Working with the hard drive, unfortunately all I really remember is that I stored the keys and other data in binary and hex formats. I did not store them as regular wallets. I was pretty paranoid.
Frankly, I don't quite buy this, too. If someone is paranoid that his precious can be lost or discovered or whatnot, then you likely don't do stuff that exposes your private keys as much as possible. Nor do paranoids have basically no backups.
To convert private keys to binary and hex formats you literally have to store them unprotected and naked, convert them with tools (are those safe?) to binary and hex. Now what, leave them unprotected on an online machine that needs to be constantly online for mining? Hardly believable...
Yes, I'm aware this all could've happened on another secure environment/machine, but then there likely would be more places and backups to store your precious, or not?
I'm also aware that sometimes people do the craziest things. That's life. Still, if you say, you were pretty paranoid, I would've expected you to have more backups. Or did you think more backups would've exposed your precious more and more?
In my opinion, too few concrete details, too much guesswork, somewhat unlikely plot. I don't care much if your story holds truth or not, I just think there's not enough concrete details to assist.