~snip~
It's looks like that, he seems to be not getting over it, losing millions and so he try to salvage it by buying the landscape. And with that he seems to be losing his mind as well. And it's becoming ridiculous, that it will cost him everything.
Or what if he finds his HDD but then it's corrupt and cannot be recovered anymore?
Or it could be just rotten away and you can't even identify it as a HDD but another piece of junk?
Yes, I think at this time the HDD is already damaged in some way.
The other day I remembered to check some of my old DVDs with data I had backed up there, and realized that they had been there for a long time.
Most DVDs were OK, but one actually was corrupted. Had to use special tools to read it and recover the data.
Remember to copy your old backups somewhere safe!, DVDs/CDs can last up to only a few decades, and since they have been around since the 80's that's already 40 years for some discs on Earth.
If you add all the weight of the junk in this case, I'm pretty sure the HDD is irrecoverable at this point. And that's even if he finds it.