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Sunday, May 11, 2008

Disk Drive Data Recovered From Columbia Disaster

A Minnesota data recovery company, Kroll Ontrack, has been able to recover 95% of the data recorded on a disk drive that fell from the sky when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003. The drive's metal and plastic elements where scorched and the seal on the side that keeps dirt and dust out had melted. The company was fortunate that the drive was not full and the spinning metal platters that store the data were not warped. It turns out that because the computer housing the disk was running DOS and not a more modern operating system, the data was not scattered across the platters but rather bunched together and while they where not entirely intact most of the data was recoverable. The disk contained information from a scientific experiment, much of which had already been sent back to earth when the disaster took place, but the recovery of the missing data has enabled researchers to publish their findings. Amazing! CNN has the story here.

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