Quote from: AlcoHoDL on Today at 08:09:22 AM

Which goes to show that Bitcoin needs to be taken very seriously. "Be your own bank" is tough. If you're not organized, not backing up your stuff, not taking such things seriously, Bitcoin's going to bite you in ways you never expect. It's going to mess with your head and even drive you insane. Same goes for any of us. Remember to always safely keep backups of your paper wallets and seeds, and make sure you clearly remember your passphrases and PINs. Periodically check to verify that you actually have access to your coins, this will refresh your neurons. Keep your keys away from online devices. Never take your PC/mobile to the repair shop when you have crypto in it (which you shouldn't have in there anyway).

Indeed. The concept of "bit rot" is a problem, as is finding tools to be able to read older media. Try finding a 7 track magnetic tape drive :-)

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After so many years of being buried under so much organic garbage, the chances of him finding the HDD and being able to extract the data are very slim. Still, an HDD is supposed to be a sealed container, although I believe there's usually a "breather" hole somewhere on the case, don't know what it's for, maybe to equalize pressure. If that's the case, and garbage juices and moisture got in though that, it's pretty much gone I guess...

Yeah, possibly. It certainly would not be an easy recovery but 250 million allows a lot of tools to work on it.

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$250 million is a lot of money though, and can get things moving. If he manages to find the HDD, he should pledge to give a very generous percentage of that to anyone who can extract the wallet.

Good luck to him, he's going to need it, especially if he's unsuccessful.

And that is a big problem with this thing and the IronKey item: Anyone attempting recovery would know that a slip or error would result in wiping a quarter of a billion dollars of value off the earth, with the resulting "unhappiness" of whatever syndicate was funding the job. Forever you would have the question "maybe he got the key and is just not telling us" hanging over your head. (Yes, you could always check the public balance, but still people get weird when serious $$$ is on the line)

Even a simple task like replacing a USB port on a Trezor would be exceptionally complicated with that much $$$ on the line. It would be like walking a curb next to a street vs walking a curb over a river of lava.