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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.

7 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. 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

  2. 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..

  3. 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/
  4. 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.
  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. 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."

  7. 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.