In a tale that seems stranger than fiction, a man's 12-year quest to recover a lost fortune in Bitcoin has come to an abrupt end. James Howells, a British IT worker, has been forced to abandon his search for a hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoins, worth an astonishing $800 million…
Hard drives, except for helium-filled ones, actually have an air hole in them with a filter attached to it so they can keep enough air in the drive so the heads can properly fly over the disk surface. Completely possible that moisture ingress would be an issue after years of sitting in a landfill in who knows what. It is a darn tiny hole though.
Yea but only one way to find out. Making massive assumptions when 700 mill is on the line seems dumb. Never give up.