it had been 12 years since the incident, meaning that there was a lot of trash and various objects in the area, making it less likely that he would be able to retrieve the hard drive. even if he had bought the landfill, it would have been a waste, because the physical condition of the hard drive had likely been severely damaged by exposure to extreme weather, humidity, pressure from the garbage heap, and the natural chemical processes that occur in landfills. i didn't think that something like a hard drive could survive in such conditions for so long, and it might have been completely degraded and physically dispersed. so any effort he makes doesn't seem to be worth it.