Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?) - Gizmodo Comments

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

geowrian — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:45:42 EDT

@Leathersoup: True, but I personally believe that wasn't worth the cost either. That's just a matter of opinion.

geowrian

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Leathersoup — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:22:07 EDT

Hold up... if you consider the price of sending the equipment and running the tests, I'm sure the recovery is a fraction of the cost.

Leathersoup

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

geowrian — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:49:18 EDT

@dosguy: When you learn how to strip the hard drive down to just a platter and rebuild the rest of it (without killing it), then complain. I can do platter swaps and such, but it's still risky since I don't have a clean room (good old bathroom trick FTW). If the data was so valuable that they didn't want to risk killing it, then I can see why it took so long. Personally, I think it was a waste to even try to recover the data.

geowrian

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

dosguy — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:10:34 EDT

Four and a half years to recover 400M of data? Are these guys getting paid by the hour, or WHAT?

dosguy

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Collins1 — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:03:09 EDT

@Blue387: Series 5. Deep Space Homer.

Collins1

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Blue387 — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:34:08 EDT

@Roy_Alejandre: Obscure Simpsons reference to the episode where Homer goes to space.

Blue387

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Parapraxis — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:19:20 EDT

@Woraug:

are you on 4chan? because if you do, I have some H that you provided that I want to thank your Western Digital HD for.

Parapraxis

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

DrewGradesPoo — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:58:09 EDT

@Woraug: In 98 a WD might have ruled, but these days they churn out complete shit. Those MyBooks are cheap for a reason. There are more BB posts about them failing than for any other drive.

Just wish I had seen that before I bought them.

DrewGradesPoo

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Woraug — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:36:09 EDT

As said before, new isn't always better. I have no problem recovering files from ancient zip drives, or from the drive in my first computer, built in about 1997. Today, hell if I can retrieve even one picture off my fried Hitachi drive.

BTW, Western Digital rules. I have one also from 1998 still chugging along.

Woraug

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

SigmundTheSeaMonster — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:19:49 EDT

I doubt it was DriveSavers...they couldn't recover 1 year worth of Adobe Illustrator files from a 2yr old HD...

SigmundTheSeaMonster

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Kyang — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:44:10 EDT

I don't know the specifics obviously, but I do know that sending hardware up into space requires a lot of rigorous testing to ensure that whatever they bring up there can withstand the environment.

That kind of testing takes a lot of time and money, so the moment something known as top of the line starts the gauntlet, I would not expect to see it in operation for a few years.

Replacing older hardware brings in a whole host of new concerns...

The fact that this data was recovered says a lot about just how good that testing was, and the skill of the recovery team. :) .

Kyang

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

malvones — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:18:10 EDT

@CCCombobreaker: they do have funding, it's just sort of microscopic compared to other concerns, like the military. I think the vast majority of funds are going to lunar and mars exploration projects. all those scientific experiments (like the one mentioned in this post) seem relatively minor, but when you put them all together.. they actually represent a significant portion of American tech/science superiority, which is evaporating.

malvones

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Makkuro — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:05:54 EDT

When I first saw the small thumbnail picture, I thought Nemo was wedged in the corner of the drive... go look at the pic! He's there!!

Makkuro

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

johnnyabnormal — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:00:14 EDT

I didn't know NASA was into studying Scientology.

johnnyabnormal

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

tegronin — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:37:22 EDT

man, my old seagate st225 was a big heavy mother, but it was reliable, and durable (not to mention it made all those cool noises errr-bepp-beep-errrr-grind-grind-grind-bloop!

tegronin

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

ideaman2020 — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:36:39 EDT

To those snickering at NASA's use of [relatively] ancient tech: Newer isn't always better.

Last time I checked with NASA [in 2000] they would not fly computers newer than 386s IIRC, because the newer, smaller chips were too susceptible to radiation damage in spaceflight conditions...

ideaman2020

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

paqman — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:14:40 EDT

Is anyone else sick of staring at Ashton's mug all day on this site?

paqman

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

NNTPgrip — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:59:34 EDT

@drewdrawsPooh:
Yeah, they do now. But that has only been in the last two years or so. I still hope they continue keeping the brands separate, plus teach Maxtor how to build drives properly.

NNTPgrip

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

iambeefy — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:55:51 EDT

Ontrack has been touting 99% recovery for that hardrive since early 2004. It was on there front page for a very long time. [web.archive.org]

iambeefy

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

whootowl — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:49:03 EDT

If only Apple's iLife had been available back then.

whootowl

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Mmmm...bacon — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:30:28 EDT

Will we now know if ants can be trained to sort tiny screws in space?

Mmmm...bacon

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

frigg — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:29:37 EDT

@Wison: "Why don't they make the shuttle out of the same material they make the drive?"

Interestingly, hard drives and space flight are almost exactly the same age, both around 50 (Sputnick 1= 1957; IBM 350 = 1956).

But in 50 years of space flight, humans launched only around 5000 objects into orbit. So the field, despite its age, is in its infancy. And the shuttle program itself was (is) deceptively experimental, with only 5 built for spaceflight.

By comparison, the first 50 years of hard drives has probably produced around 3 billion. So the field is relatively mature.

So… hard drives, 3 billion (or so). Space vehicles… 5,000 (or so). Shuttles… 5 (or so). Advantage: hard drive.

frigg

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Reilaos: Reading Comprehension is your friend! — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:29:31 EDT

@cincifresh: As opposed to some super-magic ghost that memorizes everything for us?

Another non-standup-comedian answer for 'why not make it out of _____ indestructable stuff?' would be to point out that if you did, it would be so heavy that it wouldn't take off. And if it did, it'd carry maybe a crew. And even if the ship survived, the crew'd probably be scrambled on impact.

Reilaos: Reading Comprehension is your friend!

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

bookmark — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:28:15 EDT

400GB HDD 4 years ago cost a fortune

bookmark

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

rclafton — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:21:57 EDT

@mindshadow:

True... but worth a try!

rclafton

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

cincifresh — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:20:56 EDT

so the culmination of all space technologies relies on a 400MB drive for data collection? anyone else confused?

cincifresh

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

dOk — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:20:10 EDT

Of course no one ever talked about the fact that the Columbia shouldn't even have been flying in the 1st place.

Way back in the beginning days of the shuttle program there was a mission flight cap for all shuttles, that NASA raised later on.

It pretty much makes being in a shuttle that over the original flight cap a very dangerous prospect. The original engineers knew what they were doing when they set the mission cap and as usual they have been ignored.

dOk

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

CCCombobreaker — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:18:32 EDT

@Monty:

NASA won't be getting anything new. No matter how much better it is. They have basically no funding, because right now no one sees the point. No one gives a shit about NASA and space exploration.

To be honest I find it hard to care myself.

CCCombobreaker

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Aleung — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:16:50 EDT

The data in DOS format and the drive is 8 years old. This comes into my mind "They don't build them as they use to."

Aleung

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

mindshadow — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:14:26 EDT

@rclafton: I suspect that, "Charred going 12,500MPH about 39 miles above the Earth's surface in a space shuttle accident," would not be covered under Seagate's warranty. If it is, I know which hard drive I'm buying next.

mindshadow

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

XJ_4x4 — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:13:29 EDT

@uberfu:
If you consider having to completely remove the platters and pay someone tens of thousands of dollars to read them a good marketing point...

XJ_4x4

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

mindshadow — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:12:57 EDT

@drewdrawsPooh:

Yeah, my MyBook failed about two months after purchase. It never moved; sat on top of my China cabinet with my Airport Extreme. :|

Anyone know of any affordable data recovery solutions?

mindshadow

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

rclafton — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:05:31 EDT

If they are quick, they can raise an RMA with Seagate get a replacement for the next mission! Seagate Warranty is 5 years!

rclafton

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

framitz — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:01:25 EDT

Too bad it was a Seagate drive. Just about any other make could have been recovered in 1/2 the time.

framitz

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Collins1 — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:59:29 EDT

It's only 400mb because it's now 12 years old. That was a lot of storage in 1998.

Collins1

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

DrewGradesPoo — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:57:23 EDT

@NNTPgrip: Seagate owns Maxtor. I was thinking Western Digital. I've heard that MyBooks have an absolutely HUGE failure rate. For me it's been 50% (1 of 2).

@gsulaw: 8 years old dude. NASA. The shuttle systems run on old TI calculators or something, so I'd imagine 400mb seemed like 10Tb for them at the time. They probably planned the experiments in the 1980s and it took them that long to get it into space.

DrewGradesPoo

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

xcharliemx — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:42:03 EDT

@gsulaw: That's what I was going to say. Why only 400MB??

xcharliemx

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Parapraxis — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:39:07 EDT

it's not xenon gas flow,

it was zero gravity sex data.

IT'S THE FATE OF MANKIND, PEOPLE

Parapraxis

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Ken — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:38:01 EDT

@Monty "I hope they consider switching to flash memory in the future."

Uh, flash would be WAY more susceptible to damage. Extremely impact and heat resistant. The small transistors would likely just evaporate.

Ken

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Kaiser-Machead's LEGO WALL-E — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:36:10 EDT

I was sad when the Columbia burned up in the atmosphere, so all goofy comments about how their .Mac account must've been down before reentering the atmosphere is lost on me.

Kaiser-Machead's LEGO WALL-E

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

gsulaw — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:35:35 EDT

400MB??

gsulaw

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

NNTPgrip — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:32:57 EDT

So the recoverable one was a Seagate. The other two must have been Maxtor.

NNTPgrip

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

jiggaman2 — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:27:59 EDT

I would just beam the info back to earth on a relatively constant basis... hey we do have satelites shooting info NON STOP, don't we? And there's gotta be a very safe encrypted frequency or whatever the hell Nasa uses...

jiggaman2

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

TheCapt — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:26:09 EDT

This is why I take a screwdriver and nail it through any drives we dispose of.

TheCapt

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

uberfu — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:23:49 EDT

"Computerworld reports that the shuttle mission included conducting atomospheric tests: " That was one hell of an atmospheric test_

Also - Seagate should use this as a marketing tool - 12 year old hard drive and 1 shuttle explosion later and it's still readable_

uberfu

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Evangelion — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:23:22 EDT

@Gann: Lawl.

Evangelion

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Monty — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:22:04 EDT

I hope they consider switching to flash memory in the future.

Monty

Charred Hard Drive from Space Shuttle Columbia Recovered (Best Data Rescue Ever?)

Gann — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:17:17 EDT

Space pron?

Gann