Data Recovered From Space Shuttle Columbia HDD

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.

I've had some drives crash on me, but..

[catdevnull]

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.

Good thing, too!

[greyspectre]

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

Amazing data recovery!

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

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

Preparing for slashdot effect

[NeutronCowboy]

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?

Re:Fastest /. effect ever !

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Way to go guys (and gals)

[smooth wombat]

Now look what you've done [earthlink.net]. 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.

Re:First post

[trolltalk.com]

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 [blocksandfiles.com]
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)

Re:Yup...

[jlindy]

What are proper deletion techniques?

7 pass DoD... 35 pass Gutmann for the truly paranoid.

Re:Yup...

[dAzED1]

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.

Warranty Void

[winphreak]

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

Re:Wrong Shuttle or wrong image name?

[omnipresentbob]

Because they were/are challenged?

Re:Yup...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

What else can be recovered?

[heroine]

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

Re:so which was it?

[3t3rn4l]

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

Re:First post

[smittyoneeach]

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?

Re:Yup...

[RealGrouchy]

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

Well, other than smoke getting in their eyes...

- RG>

Re:Yup...

[Swampash]

Here is a picture for you:

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

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

Re:First post

[rbanffy]

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

Re:First post

[Achromatic1978]

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

Re:Yup...

[leenks]

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

Re:Data are plural

[Spatial]

Pfft. It's just one android.

Vibration degrades magnets

[jake-in-a-box]

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.

Re:Yup...

[ColdWetDog]

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 ...

Re:First post

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Yup...

[Chris Shannon]

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?