Space Shuttle Columbia hard drive data recovered

Think that all the talk of the dangers of improperly disposing of corporate hard drives is just scaremongering? Let this be a lesson to you on the robustness of current data recovery technology. Most of you will recall the 2003 space shuttle Columbia tragedy that claimed the lives of all seven astronauts onboard. Well, after four and a half years, data recovery specialists have managed to recover the data from a 400MB Seagate hard drive that was aboard the ill-fated spacecraft. The drive was charred, cracked and badly damaged during the disintegration of the Columbia, and was discovered six months after the incident in a dry riverbed. Unbelievably, 99 percent of the data on the drive was still recovered. If data can be recovered from a hard drive that was onboard a space shuttle that disintegrated, you've got to wonder if it's a good idea to simply toss out drives that appear to be "dead." Kind of makes you reconsider that hard disk crusher, doesn't it?

For more on the data recovery:
- see this ComputerWorld article