Jeff Pederson
Space Shuttle Columbia Hard Drive: How NASA Data was Recovered After Crash 

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Building 3 Auditorium - 3:30 PM
(Refreshments at 3:00 PM)

While data recovery experts at Kroll Ontrack preach to never give up hope following a data disaster, no one could have predicted that there was any chance for a hard drive data recovery after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. However, after only two days of work, using proprietary tools and techniques, data recovery engineers were able to recover 99 percent of the 340 megabytes of data captured from a viscosity of xenon experiment conducted by the crew of Columbia.

While backup processes have been around since the inception of hard drives and people are becoming more and more savvy with electronics, data loss still occurs on a daily basis. A mere bump to a hard drive can cause the spinning head of the drive to crash and deem data unrecoverable. Learn about the science of data recovery and how technology can retrieve data lost in the most extreme cases.

This presentation will highlight:
1. The data recovery process.
2. The tools and techniques used to recover the data from the
Columbia Space Shuttle hard drive.
3. How computer technology and data recovery techniques have
evolved and yet remain the same.
4. Best practices for mitigating data loss.

Jeff Pederson is manager of Data Recovery operations for Kroll Ontrack, worldwide leader in data recovery and legal technologies services and solutions. In this role, Mr. Pederson is responsible for the daily operations of the data recovery lab and clean room facilities, ensuring efficiency and quality at every stage of the data recovery process. Further, Mr. Pederson oversees the implementation of new or improved data recovery processes.

Mr. Pederson joined Kroll Ontrack in 1993 as a cleanroom engineer where he gained extensive experience utilizing proprietary software and hardware tools to diagnose and repair customer hardware, replicate media, and analyze logical data structures. He also worked as a lab engineer, rebuilding and recovering logically inaccessible customer data from storage media. With over 15 years of experience in data recovery, Mr. Pederson has been involved in literally thousands of cases involving damaged media storage devices and drives.

Mr. Pederson received his B.S. in electronics technology with an emphasis in computer technology from South Dakota State University.

IS&T Colloquium Committee Host: Ben Kobler