the entire mission, not the disk.

  41. Why is this "Amazing"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was a ruggedized drive in the first place.

    Secondly, much larger parts of the shuttle survived.

    Thirdly, the heads would have been parked and the spindle stopped before re-entry began, so the platters themselves would likely still be in pretty good shape.

  42. 500, not 503 by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

    Er, it's a 500 error, not 503. Although "out of resources" sounds quite appropriate.

    --
    USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
  43. And good publicity for Seagate by jesterzog · · Score: 1

    Not to mention that this is also great publicity for Seagate.

  44. Best Way to Protect Data Against Data Recovery by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The best way to protect a supposedly cleaned hard drive against someone later trying to read the data is this or this.

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
    1. Re:Best Way to Protect Data Against Data Recovery by plover · · Score: 1

      Note to self: do not fall into hard-drive shredder.

      --
      John
  45. Weren't those machines recalled? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like they pulled it out of one of those Dell computers with the defective battery...

  46. Follow up? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Expedition 16 recently did a follow up to this experiment on board the ISS. I wish I could find the article to explain it.

  47. What else can be recovered? by heroine · · Score: 2, Funny

    There R probably a few drives in Calif* landfills, containing your underwear size from 1988, waiting to be recovered.

  48. Trivia about Seagate and Ontrack by Kagato · · Score: 1

    The drive suspensions (heads) for Seagate drives are also made in Minneapolis. The parts that require a little less engineering prowess are done overseas. Ontrack has very good relations with Seagate.

    1. Re:Trivia about Seagate and Ontrack by Telepathetic+Man · · Score: 1

      Used to. Seagate has begun eyeing the data recovery business.

      --
      Just because you can, does not mean you should.
  49. 400MB? by JrnyFan · · Score: 1

    the budget for NASA in 2003 was $1.5 Billion (ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/budget/2003/budget_summary.pdf) and the best we can do is a 400MB hard drive? Hey Shana Dale, tell you what. You gimme one of them fancy commemorative medallions for the remaining space shuttle missions and I will spiff you a 250GB HDD I bought last week for $60 mmkay?

    --
    If the prevalent philosophy is that life is a figment of my imagination, why didn't Martha Stewart get the chair?
    1. Re:400MB? by Telepathetic+Man · · Score: 1

      Why go larger if you don't need too? Efficiency was the key here, all they needed was 400MB.

      --
      Just because you can, does not mean you should.
  50. Re:First post by smittyoneeach · · Score: 3, Funny

    WTF? ColdFusion and Java? To serve a single static page?
    Well, there was some sed, awk, a dash of emacs in batch mode, python, some xalan and xlst in there (to simplify things).
    That "First post recovered !" business was really a debug string literal that crept in at one point.
    The expected output was, or course "Hello, World".
    We're obviously going to have to port some of this to Mono. Probably get a more impressive stack trace out of it, too: the line count that wimpy java business didn't even make double digits.
    How weak is that?
    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  51. Smacky311 by Smacky311 · · Score: 1

    So thats how the dinosaurs got blasted...

    1. Re:Smacky311 by darkshadow · · Score: 1

      We blinded them with science...

      --
      -Darkshadow (There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol.)
  52. One TOUGH DRIVE by Nonillion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Did anyone else notice that the drive got so hot that the head controller IC was completely de-soldered. Just goes to show that if you want a hard drive destroyed you should have it shredded.

    http://www.ssiworld.com/watch/watch-en.htm

    --
    "I bow to no man" - Riddick
    1. Re:One TOUGH DRIVE by msebast · · Score: 1

      I noticed too. Typical solder melting point for surface mount applications is above 180C. So the inside of the hard drive's case was probably above 200C.

    2. Re:One TOUGH DRIVE by hey! · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure it was desoldered. Note that the ribbon cables don't appear to be scorched at all.

      I'd infer from the sand on the platters that the drive hit hard enough to cause the screws holding the cover in place to shear off. If that is the case, what is astounding is that the platters are true enough to be cleaned, spun up and read from. It's not out of the question that an impact capable of ripping the cover off might cause a mechanical failure of the solder joint.

      It wouldn't take much energy to weaken the solder joints mechanically. If you heat the solder up faster than the leads can heat, then rapidly cool it, you could end up with a cold joint, especially if you are using a not-perfectly-eutectic mixture like 60/40 lead/tin. Whether its possible to do that without damaging the adjacent ribbon cables is hard to say. The conditions producing this result are unique.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  53. Data are plural by hawkeyeMI · · Score: 1

    "Data recovered from a 400MB Seagate hard drive carried on the Space Shuttle Columbia has ..." Please. Data have been recovered.

    --
    Error 404 - Sig Not Found
    1. Re:Data are plural by Spatial · · Score: 2, Funny

      Pfft. It's just one android.

    2. Re:Data are plural by hawkeyeMI · · Score: 1

      Touché

      --
      Error 404 - Sig Not Found
  54. #dd if=/dev/zero of=dev/disk by guabah · · Score: 2, Informative

    Followed by

    #dd if=dev/random of=dev/disk

    Works for me

    1. Re:#dd if=/dev/zero of=dev/disk by DarthJohn · · Score: 1

      Would you need to worry about block size or anything? Does it not matter, or does the default work?

      I'm guessing doing /dev/zero then /dev/urandom once or twice would be good enough for just about anybody.

      like:

      for i in 1 2
      do
      dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk
      dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/disk
      done

    2. Re:#dd if=/dev/zero of=dev/disk by jimicus · · Score: 1

      Would you need to worry about block size or anything? Does it not matter, or does the default work? Well, it would be dog slow by default because it'd be writing 512 bytes at a time. But block size is only really important when dealing with tape drives.
  55. Re:First post by rbanffy · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's you! You are the one using Opera! ;-)

    --
    http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
  56. If only they had mirrored drives. by John+Sokol · · Score: 1

    I can't believe such an important experiment would rely on just one drive without any raid or mirroring.

    The drive looks to be in amazing good condition for having fallen from space. With 90% recovery wow.

    So if they had a second or third drive with the contents mirrored they would have had 100% recovery.

    If only they had spent the extra $300 at Frys.

    --
    I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
    1. Re:If only they had mirrored drives. by MadMidnightBomber · · Score: 0, Redundant

      400MB HDD at Frys: $300
      getting it into orbit: fucking expensive.
      dumb slashdot comment entirely missing the point: priceless.

      --
      "It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
    2. Re:If only they had mirrored drives. by John+Sokol · · Score: 1


        I did realize that, there was some sarcasm in my remark about Fry's. Non the less, Dual Laptop drives for example.

      If you going to spend the money for one drive, why not two just to make sure you don't loose your data.

      --
      I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
  57. Re:First post by Achromatic1978 · · Score: 2, Funny

    you've got balls, publishing your ip address on slashdot...

  58. Lead time is a good thing... by argent · · Score: 2, Informative

    Don't forget that the lead time on space experiments can be years, and you need to use equipment that was rated for space use when you specced it out... not when it went up... which adds even more lead time. Read up on the shuttle computers some time to get an idea of how conservative they are.

    And in this care it was a damn good thing: the higher the information density on the drive, the lower the chance of recovering the data... and they were right on the edge of the possible as it was.

    1. Re:Lead time is a good thing... by JrnyFan · · Score: 1

      hmm...you both raise good points and things i didnt think about...

      i will still offer her my HDD for those medals however, i got one back in 6th grade and its one of the coolest things i own IMO.

      --
      If the prevalent philosophy is that life is a figment of my imagination, why didn't Martha Stewart get the chair?
  59. More of the recovery effort can be found... by Telepathetic+Man · · Score: 1

    Here: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9083718

    --
    Just because you can, does not mean you should.
  60. Good article, explains the 400MB... by argent · · Score: 1
    For the people ragging on NASA about the capacity of the drive:

    Edwards said the Seagate hard drive -- which was about eight years old in 2003 -- featured much greater fault tolerance and durability than current hard drives of similar capacity.
    1. Re:Good article, explains the 400MB... by RoboRay · · Score: 1

      WHAT current hard drives of similar capacity?

    2. Re:Good article, explains the 400MB... by Telepathetic+Man · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the other two hard drives that were on the shuttle and too far gone to retrieve data from.

      --
      Just because you can, does not mean you should.
    3. Re:Good article, explains the 400MB... by argent · · Score: 1

      Similar or better then, nitpicker.

  61. Re:First post by Klaus_1250 · · Score: 1, Informative

    Browser Opera/9.23 (X11; Linux i686; U; en) You are using an insecure browser. 9.23 is old and several security issues have been fixed since. Current version is 9.27 .
    --
    It only takes one man to change the Wisdom of the Crowd to Tyranny of the Masses.
  62. Short attention spans by actionbastard · · Score: 1

    The experiment that ths data was based on was discussed in this /. article last month ago:

    http://science.slashdot.org/science/08/04/26/1232259.shtml

    Which referred to the article at NASA:

    http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/25apr_cvx2.htm?list832167

    At least it's not a total dupe.

    --
    Sig this!
  63. What if it was Lore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I the only one whose first thoughts were "Wait, they got a TNG character out of the space shuttle?"

  64. I'm not the original poster by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    But unless you supported Netmare 2.? you will never know the pleasure of putting a round through an old drive containing same.

    Netware 2 was a huge PITA. You had to statically link the server kernel (they called it 'genning sys') for each reconfiguration.

    This was 1989 no OS could be so fucked up today and be taken seriously...

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    1. Re:I'm not the original poster by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 1

      um, ever tried to move ntoskrnl.exe?

      --
      Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
    2. Re:I'm not the original poster by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Not sure what you mean. Sure you can f up the OS by hiding key files.

      Shooting NT just doesn't give me the real charge that shooting Netware 2 did. Nothing else does, even shit that should (like ME or Vista). Guess it's because my I've never had to support a network made of that particular crap.

      I have run networks on Netware 3 and later as well as NT from 4 on. None were anywhere as much of a pain as Netmare2.

      ...brief spasm as I recall very short period of supporting Lantastic, memory fades...better. Why didn't I shoot one of those drives? (really WTF) Just too painful and now too distant...besides I killed it...

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    3. Re:I'm not the original poster by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 1

      ahh, but good old Lan Damager was fun too. Windows for Worrieds.

      --
      Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  65. Vibration degrades magnets by jake-in-a-box · · Score: 4, Funny

    I worked with hall-effect devices which we used to build tensiometers in the textiles industry. One of the problems we had was loss of sensitivity over time. The service lifetime of a unit was a year or so before it was returned to me for rebuild and recalibration. The reason was that the unit was used in an industrial setting with lots of vibration and noise. The magnets lost strength.

    All I had to do in many cases was to swap in a new set of magnets (and send the old ones out to be remagnetized). Then there were the clients that would turn the current up to compensate for the demagnetizing. They sent theirs back for a smoke refill after the smoke got out.

    --
    To hear the gods laugh tell them your plans.
  66. Re:Yup... Platters OK! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >>And from that image it does not appear anything happened to the platters.

    Well, no. Perhaps not THAT night! But the following Tuesday, the platters were at the Holiday Inn "KitKatt No-Tell Lounge"in Peoria, IL, and some drunk threw a bottle at them, hitting Tony Williams right in his Great Pretender!

    .
    .. No pinoqachole was harmed during this post.!

  67. Re:Yup... Platters NOT OK! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, I was there that time!

    And those platters had definitely no magnetism whatsoever!

    It might have been something to do with Mercury.

    They were great on vinyl, but on modern eight-tracks, they sucked big-time!

    Thank god they never made it to optical recording!

  68. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    oh noes not TEH IP ADDRESS!?!?!?!?1111!!eleventy! Someone might....well they might...they, er...THEY'LL KNOW HIS IP ADDRESS!

  69. Tough by bloomtools · · Score: 1

    Good old seagate

  70. and puts rounds thru them. by wiredog · · Score: 1

    Which still leaves quite a bit of recoverable data on the parts that the rounds didn't go through.

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
    1. Re:and puts rounds thru them. by rthille · · Score: 1


      Yeah, that's why if I did have that level of paranoia, I'd melt the platters to slag with a torch.
      Probably go after the chips on the board as well.

      But the only thing I really worry about losing, data wise, would be my financial stuff, so I think running a disk-wipe overnight before giving up the drive is fine.

      --
      Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
  71. only 340mb by six · · Score: 1

    no wonder this was easily recoverable with such a low data density.

    I don't think it would have been possible if the drive was 300gb, which raises an interesting question: do they choose small hard drives for this very reason ?

  72. FAKE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1) Columbia is using a 341MB drive?
    2) The "recovered" drive has an IC that's perfectly disconnected, with no signs of solder residue?
    3) The place said IC connects to is also "new".
    4) NASA uses duct tape?

    Looks to me like someone picked up a used drive off ebay, tossed in some sand and some superglue, and put pictures of it up.

  73. Any extra redundancy in the filesystem? by egghat · · Score: 1

    Does anyone know if there was any redundancy in the filesystem or if it was a normal FAT/UFS or sth. comparable?

    --
    -- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
  74. From the drive's spec sheet... by pyrr · · Score: 1

    1.11.1: Ambient Temperature

    • Operating 5 to 55 deg C (41 to 131 deg F)
    • Nonoperating -40 to 170 deg C (-40 to 158 deg F)

    1.11.4: Altitude

    • Operating: -1000 ft to 10,000 ft (-300m to 3000m)
    • Non-operating: -1,000 ft to 40,000 ft (-300m to 12,190m)

    It looks like it exceeded the humidity tolerances too, in the 6 months it was laying around in the dry lakebed. No wonder they had problems spinning it up...

  75. OT by l0cust · · Score: 1

    F'ing LOL

    --
    Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.
  76. More/Better Information about the Recovery by mykepredko · · Score: 1

    Hey, I thought you might be interested in this article at CNN which describes the damage somewhat more concisely.

    Have a great weekend,

    myke

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
  77. Try again with link, href didn't work for some by mykepredko · · Score: 1

    reason.

    Here is the link explicitly: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/05/09/columbia.data.ap/index.html

    Take care,

    myke

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
  78. DOS formatted by Telepathetic+Man · · Score: 1

    According to the latest angle of the story: http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=510436, it seems the only reason the data survived was due to the old DOS format kept all the data in a few sectors of the drive that were untaouched by any physical damage.

    Also, interesting to note, that the reason the other two hard drives that were un-recoverable were due to the loss of magnetism of the metal plates during the high heat of re-entry. I wonder what specs they had.

    Yes, if anyone is wondering, I do work for the company, but not as a PR person or a data recovery tech. So I have close sources, but not that close.

    --
    Just because you can, does not mean you should.